Port Mansfield

Port Mansfield is a tiny village located north of here on the Laguna Madre (the bay between Texas coast and South Padre Island). It also includes access to the intercoastal waterway which leads to Port of Brownsville.
  If you want to be a fisherman this is the place to be...residents have long piers from their homes, or live on the harbor with a "drive in" boathouse under their home. There are public boat launchs and fishing piers for those without water access. Some just fish from shore...
   While there we met a local resident who was in town from his ranch to mow lawn at the beach house. We talked with him awhile and learned about farming and ranching. Crops currently being planted are cotton, some corn and soybeans, and a grain called milo (used for livestock feed and biofuel production). Cattle still roam the thousands of acres of scrubby ranch land; when they need to round-up the cattle many ranchers use helicopters to locate the herd, then send in the cowboys on horseback, thus blending new and old technology!

Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show

On March 16th we took advantage of "Senior Citizen's Day" and attended the RGV Livestock Show.  It was held during "Texas Week" which is Spring Break for all Texas schools. Similar to our MN State Fair, the Livestock Show gives kids from 4H and FFA chapters around the Valley a chance to show their animals and be judged for ribbons & prizes. This was the 72nd Annual show...we saw many different breeds of beef cattle, including huge Brahman bulls weighing over 2000 pounds! There was also a three day old Brahman calf with its mother. Other animals being shown were hogs, goats, sheep, rabbits, and a few chickens...kind of took us back to our Farm Roots.

World Birding Center and Wildlife Refuge

The World Birding Center of Texas is a network of sites including State and National parks that spreads across three counties in the Rio Grand Valley. So far we have visited three major parks: Estero Llano Grande State Park, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.  Each park is unique but all are focused on wildlife preservation. We've seen many colorful birds unique to this area, and many that migrate through the region. Some plants are flowering now, and the butterflies were enjoying them. Most animals are well hidden, but we did see a wild pig, some alligators, and an armadillo.  It's a great area for wildlife photographers!

Boca Chica Beach

This week we experienced Boca Chica Beach! It's like driving to the end of the world...we went to Brownsville and picked up Boca Chica Blvd (also known as hwy 4)...then drove about 20 miles until the highway ended.  At the end was nothing but sand and Gulf waves. The adventure is to drive on the beach to the point where Rio Grande River and the Gulf meet. The beach sand is hard packed if you stay near the break line for the waves...we took off with the Honda, and drove probably 5 miles or so along the beach. We parked and walked the final yards to the mouth of the river, as the sand was not as firm to drive on. At this point the water is shallow (we were told) and you could walk across to Mexico. We watched fishermen catching fish with nets on the Mexico side.