Hanging in Harlingen

While it's not been super sunny every day we have seen the sun and it's at least been warmer...this is good! Our stay in Harlingen has been fun, they have lots to offer. We easily found free overnight spots from a TX Wildlife Management Area on the outskirts of town to the Bass Pro. Hey, they ALL work for us! Incredible what just changing sides of the parking lot does for a little too much road noise. But the trains, oh they have trains and lots of 'em in this area!

We've checked out most of the city parks, I'm happy to report they are all in use. It's good to see the locals enjoying the outdoors! Loved the people watching...some of our imaginations run a little wilder than others...huhmmm.

Observing the local activity at Dixieland. Playing Frisbee while at the Sports Complex. 

We've also visited a couple Starbucks and quickly had a favorite! We explored the downtown area, went to the farmers market, found a little bakery, toured the Marine Academy, home to the model sculpture for the Iwo Jima in Washington, DC. It's all interesting! The local walking tour was a large group and unfortunately the guide left something to be desired, but we met some nice people! The farmers market was really small but still neat to walk around and see the local flare!

Iwo Jima Memorial.

On the downtown walking tour.

We were really thrilled to find an indoor aquatics center online and for $1 we thought we could "swim" and use the facilities. Awesome except it reality there were not 'facilites' as in real showers (just rinse off stations)/ Boooo! One of the issues when you don't campground camp, is that  you have no facilities so it is a challenge to get a shower! Of course Roada has hers but we try to minimize water usage when not sure where our next dump station and water fill will be. MiRV actually did end up swimming laps at the pool and did use the rinse offs so it was fine overall and well worth his dollar to do it!

I do believe Harlingen is a pretty neat little town, quite diverse and has an interesting history and we have enjoyed our time but we are ready for a change of scenery so we are heading west! Stay tuned for our next adventure taking place tomorrow afternoon as we travel into the Texas countryside to attend a bullfight in the Santa Maria Bullring!

The other Big News around here is the capture of 'El Chapo' and the lottery with it's BIG jackpot! Guess we should get a couple tickets...

On a side note I must say we have about a gabillion Customs & Border Patrol agents floating around down here. They are active, VERY active. We saw them in a full on chase with a K9 unit on our way from Kingsville to Harlingen. We passed multiple stations and there were hundreds of cars parked there. We were passed by one on the wrong side of the road going really fast, we have seen them just standing outside their cars observing the traffic flow, just going with traffic up and down the roads and in the drivethru lane at Starbucks!. It's impressive; while I remember seeing them on our last visit in 2012 I don't quite remember them having this much presence and I'm not really sure how that makes me feel.

#OWT