I let Padre Island after another day of fairly high winds. I wanted to stop at Laguna Atacosa National Wildlife Refuge on the way to Brownsville but I missed the turnoff and kept on going. And so the Gulf Coast trips end with a whimper and the Southwest trips begin.
At Brownsville I turned north and headed up the Rio Grande Valley along the Mexico border. Unfortunately I didn't get a glimpse of the Rio Grande the whole way but I did note several border crossing on the way. The border patrol was out in force too.
I stopped off at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and hiked a couple of the trails. I saw a few neat looking birds for the first time. One was a little fat bluish gray guy who landed on a branch just a few feet from my head. I kinda think he was a youngster because he flitted from one branch to another and didn't quite make it. Instead he hung in the air fluttering his wings like a humming bird and when he couldn't quite get on the branch he let go and fluttered to the ground. Here he tried to act nonchalant and flew away. Another neat bird was one with a light greenish yellow chest that turned out to be a green jay.
Mosquitoes weren't bad but were pretty tough. I'd swat one and instead of squishing it would kinda shake its head groggily, go into a tailspin but catch itself and fly off to attack another day.
12/31/00:
I moved north to the Falcon Reservoir in Falcon Heights. This looked like a good body of water on the Mexican border created by damming the Rio Grande. Not having seen the Rio Grande yet I was looking forward to maybe paddling on it. Not to be.
I settled in at the Falcon State Park and was pleased to find they were going to have a dinner and party for the campers. Cool! Holidays are always tough when you're alone. Not to be either. About the time it got dark last night the turbines or whatever from a nearby gas refinery kicked on and roared all through the night. I was out of there fairly early next morning.
I had checked out the boat ramp the night before. I saw two long, steep concrete things leading into a small canyon. For some reason a dock was at the end of them. A local was in the parking lot at the top of these concrete things and appeared to have just pulled up a ramp. But there was no water down there. None. And there was none in sight. Yet there he was with a big bass boat, drying it off. A little perplexed, I asked him what was going on? He said the reservoir was down 40 feet over the last few years and they had created a new launching place down a side road. That made a little more sense. I took a walk down it and sure enough there was a big reservoir down there.
Lots of roadrunners scooted around the park. I was told people were feeding them bologna. They'd throw it out there and the roadrunners would come scooting out of the brush. I saw one and threw it a Cheez-It. It came out and got it before I could get a picture. So I threw a small pretzel out to it. Again it came running out but stopped, turned its nose up at the pretzel and walked away, but not before I got a picture.
Some kind of oriole, pale greenish in color, had apparently stake out a certain area as his. He had flown by a car in 'his territory' and saw his reflection in the side mirror. Was it funny watching him hop around on the car, perch on the mirror and try to intimidate his reflection into moving on.
01/01/01/:
I drove 150 miles north to the Casa Blanca Lake State Park in Laredo on New Year's day. Another disaster. I got to talking to someone before I left Falcon State Park and decided to wait to for Laredo to take a shower. Wrong again! No showers here. In fact it was the worst state park I've ever been in and it was right beside a highway. Half the toilets wouldn't even flush. Some New Years Eve.