Uvalde - and NORMAL temperatures!

Before we left Beeville we made the trip over to Port Arkansas (where we were supposed to stay instead of Beeville, but . . . Winter Storm Uri) to meet up with our dear friend, Mark McConnell.  Mark is a fellow Port Arthur Yacht Club member who transferred to the Corpus Christi area with Exxon Mobil on a temporary project.  He and another PAYC guy were both sent to that area on the same project with different companies, but we were unable to see Randall Collier because he was back in Beaumont to be with his bride during this stupid storm  and will be moving back home permanently real soon. Catch you next time Borracho! 

We enjoyed catching up with Mark and he introduced us to a local friend of his by the name of Preston E. Smith.  Obviously, not the former Governor of Texas, but an interesting fellow in his own right.  Preston has invented a cleaner that he first marketed as a boat cleaner and discovered it was much more than that and started marketing it simply as an extreme cleaner. He gave us a sample (if you call a gallon of consentrate a sample) and I have played around with it on the RV.  We had it cleaned just before we left Beaumont but Uri left it a total disaster.  All the black streaks down the nose drove me nuts and are not so easy to remove.  It took those and the bugs off real easy and is supposed to provide a barrier to prevent stuff from returning as quickly.  There was a boat on the dock that had been washed with this stuff nine months ago  and it looked freshly cleaned.  It also prevents barnacles.  He has a brass and a stainless propeller hanging in the water at his slip that have been there for months and have no barnacles at all.  In the salty water in Port Aransas that is really saying a lot.  If you are interested in trying out his product for your boat or around your home you can purchase a sample at https://smithsx-tremecleaners.com/. 

February 22, 2021

We got to Uvalde on Monday and the weather was pretty nice - in the normal 60’s range.  We will be staying a week and only one more stop before we get to Big Bend.  This RV park is called Quail Springs RV Park on Hwy 90.  It is right in the thick of things in Uvalde (that is if you can say Uvalde has a thick of things).  This park is beautiful! The old oak trees are huge and beautifully shaped.

 

 

They have this club house with a full kitchen and the garage doors open up on pretty days with the outside seating.  There is even a huge fire pit I did not photograph.  

This is inside the lounge area of the clubhouse.  It is very clean and very well kept.  It is adjacent to a mobile home park that is also very well kept and clean.  They maintain both from the office here.  We walked through the mobile home park and the residents were very friendly.

Many of the folk here are snow birds who spend several months here during the winter.  They call themselves the Winter Texans.  Several others live here among the trees full time.  When we came into town we saw a sign that said ‘Welcome to Uvalde, Tree City, USA.' I totally get that now.

We decided to check out downtown and found the Uvalde Grand Opera House.  It was once featured on Texas Country Reporter. Dennis kept saying he thought we'd been there before, but when we looked it up and found the TCR episode and figured we had just seen it and had not visited before! I was just going to look into the windows when the manager opened the door and offered to take us on a tour.  It was built in 1891 and is the second oldest opera house in the state of Texas and if I am not mistaken, it is the oldest still in operation today.  The unique feature of this opera house is the dragon curled atop the turret. Some say the dragon was only a drunken doodle by the architect on the blueprints that the builder took seriously. The original dragon is in poor condition and has been removed and replaced with a newer, more durable dragon.  The original can be seen inside.  We enjoyed our tour and the knowledgeable manager told us several interesting things about some of the other buildings downtown. One I found interesting was a boarded up building across the square.  She said it was a bank and the location of the very first wire fraud case ever.  Some men had figured out how to intercept wires from the Uvalde bank to a bank in San Antonio and even sent fake return responses.  The communication was about the crooks picking up $10,000 dollars at the Uvalde bank and the San Antonio bank would forward the funds to repay Uvalde.  It worked and the crooks were never caught.  How crazy is that.

 

The original dragon and a drawing beside it and the front of the Opera House today.

Throughout the venue were several walls covered with playbills and photographs from the many performances they have had over the years.

We did not find ourselves a brewery, but we found an artisan pizza and craft beer place around the corner from the opera house.  Named Broadway 830, it has an awesome menu of unique pizzas and several craft beers to choose from.  They have outdoor seating areas both in front of and behind the restaurant.  Very cool place if you ever pass through Uvalde.  We ate our El Chupacabra (pulled pork) cauliflower crust pizza at the bar and then went to sit out on the patio and have another beverage.  It was a great day.

I pulled out my sewing machine and did some minor repairs in the great outdoors and enjoyed it very much.  It took me a couple of hours to replace some pockets on a couple of pairs of Dennis’ pants. (I am not a talented seamstress). They came with mesh pockets.  WTH!  The keys get stuck, now the knife is falling out of his pocket through the hole.  Stupid to put mesh in men’s front pockets.  More than once I tried to sew the new left pocket onto the right side.  Aren’t I supposed to learn from your mistakes. Maybe not that day.  But in my defense, I had this neighbor lady keep coming over . . .  Anyway, I have friends that do most of their sewing outside and I guess I understand that now.  It is really pleasant listening to the birds and, well, the neighbors (LOL).

I also finished my first ever crocheted garment. I even modified it from the original pattern.  I am feeling kinda proud. With the leftover yarn I am gonna make a matching beanie!

The other days we have been here have been pretty dreary weather.  We got outside one morning to drink our coffee and it starts misting on us and we go back inside thinking it is fixing to really rain and it never really does.  We decided the weather be darned!  We took off to the Memorial Park to walk there trails and it turned out to be a pretty nice day.  The park has many beautiful trees, ducks and a nice paved walking trail.

  

This is the trail we walked and we wondered if this track was from a hog.

 

Turtles were everywhere and we even saw a birthday train. They invited us to their party.

 

Some lost or left belongings, but other than this it was a very clean park.

   

I love cypress knees.

  

  

We are pretty sure these guys are nutra rats? 

I understand Paul Prudhomme has some delicious recipes for these.

 

Ducks could not care less that we were right beside them.  They were so beautiful.

We found a great steakhouse, Jack’s Steakhouse, and had supper there one night.  Well, we call it supper - it was 4:30 - is this a sign we are getting old? 

We also found an incredible breakfast and coffee bar place, The Local Fix.  Their coffee is the best I have ever had at any restaurant!  It is organic and they get it from the Big Bend Coffee Roasters in Marfa, Texas.  I had to buy a pound even though I normally buy from some friends at the Blue Craft Coffee Roasters where a part of the proceeds go to the families of fallen first responders.  You should really try their coffee.  

This is not a big town, but I sure love the people and the atmosphere here. Everyone is really friendly!

Next stop is Canyons RV Park in Sanderson, Texas.  That will put us only a couple of hours away from Big Bend.  

Our little piece of gravel for the next 3 nights.

This looks like a real nice lodge, but all is closed because they had some serious plumbing problems after Uri.  I don't like Uri - 😕

The drive here was pretty nice.  The Border Patrol actually had all traffic pull over for an inspection at 3 different locations around Del Rio.  They only had one going our direction and it had several apparatusis checking out the cars as they came up to the Agents.  I assmume some were just cameras, but it looked like some were different, may have been infared - maybe to detect a load of people?  Who knows.  But the agents were all along the roads too. And I saw more deer stands than people on this leg of our journey, though.  Bunch of deer hit on the side of the road too. That is a shame.

So - Happy Trails my friends!  I will catch up with you again after Big Bend.