After our typical morning routine of coffee, email, and newspapers, walking through the resort, and breakfast, I accompanied Jerry and Kerry to view some Burrowing Owls. The Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) is a tiny but long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America.  It is endangered in Canada, threatened in Mexico, and a species of special concern in Florida and most of the western USA.  It is a state threatened species in Colorado.

Our entertainment tonight was Wade Landry.  Born and raised in Abbeville, Louisiana, he has played fiddle for many great artists including Jimmy C. Newman, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Buck Trent, and Mel Tillis, and often plays with Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys.  His Branson show, Wade Benson Landry’s Swingin’ Cajun Style Show appears at the God and Country Theatre located at 1840 W. Hwy 76 in Branson, usually starting at 10:00 AM.  He is appearing in 20+ shows in the RGV this year, and is already scheduled for 30+ shows in the Valley next year.  He is an excellent fiddler and singer, and his wife is a terrific singer, sounding much like Connie Smith, Brenda Lee, and Patsy Cline, rolled into one.

It’s Thursday, our “birding trip day”.  The Birding Club drove the short distance to Edinburg Scenic Wetlands and World Birding Center.  This city park has lots of trails for birding and observing butterflies, and other great areas for walking, jogging, and cycling.  We ended the day with 56 species, including several wading birds, a Buff-bellied Hummingbird (shown below), a couple of woodpeckers, and many others, the best being the Warbling Vireo and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (shown on the right).

Kay continued her Swedish Weaving class in the afternoon.

We attended the Valentine’s Day dance at the clubhouse tonight, sharing a table with Chuck, Sue, Wayne, Bessie, and another Canadian couple who we do not know.  Ron O’Neil provided the music, and he is literally a one man band.  Most of his repertoire is ‘50s and ‘60s music with a bit of Texas 2-step, waltzes, and polkas thrown in. We heard him last year, and he seems to be slipping a bit, maybe because of his poor eyesight.  We still enjoyed the night.

After our morning walk, Kay did laundry, while I cleaned the interior of the motorhome. We do these two chores about twice a week, minimizing the amount of clothes we pack ridding the motorhome of dust brought in by the almost constant winds over the Mexican desert just south of us.

We joined our neighbors at 4:00 PM for happy hour at the palapa.  The photo shows us today, circling up, and talking about everything, including the weather.  Typically, the men have one or more conversations and the women have conversations.

We all were entertained by a parade of mostly bicycles celebrating Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras.  It seems that residents of BPVRV Resort are always looking for any excuse to have a party or enjoy good times. We even got beads and candy tossed our direction.

Several of us attended the Vipers basketball game later in the evening. The Vipers are a “”D” league professional basketball team. Royce White, a first-round draft choice of the Houston Rockets had been sent down to this minor-league team after an absence of several months, playing basketball. His is an interesting story—he suffers from mental illness, i.e. OCD and anxiety disorder. He first refused to fly to games, then refused an assignment to the minor leagues; he finally acquiesced and is traveling in a highly customized bus, i.e. a $1,000,000+ motorhome. He was not that impressive, but must be awesome to have been the #19 pick overall. We immensely enjoyed the night, however, and there was far more going on outside the court than on the court.

After a day’s rest, we’re ready for some action!

Kay typically goes to exercise class at the clubhouse at 8:30 AM on Monday’s, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This morning, while she was exercising, I did a walking circuit through BPVRV Resort, about 2 1/2 miles. With some energy left over, I invited Chuck for a bicycle ride, and we pedaled to Anzulduas Dam Park, returning via Conaway Avenue to the bike path trailhead, then back to BPVRV Resort, a distance of about 18 miles. A soak in the hot tub helped relax overused muscles.

BPVRV Resort hosted Roland Garcia, Jr. again tonight for a dance. It was not a sellout, which allowed for more space on the dance floor. At some of the dances, the line dancers take up so much room that there is little room left for couples dancing. We dressed up in our best Western wear—Wrangler jeans, Resistol hat, and Tony Lama boots, and danced the night away—or at least until Quiet Hour at 10:00 PM.

No cards, no dancin’, no birding, no butterflyin’, no airplanes, no entertainment—we spent a leisurely day, today, going to church, shopping at Costco’s and Cavender’s (a western store), and generally doing a whole lot of nothing.  A day like this was really needed.  It has been too windy to do any birding or butterfly watching.  Sorry, no photos today, but we’ll make up for it later in the week.

Another beautiful day in paradise.

Yesterday was so filled with activities that I forgot to mention installing the Phoenix RC flight simulator on the new computer. After installing the software and hooking up the transmitter, I took off and crashed several times before switching to a training model. Flying RC airplanes is something I have wanted to do since college, and maybe, at 63 years old, I can finally begin.

Shortly before nine we saw people heading towards the clubhouse, and remembered the pet Parade was today. This is a big deal at Bentsen Palm Village, and the proceeds, about $1500/year, go to a no-kill pet shelter. People were gathered everywhere, and volunteers were selling hot dogs, sodas, beer, and cookies and cakes. Pets of all shapes and sizes were dressed in various costumes as were some owners. Bentsen Palm Village is a pet friendly RV resort and most residents have pets. We enjoyed mingling with pet owners and watched them parade around the circle twice, and of course voted for neighbor Tim and Deb’s standard poodles, shown on the left.  The lady in the bottom photo has 3 boxes of outfits and glasses for her dog, and we’ve never seen the dog on the ground!

