Friends have arrived!

Monday afternoon Jim and Luanne pulled in. They had spent the night with friends in Falfurrias and plans were to stay a few days there. But they were having car trouble and decided to try to get into the Kia dealer here in town for repairs. They were having heat/AC problem. They had heat, but couldn't control it and no A/C. Hmmmm. That's a problem down here because it is starting to warm up. We took them in the golf cart and showed them some of the parks in our system here. With the extra seat on the golf cart we added, we were all able to go. It was fun.

They were able to get an appointment for Tuesday morning. Once they got here we just sat outside enjoying the nice weather and visited. I thought after two hard days driving down here from Indiana, they might welcome a break and we got them settled in the Texas Room.

Tuesday morning we took their car to the Kia dealer and took off west. it turned out to be not so nice a day with misting and cool temperatures. So we decided not to do anything outside. Our destination was the Los Ebanos Ferry and it has been so long since we have been there, we missed the road. We ended up in Rio Grande City. We took them to the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto at the Immaculate Conception Church. The mist held off so we could walk around and take some pictures.

We headed back to Mission and found the road to the ferry. We were so shocked when we got there. It has been several years since we have visited and they have put in a border checkpoint. It is a large building with driving lanes and all kinds of security. I always wondered why there wasn't a more secure checkpoint here. There used to be just a kiosk. We walked up to the little building in front of the fenced in walkway which was part of the new structure. The guy there charged us $1 to walk to the bridge and told us we only needed our drivers license. I wasn't sure why we needed that to go look at the ferry. But SURPRISE! You go past the border checkpoint, so you actually need a passport. After taking pictures of the ferry, which hasn't changed much, except they've added a checkpoint on the Mexico side as well, we walked back up to the building to go back to the car. We were stopped and asked for our passports or a birth certificate. Well, now, I know we need our passport to go to Mexico. But we didn't leave the U.S. But they wanted them. In the end, they took our drivers licenses which they used to call up our passports. Luanne, however, doesn't have a passport. We really didn't want to leave her there, but they allowed us all to move on, reminded us next time to have our passports. Nuff said.

On the way back to Mission, Kia called and said the car was done. All they had to do was reprogram the computer and all is well. Covered under warranty. I was so glad they were able to get it in quickly and fixed it. Hope they don't have any trouble on the way home.

Later in the evening, Luanne and I went over to the hall to play Bingo. The guys hung out and rested up from their day!

Till next time. . .

Dale