La Gloria, Texas

Hola amigos,

We've been extremely busy as of late. On Saturday the owners of my RV park hosted a barbeque as an appreciation day. There were two different entertainers...one before the meal and one after. In the evening we went to La Escondidas, as we had been invited to a birthday party there.

This afternoon we went to see bloodless bullfights in La Gloria. There were 3 matadores and 1 matadora. Lupita Lopez is one of the world's 5 female matadoras. She was grace personified. After each of the matadores performed the judges would ask the audience to wave their hats or hankies to relay whether the matador should get the prize of one bull ear, two ears, or two bull ears and a tail (all fake). Lupita won the top prize. The custumes were gorgeous, and there were a few near misses.

Ending the performance was a Mexican performer on his dancing horse. He called himself El Guapo (Handsome). He sang while riding and had his horse do tricks.

It was an event worth seeing.

Spring is here

Greetings Y'all,
Cactus Jack has arrived in South Texas and you see him here looking "cool" and having a drink by the ocean on South Padre Island. We went to Boomerang Billies to see Leslie perform. We scooted out of there leaving enough time to get ready for the evening's dance at an RV park in Weslaco. Today we went to Pepe's on the River and danced again, so tonight we are both tired. Pepe's was absolutely packed!

Spring has arrived and today I saw many shrubs in full bloom and they were gorgeous. We had a bit of rain today which is great as it has been very dusty here as of late.

We will be very busy as I would like Jack to see the many sites of Southern Texas and parts of Mexico.

Hope you are all well and happy.

Dancers

Hola,

Another day in Progreso to finish the dental work. Finally finished!!!! Our friend, Carol, took Gab and I to a restaurant/gift store called Garcia's and also called the Canada Store. It cost us each $5.50 to enter. For that price you got unlimited pina coladas, margaritas or tequila sunrise. They had a live band and dancing for part of the time. For the second part a company of dancers performed for us. They were fantastic! The male's dancing reminded me a lot of the riverdance. It began at four and was over by 6 pm.

It is extremely windy this evening so hope we don't blow away!

Gabrielle

Buenos dias mis amigos,

These are photos of Gab in Mexico. She was surprised at the size of the pinatas, so I had to take her pic with one. There are many stores in Mexico and here in the valley that are party stores and sell a variety of pinatas and huge bags of candy to fill them with. Mexicans like to celebrate whenever possible, whether it is a birthday, anniversary or whatever.

We went into a cantina for a margarita and there was a man all dressed and painted in silver. He would walk around acting like a robot and you could have your picture taken with him for a dollar. Anyway to make a buck!

We were there most of the day and you do get weary of the hawkers trying to sell you their wares. You cannot walk down the street without each and every merchant trying to get your attention. Add to that the dentists, hairdressers, etc and it is non-stop. But, it was an experience for her and she was able to find some gifts for friends back home.

On Sunday we plan to go to South Padre Island for the day. Today is a rest day!

Aloe Farm

Greetings all,

Yesterday Gabrielle and I went with our park to Mercedes, Tx to the Aloe King Farm. It was extremely interesting. The top photo is an aloe vera field. They have about 40 acres planted in aloe. When the outer leaves get big they cut them off and sell them by the leaf....a dollar a leaf. Our guide showed us how to fillet an aloe leaf so as to just have the slippery white stuff inside the leaf. Some of the leaves are filleted and sent to factories to be made into aloe vera products, such as cosmetics and lotions. The aloe plants have suckers and these are cut and sent out as young plants. They sent 70,000 of these young plants to Uganda. Aloe plants are extremely hardy except when it comes to cold. Temperatures just above freezing will kill the plants. No pest will attack the aloe plant. They do have blossoms, but no one knows why. The blossoms do not go to seed, so they seem to serve no purpose.

They also grow citrus fruits, papaya and avocado on this farm, mostly for their own use.

J.R. Sigrist and his wife own the farm. She is 86 and he is 87 years old. He is also known as "The Sandman" as he does sand art. They collect different colored sand from all over the world. He was explaining that there is no blue sand, but there is sand of all the other colours. Green sand is becoming difficult to find. We watched as he made a bottle of his sand art. He packs the sand so tightly that even if you roll the bottle the artwork stays intact. He then seals each bottle with wax before putting on the lid. It was something to watch!

His wife runs the gift store and does a presentation on the history of the farm. She was a pure delight!

It was a great day.