McAllen, TX

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7-6-10: Left San Antonio for McAllen today. It was interesting...saw some cotton fields...somehow I thought we’d be further east before we saw that!! Apparently hunting is a huge pastime, as we saw several “outlets” for blinds that fit on your pickup truck!! Arrived in McAllen about 3pm and asked Wal*Mart if we could stay...they said “sure”!! So we got in the car and had a look at G’s old stomping grounds!! Drove over to his elementary school, past his old house (several times...he thought the cops would show up any minute!!!), and had a look at the once huge, now just large, drainage ditch down the street from his house. He was between 10 and 13 years old when they lived there...he had to phone his sister, Kathy, several times to get directions, etc, for some of their old “haunts”. Tropical Storm Hermine was due to “hit” the Brownsville area Monday evening, so when we got back to the coach, we turned on the news...to find out there was a tornado warning for McAllen...hmmm...hadn’t really thought about that. They predicted between 4-12 inches of rain depending on where you were. So we gauged how long it would take us to RUN into the Wal-mart and kept the TV on pretty late. One tornado had touched down about 15 miles inland, but that was it...also, it hardly rained where we were, so a non-event...whew!!!

7-7-10: We drove around McAllen a bit more in the morning trying to find the taco stand G & his Mom used to have lunch at...he thought he might have found it, but wasn’t sure, and of course, it had changed owners in the last 30 years...so off to South Padre Island!! We had planned to stay in an RV park at Port Isabella, but when we arrived, it was a muddy mess and we didn’t want to have to town our giant rig out of the mud the next morning, so went to the local Wal-mart to get our bearings. We decided to ask if we could stay there...”sure”!! So we headed over to South Padre Island in the car. It was Tuesday following Labor Day, and you’d have thought the holocaust had already happened...hardly a person in sight!!! And the remnants of Hermine were hanging around, so there were a few showers lingering. We bar-hopped up the island, and back through Port Isabella to the coach. Very few celebrants, so we had the places to ourselves!! There was a "Pirate Pier" in PI that was likely the highlight of our "tour"...parrots, pirates, what more could you ask for?!?!?

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