Now For The Rest of the Story

The parlor is to the right as you enter.  Larry played the old phonograph for us.  Houses back then were built to catch the prevailing wind.  Notice the large windows and how many there are.  BUT, the house has many fireplaces.

This is just a sample of the beautiful fireplaces that are in the house.

I am fascinated by all the hardware.  The pocket doors still work.

Here we are in the dining room.  Check out the red glass globe.
This room is directly behind the parlor.

This is a view out their window...looking out on a Sabal Palm.


Thank goodness someone had the foresight to save these 200 acres of Sabal Palms, our native palm tree.  Once upon a time these palms grew as a tropical forest all along the Rio Grande River for 80 miles from the Gulf, where bear, jaguarundi, and jaguars roamed.  They grow to 50' and the fruit is edible.

Here we are overlooking the river at one of the observation decks at the sanctuary.

You think you can climb over it...think again.  As you drive to the entrance of Sabal Palms you will pass this structure...the border fence.  Notice our Border Patrol vehicle in the background.  We were concerned for a while that the sanctuary would be cut off for visitation by this fence, but it remains open for now.

This is just a portion of the overpass wall in Brownsville that I could snap off.  Further down there is more, showing palms etc.  So in Edinburg, we have the longhorn cattle drive, going toward  Padre Island there are Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles, and Brownsville, the Red-crowned Parrots.  We looked for the parrots as we drove through Brownsville without luck, but I guaranteed we would see some before we left.  These were the ones I was able to show them.


After lunch in Brownsville we headed to Boca Chica.  Boca Chica in English is little mouth.  This is where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico.  On our way there, we stopped at the Palmito Battlefield where the last battle of the Civil War was fought.  We have these beautiful signs at the entrance to the tract that were installed by Dave and Paul, our maintenance guys.

What a vast improvement to what we had before.  Our mission is to preserve, conserve, and enhance these places for generations to come.  We volunteers play an important role in doing just that.

We were allowed a 30 minute walk on the beach before heading back.  As you can see, the tide was up!!!

Now back to Brownsville where we stopped for, yes you guessed it, our traditional Dairy Queen Blizzard.  


We could not have asked for a better day.  The weather was perfect, and no bugs!!!  Some said this was the best tour yet.


Until next time....