City of Lights -- Hidalgo, Texas

We drove to Hidalgo the other night to see the lights. Hidalgo is just south of McAllen and right on the Mexican border. This post is mainly gonna be pics of the awesome lights.



The lights are spread over a very large area and the areas are themed with tributes to many things. The first area was just a traditional Christmas, with toyland, candy canes, trees, and gifts. Each year they start a new theme. Last year they did China. It was cool!

These dragons are made with over 3000 small bottles filled with coloured water. They were way cool!

They have a tram that takes you around to see all the lights, because they are spread over a 3 mile area. Taking pictures on the tram really didn't work out, so we walked around a bit after the tour. The areas I'm not showing had things like a tribute to the space program and they did the 12 days of Christmas.
The soldiers are guarding the entrance to City Hall.

They had scenes all around the parks, and all the trees are lit up. There are well over 3 million light used and this is the eighteenth year for the show.

Mary took some of these pics and then she took some that she wasn't too happy with, but I thought some of them turned out super-neat.

I thought the smearing of the lights was great.

And finally, I love these two Christmas pics I got in the park.
Not yer traditional snow scene, but I LIKE it!

And I could get to really like this kind of Christmas tree!

Anyhow, a very merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

50's Christmas Dance

The park has a dance every Thursday night consisting of Country music. This past Saturday though, we had our Christmas dance with the "Cruisers". They played music from the 50's on. It was a blast from the past. Dress was mixed from saddle shoes to dressy. Not much to add other than the pictures courtesy of Peggi. My camera died after my first picture.

Cheryl and I doing the "Twist". The gentlemen sitting this one out! Rod's new western shirt. He looked very nice indeed. It was commented on that nobody could find him without one of his signature shirts on. His shirts are noticed as is our truck! :o)

The weather has been chilly this past week. But today has again reached that comfortable temperature. Christmas day is to be hot.

Tis the Season Updated...thanks Peggi & Cheryl

Hi, this entry is just a quick one to wish everyone a "VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS" and a "HAPPY NEW YEAR"

We have taken a few pictures of the lights in the park. This is a picture of Peggi & Johns rig. Beautiful!! They have the nicest dressed rig in the park.

And of course, what would Christmas here be like if I didn't show you how Rod is dressed to take these pictures????

This time of year they have a lot of things happening. We went to the christmas program where they put on a show for us. The park has a program where we all choose a child by age and sex and buy a christmas present for them. Then the park assembles Christmas boxes for them and their families. These are the poorest of the poor in the area who'd have a very sad Christmas without this program.

Rod, along with others that own trucks, are going to be delivering these boxes today. Yesterday we had a street pot-luck dinner.

On the 25th the park is having their Christmas dinner where they supply the hams (the Americans do ham for Christmas as they just had turkey a month ago) and we all bring a dish...Peggi & John are in charge of cooking the ham for our table. Kristi and Phil will be here for New Years eve and will be going to the dance with us.

The weather has been all over the map this past week....anywhere from 94f in the day down to 38f some evenings...It is supposed to warm up for their time here. We hope so. Tim and Aly weren't able to join us but we wish them a special wish and will miss them.

We will post the pictures from the kids visit soon.....so until then...

Santa Ana Refuge

Off to Santa Ana Refuge for the day. It was a cool start and we had to wear our coats. We went with another couple from the park, Don and Cheryl. The first tram of the day ran at 9:30 am and because of the time and the coolness of the day we had the tram to ourselves with a private tour of the refuge. Santa Ana tram tour takes approximately 70 minutes with a few stops along the way. Our guides told us about the different vegetation, and how it all came about. Once the state obtained the property they wanted for the refuge they gave the land to farmers, on the condition that 10% of the land would be planted with natural vegetaion and left fallow each year. That way, annually, more and more land would be turned back to it's natural flora and fauna. When a section of land was completely reclaimed, they'd give the farmer another block of land to work. The farmer got to keep any profit from the land as he slowly turned the land back to "natural". Eventually the refuge is complete. Now they are working with farmers adjacent to the refuge to make access areas with trees and grass so the wildlife etc can move from one area to another....creating bridges of naturalness so the animals have refuge and can cross the cultivated areas and yet remain hidden from predators.