After a quiet afternoon we joined the neighbors in the palapa for happy hour, Kay played card bingo, and I remained at the motorhome playing with the RC flight simulator.

We were so happy this morning to accompany Missouri friends, Jim and Cheryl Watts, to the National Butterfly Center (NBC) and Bentsen Rio Grande State Park.

We discovered the NBC last year, but only visited a couple of times. Vast improvements and additions have been made since then, including the addition of a well-maintained bird feeding station. Consequently, a number of different species are attracted to the area, and provides for great birdwatching and photography.

Since the the feeders are typically filled at approximately 8:30 AM, we arrived about 9:00 AM and were quite disappointed and concerned as no birds could be seen or heard. After a few minutes, however, the birds began trickling in and remained steady through the morning. It was cool and only a couple of other birders were present, making for an outstanding morning. We saw Green Jays, Greater Kiskadees, Olive Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Altamira Orioles, Clay-colored Thrush, Golden-fronted woodpeckers, Ladder-backed woodpeckers, Long-billed Thrashers, Common House Sparrows, Inca Doves, White-winged Doves, and a RAT!

We were not fortunate enough to see many butterflies because of the cool temperatures and heavy winds, but did manage to see a few of God’s colorful, fluttering creatures.

We then drove to Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, acquired our wrist bands, and walked to the first couple of feeding stations near the gatehouse where we observed chachalacas. Feeding station #3 did not yield any birds, and only a few wading birds were observed in the resaca. Resacas are old bendways of the Rio Grande River, and are analogous to oxbow lakes in the Midsouth. We scored a major victory at the Green Jay blind, where we were able to get up close and personal to Green Jays, Greater Kiskadees, Olive Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Altamira Orioles, Red-winged Blackbird’s, and Golden-fronted woodpeckers. It was an absolutely awesome morning.

We topped the great morning off with lunch at El tio Chuys, our favorite family-owned Mexican restaurant near Bentsen Palm Village.

Friday night is typically entertainment night at Bentsen Palm Village and tonight Cross Strung performed. Cross Strung is Utah’s new and upcoming Bluegrass, Celtic and Contemporary folk band. They travel all over the states performing for all types of audiences.  Their vocal talents left a bit to be desired, but they more than made up for it with their fantastic instrumentals.

As if this wasn’t a busy enough day, Kay wrapped up the evening sitting around the campfire listening to pickin’ and grinnin’.

All of our Winter Texan photos can be viewed at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/DunnGoneTravels/WinterTexans20122013?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCID41uiC4OrOGw&feat=directlink

Today was quite busy. Kay and I drove to the Estero Llano Grande State Park where she dropped me off to join other birders from Bentsen Palm Village for the morning, while she shopped in Weslaco. Estero Llano Grande State Park is one of the best birding areas in the RGV. There were 20 of us this morning; we finished with 69 species including many ducks and wading birds. the lady on the left is Lorna, our neighbor, and a very good birder; the next lady is Karen Smith, one of our co-leaders; and the gentleman in the blue shirt is the retired manager of Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get the hang of differentiating among these various ducks, shore birds, and wading bird species as they are all very similar. After birding and shopping, we met the group at Willie B’s for barbecue and baked potato. Willie B’s is famous for their huge, loaded baked potatoes. We are glad that we ate at this well known eatery, but frankly, the food was average at best.

Thursday evening we joined a few of our neighbors for the Quidam perfomance of Cirque Du Soleil. Kay, Karyn, Jenny, and I saw Cirque Du Soleil in Las Vegas over 10 years ago and it was one of most phenomenal shows we’ve ever seen. The traveling performance of Quidam was not quite as breathtaking, but nevertheless awesome and jaw dropping. The combination of comedy, strength, timing, aerial acrobatics, and stage acrobatics was almost unbelievable. We highly recommend this.

All of our Winter Texan photos can be viewed at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/DunnGoneTravels/WinterTexans20122013?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCID41uiC4OrOGw&feat=directlink

Tuesday was pretty much a lost day.  After our morning routine, Kay washed a couple of loads of clothes. She went to the jam session in the afternoon, we joined neighbors for happy hour at the palapa, and played bridge in the clubhouse in the evening.  It was a good bridge night, but neither of us won total points for the evening.

After our Wednesday breakfast and our morning walk, I installed an odometer/speedometer on the bicycle mainly to monitor distance traveled. Chuck Mercer and I went on a bicycle ride on the “Road Runner” trail; there were a number of riders today, and even some Chachalacas, but no roadrunners (Chachalacas are large, noisy, mainly brown birds from the genus Ortalis found in wooded habitats in the Rio Grande Valley, Mexico, and Central and South America). Chuck and I rode a total of 10 miles, averaging just over 9 miles per hour—not too bad when one considers that we had a very strong headwind against us about half the way, and almost no wind assist the other half.

Al and Sharon invited us to play bridge in the evening, and I had the worst hands of the season. Obviously, I finished last but Kay had outrageously good hands and finished with five points.