Saturday 3/30/2013
One of the last things we did while still in Harlingen, TX was to take a 40 mile drive to McAllen, TX. I needed some things in McAllen that I couldn't find in Harlingen. We went to two health food stores. The 2nd one was called Sprouts, which is a grocery store, as well as a health food store. McAllen has a population of 129,877, but the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission metropolitan area is at 774,769. The Reynosa–McAllen Metropolitan Area counts with a population of nearly 1.7 million. It is a big city with lots of traffic. It seemed much newer and updated than Brownsville. The population is 77.28% Hispanic or Latino. |
As we drove home via Hwy. 107, we noticed the highway lined with Easter pinatas and cartons of painted Easter eggs for sale by the locals. |
When we first arrived in Harlingen we went to the Saturday Farmers Market which is held year round in downtown Harlingen. |
It was a fairly small Farmers Market, but adequate. |
The Farmers Market was next to this neat mural wall. |
Monday 4/1/2013
As we approached Three Rivers we started to see oil refineries. This part of Texas has had an oil boom for the last couple of years. |
In Three Rivers we turned west on Hwy 72 for about 12 miles. Then we turned north to Calliham to Choke Canyon State Park. We left Harlingen at 11:00 and arrived at Choke canyon around 4PM. |
Choke Canyon State Park registration office. |
Map of the the state park and campground on Choke Canyon Reservoir. |
We picked out a nice water front site # 125. |
Each site had a covered picnic area. It gets really hot here in the summer. |
View out our picture window at our table. The lake is a big fishing lake. |
We stayed here for 2 nights, so Joe could have a day break from driving and to just relax. On the second day we walked down to the lake. |
Across the lake with binoculars and zoom lens we could see about 22 Roseate Spoonbills. |
Along the shore as we walked we saw a Great Egret and Little Egret and maybe a Snowy Egret. Not for sure as they were far off and my picture is pretty blurry. As we walked their way, they took off. |
The lake is down about 15 feet, with the 10 year drought southern Texas has had. |
The reservoir covers 25,670 acres in Live Oak and McMullen counties, and has a capacity of more than 695,000 acre feet of water. |
The state park has a Bird Sanctuary in the campground area. |
Unfortunately no birds were in the sanctuary. The park needs to put some oranges and grapefruits in it! |
Some of the sites had cement sidewalks to the gazebo and two gravel paths, one for the RV and one for the car. We think these might be handicapped sites. |
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