January 19, 2006

January 19, 2006

Falcon State Park to La Feria, Texas

YEAR 2 DAY 216

 

Today was sunny and very warm. The afternoon was quite windy, which is pretty common in this part of Texas.

This morning we prepared for departure, hitched up, and pulled out of our campsite. We drove over to the recreation hall / snack bar. I exchanged some books at the book exchange table in the recreation hall, then we had a meeting / interview with the woman in charge of the snack bar. We applied for a WorkCamper position as snack bar attendants next winter. The meeting went well. From the rec. hall we drove over to the park's dump station, where we drained the waste holding tanks. We headed out of Falcon State Park, heading south on Hwy. 2098 a few miles until it reached Hwy. 83. We took Hwy. 83 southeast into the town of Roma. We stopped at a Mexican bakery, and while Joanne went inside to stock up on Mexican baking, I returned a phone call to my sister. She had phoned earlier. Joanne had the cell phone, and while she was walking the dog, Sharon called, but the call was dropped. Sharon and I discussed some mail issues.

From Roma we continued southeast on Hwy. 83 into the Rio Grande River Valley, known locally as "The Valley". We stopped at Camping World in Mission, and while Joanne prepared lunch, I went inside to buy some supplies I needed. We had lunch in the Camping World parking lot, then continued down into The Valley on Hwy. 83. We stopped to refill with diesel at a Conoco station just before Harlingen, then headed for Sunshine Encore RV Park, the large RV resort I had made a reservation at yesterday. Their directional map in the Passport America directory left a lot to be desired, and a block or two from the park, we got lost. I phoned the park to ask for directions, and spent a long time on the phone with an idiot who kept putting me on hold, and wasn't capable of directing us from where we were to the park. She gave me another phone number to call, explaining that she was just the reservation office, and I should phone the park front office. I was a bit miffed, but phoned the front office. I got another idiot, who was also incapable of directing us the last few blocks to the park, and repeatedly put me on hold. Finally I had enough. I told her to cancel our reservation, and refund my deposit, as I wasn't interested in doing business with them. She put her supervisor on the phone, as if that would somehow change my mind. It didn’t ! We backtracked about 5 or 6 miles to an RV park in La Feria that we had stayed at last year. It was where we were going to go after 3 days at the big resort in Harlingen.

We checked into La Feria RV Park. I waited in the truck for half an hour while Joanne registered. Apparently the front office was having computer problems. It didn't do much to improve my mood. We got parked in our assigned site, set up, and unhitched. We took Bo for an obedience training session. We left to go look for a grocery store. We found a medium sized grocery store in La Feria, but when we went in and started to shop, I decided I wanted to go to a larger store. That one in La Feria was a small Mexican grocery store without a fresh bakery or deli. We drove back on Hwy. 83 to Mercedes, about 5 miles away, where we found an H-E-B, a large chain grocery store. We bought some groceries, but I still didn't like that grocery store either. Still no fresh bakery or deli. Tomorrow we'll ask at the front office where we can find another large grocery store.

We drove back to the trailer at La Feria. Joanne made supper, while I set up the computer, and downloaded and processed some photos I took this morning. After supper, I did today's accounting, some planning, and worked on today's journal entry.

DSK