Isla Blanca Park, at the south end of South Padre Island, is full of recreational vehicles that are more homes than campers.
Snowbirds come down here to the tip of Texas for months, unfold carpets in front of their rigs, set up lawn chairs, bring out plants and yard ornaments, and congregate with friends to talk about fishing, the direction the country is going, kids, and the past more than the future. The fifth wheels, motor homes, trailers are mostly new with multiple slide outs that gleam in the sun. On the drive down many acquire a coat of road mud, grime, and fallout from hundreds of miles traveling down from Canada, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan.
This morning men clean one of our neighborhood RV’s from top to bottom. After the wash, they hand wax and polish till this unit looks like it did when it came off its showroom floor.
Dave, who brought his Air stream trailer, contracts them to wash and wax his truck and trailer for a hundred and thirty dollars using a special Air stream wax. Three Mexican contractors finish it in half a day.
Like at the Happy Trails Resort in Surprise, vacationers are not concerned with the nationality of the men or their wives or girlfriends doing the job. They are here, ready to work, have tools and experience, and turn out service that gets them referred all the way down the street.
RV’s, like boats, take hands on attention.
Being retired comes with responsibilities to do as little as you can for as cheap as you can get someone else to do it.
People love dogs.
Dogs behave as we humans should behave. They are loyal, patient, love unconditionally, and show affection.
Many retirees who pull their Rv’s to the Isla Blanca Park in South Padre Island, Texas do so because they don’t want to leave their dogs home with strangers or alone in a kennel with other dogs where they pick up a lot of bad habits. It makes economic and moral sense to take your dogs on vacation with you because dogs are family from the first day they adopt you.
This morning two adults walk two dogs. Even though leashes bind animals to their masters, one senses the leashes could be released, the dogs would scamper, but ultimately return to their masters sides where they belong.
This morning humans wouldn’t think about letting their best friends run away from their side.There is a $2000 fine if dogs are found running loose and the beach is patrolled by uniformed men in official trucks.
People love dogs more than money, but not by much.
Seagull Charley doesn’t come when you call his name.
Without a fish for Charley, he ain’t going anywhere and he won’t push tennis balls with his beak or do circus tricks.
This morning Charley strolls the beach watching for opportunities. What he catches is his and he will share only if he has a mind too.
There are dining opportunities on this beach all the way north to Corpus Christi and south to Mexico and when waves go out Charley quickly covers his little piece of real estate. He doesn’t own anything but his feathers but his basic rules are self preservation, having a full stomach, and taking care of Mama Charley and the kids.
When Charley leaves the beach and takes flight, this Padre Island strip of sand seems more isolated and less friendly.
In air, between sand and sea, Charley is free,and,oddly enough, it makes me feel free too as I watch him glide in the wind above me.
Wanting to fly has been a long time dream of our human species.
It is Weston’s idea to go see the dunes.
Passing through Midland on my way to the beach at Padre Island,Texas, I pay a visit to a nephew living in what some call ” the armpit ” of Texas.
Saturday we drive to the sand hills, take off our shoes and climb dunes. Sunday will be devoted to watching the Denver Bronco’s try to reach another Super Bowl. Weston is from Colorado and I wouldn’t expect him to support anyone but John Elway’s team.
Midland is a big small town in the middle of the oil patch. Around, and in, it’s city limits, are drilling rigs, unused casing, semis for delivering pipe and oil machinery, thousands of mud splattered pickup trucks, and metal buildings filled with oil related businesses
Women are, I am told, scarce here.
Finding a man that has a paycheck is a woman’s prerequisite for a long term relationship, so, with the downturn in commodity prices, many of the fair sex have moved to better hunting grounds.
Trekking up and down these baby dunes makes me believe it must be humbling to have to cross the Sahara Desert with a caravan of camels and only the stars to guide you.
This is a hard land to live in.
To survive here, women have to be tougher than the men who love them.
Leaving Roswell for Midland, Texas you start seeing oilfield pump jacks right off the highway.
There are no trees or bushes to hide them so they can’t be missed, look like grasshoppers, and have been shot with twenty two’s more than once. Some of the pump jacks are alone by themselves while others cluster in a circle the wagons formation with big collection tanks nearby. These fields have been producing for decades providing oil, jobs, tax revenues to the state of New Mexico and at least once a week a scruffy man in oil stained levi’s pulls his tank truck up and drains them of all the oil that came out of the well casings that go down deep into the ground.
The United States burns up millions of barrels of oil per day and oil has been pumped for a hundred and fifty years in this country to supply a modern world. Roswell and Midland is oil country and roughnecks is a word that doesn’t just describe men crawling around drilling rigs in oil stained coveralls, work boots and hard hats.
In this landscape, pump jacks work mechanically, without complaint, twenty four hours a day. The well sites are clean and not near as dirty as people’s back yards in Roswell or any of the small towns dying along the highway.
Pulling the handle off a gas station pump and sticking it in your tank is the last small part of a long chain of effort. It takes millions of years to make oil, months to make it good for our uses, and minutes for us to burn up.
When oil stops flowing, we see how uncivilized people can be.
When I get to the airport to fly back to the U.S., my plane home has already taken off without me.