There is a small cemetary dating back to the mid 1800's where the original family and workers were laid to rest. Its like being in a strange movie forest.....all different depending on what area you are in, with strange paths that you can walk. The vegetation changes completely as you move away from ready sources of water.

Lots of Spanish or Ball moss on the trees near the water giving a sense of the surreal to the area.

Due to the coolness of the weather 50f or 10c, we decided that the tram ride was enough for one day and we will go back another time to take some of the trails.

There are bobcats, coyotes, armidillo, deer, snakes, birds, butterflies, and other animalsthat make this place home. Its worth seeing if you are in the area. There are many different types of trees, grasses, bushes, cacti and the only native palm tree (of which we didn't get a pic (haha). Hopefully when we go back to walk the trails we can get some pics of some of the animals and the "missing" palm tree! As you move away from the sources of water, the vegetation changes from a mesquite forest to a very thorny bramble. Because of that its better to stay on the paths and not wander off. We didn't get to see many of the animals because the tram ride is a bit noisy and we were told that walking along the paths were better for that.

The Museum of South Texas is our next adventure sometime this week so until then.....have a merry Christmas everyone.

Lights & Stuff

Hey again! On Sunday the 30th of November we were out walking and noticed this unusual sight in the evening sky. I went in and looked it up. The bottom thingy is the moon (duh), the lower "star" is Venus and the upper "Star" is Jupiter. This was the first night as the moon changed from a "new" moon to a crescent moon, and this "Moon, Venus, Jupiter" configuration in the same quadrant in the sky won't be seen again until 2052, so if we hadn't caught it, we'd never have had the opportunity again in our lifetime. Cool, eh?
The next day we decided to put up a few Christmas decorations! We wrapped our front tripod in garland and then strung it with lights. Here's a pic.

I'm not sure what Mary's looking at. Maybe she saw a ghost? When I took the picture of the "tree" I noticed the moon and planets configuration was different that night and brighter, so I took another pic. Also, Neptune and Uranus were visible, but very dim and to far away from the moon to include in the picture. When I showed Mary, she thought it was quite funny that we were out there looking at Uranus. Ahhhh, I love juvenile humour.
Later gang!

Port Isabel & South Padre Island

We decided to drive over to the beach the other day. It's a little better than an hour from Alamo to Port Isabel, and then it's over the causeway and yer on South Padre Island.The drive is very flat. When you consider that Alamo is only 98 feet above sea level, that doesn't leave very much room for hills on the way. Port Isabel's claim to fame is it's lighthouse.
I understand it's one of the oldest lighthouses in the U. S. So they fixed it up, and there it stands. They don't use it anymore, but it has a long history. The rest of Port Isabel is restaurants, crafty little shoppes, and tacky stuff.But, it was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the high 80's, so we enjoyed it. That bridge you see to the right is the causeway. It's pretty high, but it has to be to allow ocean going ships to pass under it.This is a better picture of the bridge. Once you get over the bridge you have waterand more water, sandand more sand, and hotels/motels.Actually, South Padre Island and area was hit by hurricane Dolly. Several of the hotels suffered extensive damage. One we saw had parts of the brick side blown out. The papers say there are approximately 4500 hotel rooms on the island but only 3200 will be useable this winter season. The island is about 25 miles long. The populated portion is on the south end, and there's a road that runs about halfway up the island. We drove up to the end of the roadto look around. It was kinda cool, huge dunes on the bay side of the road and stuff. They use those big round bales of hay ya see in farmer's fields as windbreaks to start dune formation. There's signs all up the road warning to take care because of sand drifts on the road. Once you get to the end of the road, the beach goes on for miles.We coulda driven up the beach, but the cutouts from the road to the beach were really deep loose sand and even though we have a 4x4 we decided against it. We didn't need all that sand getting jammed up underneath the truck, and if you don't make it, they want $800.00 to pull you out. Anyhow, it was a good, fun day and we'll certainly be back to South Padre Island again while we're here.