An Impromptu Road Trip To South Texas

Many years ago, Fabgrandpa and I were hot shot delivery drivers, delivering frozen food in a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, using insulated blankets and dry ice to keep the foods from thawing out. We also had a pop-up camper, that we took to the closest state park, and camped there while waiting for the dispatcher to call us. We went to work from the campground, and returned there after the delivery was done.

One day we had a particularly frustrating delivery. When the dispatcher called us to do another delivery on the same day, I was just plain fed up with the job, and told the guy that we quit. It was a spur of the moment thing, but it immediately meant that neither my husband nor I had a job!

When I told Fabgrandpa what I had done, he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to go on a road trip to south Texas, and go shopping across the border in Mexico. I wanted to get pottery and tiled mirrors, and other pretty things, and bring them home to Georgia and sell them. And so it was that we loaded up the pop-up, hitched it to the back of our Dodge pick up truck, and headed to Mission, Texas.

It took us three days to get there. We went down to I-10, through southern Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. We turned south off of I-10 at Schulenburg, taking Alt 77 through Cuero to 72, which took us to Three Rivers. From there it was a straight shot all the way to McAllen. In McAllen, we followed US 83 to Mission, were we had a reservation at Bentsen-Rio Grand Valley State Park to camp for a week.

Back in 1997, when we took our spur of the moment road trip to Mission, you could still camp at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in an RV. The campground closed shortly after our stay there, and is only primitive walk in campsites now. While we were camping there, we saw, and heard, flocks of chachalacas. Those birds were very loud, and woke us up every morning. Green jays are also found there. There were also raccoons, armadillos, and more. It was a little un-nerving to hear these animals scurrying around our camper, and sometimes fighting under our bed at night.

We did go across the border to Mexico a couple of times to go shopping for pottery, chimineas, tinware, tiled mirrors, and Mexican blankets. We got some really good prices on the things we bought. Even with having to pay a customs fee, we were still able to make a profit on the things we bought. The funny thing is, when we got back home, I called the dispatcher and told him we were ready to come back to work, and he gave us delivery the very next day!