We arrived at Retama Village in Mission Tx

Dec 1: we drove to Choke Canyon State Park in Three Rivers, TX.  We drove about 190 miles from Georgetown, just north of Austin today.  It was a pretty uneventful trip.  Not too much traffic or construction.

We have stayed at Choke Canyon in the past.  It is a nice state park, large sites on the water with a short (2 mile) trail.  Our weather has been great since we hit Texas.

Since we did not get a volunteer gig this year we will be taking a "gap" year.  We are looking forward to exploring the Valley and spending time at the pool.  Mission is about 75 miles west of Brownsville.  We would have preferred to stay more in the middle of the Valley but we waited to hear from various parks about volunteering.  By the time we decided that no one wanted us it was a bit late to find the "perfect" location.

We finally arrived at our winter destination after another 190 mile drive.  We are looking forward to being back in the Valley again.

Our site is about 5 lots from the pool area

Our little coach house is 12 X 20

advertised as decorated in Southwest style.  Not sure what that means, but we love the coach house, if not the furniture...

Of course we had to do a bit of birding to look for old friends...

Green Jays

Javalina with Green Jay

Texas Tortoise, this was a little guy

Great Kiskadee

We had to take a trip to Brownsville to look for the Tamaulipas Crow.  We looked a few years ago but did not find them. This year we seen a few of them!  New life bird!  Its a little crazy walking around the dump as it is an active site.  Lots of trucks dropping off garbage etc, large equipment moving waste etc.  But it is one of the few places in the US that you can find these birds.

One little glitch when we landed, the refrigerator is acting up again.  It was fine the entire way down here.  Now it decides to go out... It is always something.