Friday February 27, 2008

I woke early again and read the news on the Internet. Stella woke about 8 o'clock and I sang her Happy Birthday. I went for a walk around the park and had some coffee with Ted and Donna. Stella came down later and had some coffee and we decided what we were going to do today.

We decided to run some errands that we had been putting off. First, we went to the Donna City Hall because Donna wanted to have her picture taken there.

We then went to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Reserve where Stella and I both got our senior passes that allow us to camp for half price and enter national wildlife parks and preserves for free. We saw a short film on what is available at this park and left.

We then went down to Hidalgo where we found Pepe's on the River, a small cafe that is located right on the Rio Grande river. We ate a tasty lunch there, and Ted and Donna showed off their dancing skills by doing the waltz to the sounds of "Waltz Across Texas with You in my Arms", a song made famous by Ernest Tubbs and played by the local band. Ted got the singer to sing Happy Birthday to Stella, so we all had a good laugh about it. We went down to the river to look at the fish and turtles in the water before we left.

After lunch, Stella and Donna had seen several Ropa Usadas (used clothing) stores. These places buy clothing of all sorts in bulk by the pound and sell it the same way, by the pound. Periodically during the day, workers bring out a forklift full of clothes which the women immediately jump into looking for any items of interest. I saw a couple of guys just lying back in these huge piles of clothes, possibly waiting for their wives to finish "shopping" and taking it easy. Donna bought a few things and I looked for a birthday present for Stella but couldn't find anything so we left.

We went over to Mission and I took Ted and Donna to Tom's new site at the Mission West RV park. We went to the Retama Village community where we went into an open house for a house with an attached carport for an RV/motorhome. It was nice, but no sale. We then drove through the Bentsen Palms Village where Ted and Donna had stayed on one of their previous trips to the valley.

A stop at the Wal Mart finished up our day. I think one of the guys we had seen at the ropa usada had followed us, perhaps to steal Donna's clothes that she had bought, because we saw him in the store. Just kidding.....