On the Road Again

The plan was to arrive in the Florida Keys on March 15 for our one month stay.  We made it with a day to spare, narrowly avoiding the catastophic flooding in Texas, Louisianna, Mississippi etc.  Three days after leaving the Texas/LA border, I-10 was closed in both directions.  I can't even imagine the mess that must have been.  We had one breakdown, resulting in a 60 mile tow which was fortunately covered by the Freightliner warranty.  The other problem was failure of the alternator to charge the house batteries while underway, a big problem with the new residential fridges and dry camping in Walmarts.  It has been diagnosed as a failed solenoid, which will be fixed while we are in the Keys.

Tow from Gila Bend

Max is becoming a gypsy dog, adapting to ever changing sights and smells.  He looks out endlessly, which cannot be done on lying on the floor.  His solution-share my chair for 3600 miles.

We had great success on backroads in Texas getting to McAllen to see my brother John and his wife Anna.  Our experience with roads in Texas is that they are very good.  It must be those high income tax rates!  McAllen is interesting demographically, older white snowbirds and Hispanics.  We had a delightful lunch at Delia's where they specialize in a variety of homemade tamales.  Sunday brought so many customers that local police helped with traffic getting in and out.  We were the only Anglos and were treated to a small taste of the weekend only menuedo, tortillas made in front of you and sweet tamales that tasted like bread pudding with ground nuts and raisons.

Fresh Tortillas at Delia's

Another special outing was lunch at the Riverside Restaurant right on the Rio Grande.

John, Anna and the back of himself at the Riverside Restaurant

Sadly, the Federal government has left it to locals to properly patrol the river border.

Texas Highway Patrol protecting the border on the Rio Grande

I have to compliment Florida on their Interstate rest stops.  They are landscaped and quit pleasant, unlike California which has closed so many.  It must be the high income tax revenue in Florida.
One day we had two wild experiences in rest stops.  The first entailed a small dog, about 10 pounds, who decided he wanted to get out of the car and come play with Max.  He managed to get three legs out of a window cracked open about 4 inches.  I-10 was only a short distance and I was terrified that he would panic and run into traffic.  I managed to get the last leg out and held hm till his owner returned.  He had lost his sibling only a short time before and was apparently missing canine company.  The second incident was at the end of the day.  It was raining and a car entered the rest stop going fast, lost control, hit a tree and careened towards Richard who was walking Max.  They both ran and I could barely get Max out that night and the following morning.  The driver seemed OK  and Richard's heart returned to normal quite some time later.

The next post will feature the fun attractions, foods and doings in South Florida.