The change of my flight times was buried and unread in an e mail from the airline so I am left grounded and have to purchase another ticket home. The airline assigns the blame on me and I’m not getting any sympathy.
I get online, book another flight to get home, sit around the Cuenca airport for half a day before boarding my new flight, left to try and get a refund through their Customer Service department.
In the sky, miles are chewed up quickly. This new plane flies at 35,000 feet and over six hundred miles per hour, standard for commercial flights but nothing near the speed of a fighter jet. It is dolled up on the inside like a modest economy car and is full of passengers who will make connections to reach multiple destinations.
Above the clouds, life is peaceful. The clouds have multiple designs and swirls, loop de loops and pilings on. Occasionally there are glimpses of terra firma, often vast reaches of brown or green broken by freeways, lakes, rivers, or mountain ranges.
When my third plane of this return trip reaches Albuquerque,home shakes my hand and asks , ” What took you so long to get back? ”
My ultimate satisfaction will be not using Travelocity or American Airlines on future trips.
I’m not going to blame myself for my screw up.
Finding everyone else accountable and responsible for making your life perfect is the new American way.
Panama hats have oddly enough always been made in Ecuador.
From the 1600’s, the weaving of hats out of the leaves of the toquilla palm has been done, at it’s finest level ,on the western coast of Ecuador.
These best hats are called Montecristo’s and are from the village of the same name in the province of Manabi. These hats are light colored, lightweight, breathable and have long been popular in hot climates where protection from the sun is essential . The price for Montecristos varies from hundreds of dollars to thousands.
It can take a skilled Ecuadorian craftsman up to six months to make one of these Panama hats. When you pick up a fine hat, it is light. You can roll it up in your suitcase and it returns to its shape when you take it out. The finer the weave the more expensive the hat.
President Theodore Roosevelt popularized the Panama hat when he wore one at the Panama Canal. A grandiose man, he was a President with an ego too large for whatever hat he was wearing.
It is said that a fine Panama hat will hold water and pass through a wedding ring when rolled up.
Machine made and cheap is the mantra of our times.
Turning men into machines and making machines do the work of men are themes of our day.
Within thirty minutes of Cuenca, right on the highway not far from Gualaceo, is an orchid farm that grows, cross breeds, and sells orchids worldwide to collectors and aficionados. Ecuador is home to thousands of varieties of orchids and Ecuagenera is a business that grows, researches, and promotes conservation of orchids in Ecuador and South America.
Orchids are epiphytes and attach themselves to trees, rocks, and other hosts. Interesting enough, there is one orchid that only needs light and water to survive. Andres, my guide,says people in Ecuador hang them in their showers instead of using a fan.
Ecuagenera, according to its brochure, ” does research to find the best cultivation medium for each orchid group and the best micro climate in which to grow them. ” In their nursery and showroom are gorgeous variations of color and shape.
If people are spending all this this time to come up with newer, stronger, more beautiful varieties of orchids, it is not inconceivable that some farmers would want to shape the human race to match their needs.
Humans don’t match up well to orchids.
Orchids just have to be themselves to be exquisite.
You can buy flowers all over Cuenca, but one of the best places to buy is at a small flower market in front of the Sanctuario Mariano, across from the New Cathedral, down the street from Parque Calderone. Daily, under white canvas tents, ladies and men do flower arrangements, sell flowers, meet the public.
Cut flowers are one of Ecuador’s big exports, number 3.
Roses are the most popular for export to the U.S. and the industry employs 103,000 people and generates 800 to 900 million dollars annually to the Ecuador economy. Despite stiff foreign competition and changing likes of customers, the industry has improved its working conditions. Ecuador roses are world class quality and benefit from a longer growing season with no winter and lots of natural light. Cool Andean nights give the roses time to add coloration.
Facts are facts, but roses are a way to a woman’s heart.
Men, with a briefcase in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other, leave the market today with quiet hopeful smiles.
This morning Jose scampers up a coconut tree on the Island Academy grounds and separates coconuts from their necks.
They fall with a thud to the sand where he collects them, uses his machete to scalp them, then pours coconut water into plastic jugs that he sells for a couple of bucks a gallon. Under the authority of the Queen of England, the beaches, whatever washes up on the beaches, and whatever grows on them is fair game for the public. All he has to do is climb and get them. A competitor uses a twenty foot extension ladder to harvest nature’s crop but Jose climbs the old fashioned way.
When Jose climbs for his prize, he digs his feet into the coconut tree trunk and bows his legs. Then he extends his arms, holds on to the trunk, and pulls his legs up to his waist where he clamps them on the trunk again, extends his arms and hands, and repeats the process. His machete hangs on a rope tied to his belt loop. When he gets to the top of the tree he quickly cuts coconuts from their bunch with his machete.
He climbs down in reverse order, and, when he touches sand, he collects his coconuts and throws them over the fence onto the beach.
Business is brisk and a tourist from Ramon’s Village passes me with two gallon jugs, one in each hand. Coconut water is a health food favorite and reputed as some of the purest water on the planet.
Jose’s best scheme would be to train a monkey to do his job with a little knife in its mouth and a pirate bandana around his head.
All monkey’s should have to work for their coconuts.
Recent Comments