A Stone's Throw From Mexico

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Following an announcement on the bulletin board for a church service, I went to the park amphitheater at 9am this morning. And I got there on time this time too! And the picture shows the congregation. Turns out, the service was at the amphitheater of a different campground! I guess the Lord had other plans.

A cold front went through last night, and we had a cold and windy day. The high temperature dropped from 91 F yesterday to 65 F today, and you couldn't sit out because of the wind. And if you didn't sit in the chairs, the chairs would blow over. It was still windy into the evening. We spent most of the day just resting inside. But we did manage to go for a hike along a path that leads up a hill to a nice view looking over the Rio Grande and our campground. You can see that Doreen is not too impressed with the wind which was really howling up there!

There was also a path down to the water. The USA is minus one rock today.

The Mexicans come across the river; as you can see here, they leave trinkets along the path for the campers to pick up and deposit money in a jar. The jar was just chock full of bills. There are warnings on the campground bulleting boards about not buying things from the Mexicans, because it will get them in trouble if they're caught. The campground ranger told me that people used to go back and forth across the border all the time, but all of a sudden after 911 the authorities said "You can't do that!" There is no problems in the park with drug trade or illegal immigrants, because it is just too far for them to walk to get anywhere.

There are lots of different kinds of birds around here. I don't know what this little red headed fellow is, but he sure is pretty. There was a beautiful woodpecker visited our campsite also, but he was too scary to get his picture taken.

But this dove really wanted her picture taken badly, because she came right up to my feet as I was clicking pictures. The sky is also full of some sort of large black hawks that soar about overhead in the wind, but never come close enough to photograph properly.

 

It's interesting that the mesquite bush leaves, which looked like this yesterday, sort of like our ferns except on a smaller scale,

fold up when it gets windy and cold.

And for those of you who are unfamiliar with camping, here's the bane of the camper. A neighbour with one of these - and this guy has two of them going! You gotta charge up the batteries so you can watch TV tonight!

Well it's hard to keep Doreen in one place for more than one night, but we did that today; it's our second night in one spot. Doreen normally likes to keep on the road, and just watch the scenery change as we go by.