This is my street. I've had a pre-dawn coffee, glanced at the local paper - The Monitor -'Serving the Rio Grande Valley Since 1909' - and am going for a walk.
Many of the places in the park are real second homes, not my idea of a vacation. The less maintenance, cleaning and gardening the better.
Some aren't so big. Presumably cleaning this is very easy.
People come to the Valley from a long way.
From a really long way.
This rig - do a web search on how much these things can cost - pulls the owner's trailer, admittedly a big one.
This - with its golf bag carrier on the back - is just plain nifty.
As noted last year, the way of life brings out idiosyncratic touches. Texas cattle skulls are popular.
As are emblems of past activities, mainly military. Click on the picture if you can't read the writing.
On the subject of World War Two bombers, Jode's mother, Verla, and stepfather, George, are here.
George piloted twenty-six B-17 missions over Germany. He was based near the small English market town of Sudbury, in the county where I once lived. George and I reminisced about some little Suffolk villages and crumbling, Eighth Air Force airfields we know.
In 1916, Verla's father, Jode's grandfather, was with the U.S. Army in the Rio Grande Valley. The soldiers were combating cross border raids from Mexico. A few years shy of a century later, Verla and Jode winter not far from where the troops were stationed. A couple of historical minor coincidences ...
