With a change to warmer temperatures, the wind increased Thursday morning and is blowing at about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph, making bike riding too challenging unless your riding with the wind!  Kay returned to the shop to work on her second bowl of the season, and I walked to the Bentsen Rio Grande State Park.  This has been a “go to” place when the weather is unfit for other outside activities, and the Kiskadee Blind has proved to provide a great location for photographing birds, including this Black-headed Grosbeak and Lincoln’s Sparrow.

After a couple of hours, I returned to the motorhome for lunch, then rode, against the wind, to the National Butterfly Center, the first trip since before Christmas, while Kay went shopping, including groceries.  With the previous days’ cold, the butterflies were far and few between (Gulf Fritillary shown below), and the bird feeding station appeared to have been ignored as there were only sparrows there, and no sign of a hawk or other bird of prey.  Actually, I was a bit disappointed in the state of the National Butterfly Center because it was in such great shape before Christmas; wonder if something is going on?

We played bridge in the evening, and both of us had weird hands a weird partner in the course of the games—enough said, except that it is much more fun playing with Al and Sharon. 

Friday morning dawned with continuing high winds, but Al and I kept our plans to play golf, at McAllen, Texas, public golf course, Palm View.  The course was in great shape, but had water hazards on most holes.  I played worse than Al, but we both played really badly—our poorest outing for the year, in fact!  Kay cleaned the motorhome, and then drove to Well’s Fashions in Weslaco to try on apparel for the BPVRV Resort charity fashion show, and managed to use most of her Christmas gift card in the process for some items just put on sale.  Well’s is a very popular woman’s store here in the RGV, and is always crowded.  She stopped by Costco’s on the way home and purchased a birthday cake for our friend, Sharon, who is celebrating a birthday today, along with our friend at home, Carolyn Todd (happy birthday, Carolyn).  The chocolate cake had over two pounds of chocolate mousse in the center.  Afterwards, we went to the late show at the Activities Center to watch Wade Landry and his wife, Teresa Bowe Landry, perform.  They were great, even better than last year, and well worth the $6 per person tickets.

Kay slept really late Saturday morning (past 8 AM, but before 9 AM), and the quiet time provided an opportunity to “balance” the books since it was the first of the month.  We do virtually all of our banking and business transactions via the internet, and have most of our bills scheduled to be paid automatically the first of the month, in concert with our pension deposits, and we update the around the middle of the month when the bank statement and a couple of major credit card statements are issued.  It keeps life much simpler.  Kay went to the wood shop to continue work on her bowl, completing sanding and buffing, and adding the first coat of finish.  I peaked at it on the way to Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, and it is very, very nice!  She has become quite an artisan.  The mosquitos were out in hoards today, but the Kiskadee blind in the birding park proved an excellent sanctuary for watching and photographing birds, and enjoying a hot cup of coffee.  A couple came in about mid-morning, and we all saw the Black-headed Grosbeak and Indigo Bunting, the two most uncommon birds today.  Neighbor Lorna came in a bit later, and we all enjoyed talking about various birding trips, and then Dottie came in, the couple left, and Lorna, Dottie, and I had a grand time watching and photographing birds.  Shown below are the Orange-crowned Warbler, Altimira Oriole, and female Indigo Bunting.

Lorna and I left shortly before 12 noon to attend a show at the Rhinestone Opry with others from Circle 3 in BPVRV Resort.  The show was very amateurish, lacked preparation, particularly with respect to sound levels and equipment, and had a couple of very poor performers, not even as good as most jam sessions at home.  We’re glad we went as we had wondered what it was all about, but won’t go again.  Four Plus One would have been a real step up for the poorly attended show.   Back at the resort, we visited the happy hour briefly, and returned to the motorhome.  I worked on photographs and this blog entry, while Kay played card bingo; though she was feeling lucky, she didn’t win!