LaFeria, Texas

 Abbie and Walter Coffman are friends of Steve Spencer who sold us our RV, and now they are our friends.  They come to La Feria every winter and are set to come December 1^st and will stay until mid-March –like us. La Feria is 4 hours south of San Antonio and 7 miles from the Mexican border.  It is 5 minutes west of Harlingen,  40 minutes from S. Padre Island and an hour from Corpus Christie--about the same Latitude as Naples, Florida. The  Flea Market at Donna, TX  with Abbie and Walter was our first field trip here and it was really interesting.  They don’t have many Goodwill’s that I have seen but at the Flea Markets, they have food (particularly fruit--killer grapefruit), jewelry, clothes and used books –everything you can imagine.  It might be like the Flea Market in Nashville-- who knows we have never been.  Terry talked to a fella that makes wheel covers that we might want to consider since the RV will be sitting outside in the same spot for 4 months.

 

They have a wall at Nuevo Pueblo already.

Bring your passport and 75 cents

Most people walk across but you can take your car

Jessica's is where everyone goes for their prescriptions--OTC supplements are cheaper in the US

Next we had a couple of days in Mexico Progresso Nuevo which is about 30 minutes from La Feria and the thing to do is go, park at the border and walk across the bridge into Mexico.  It costs a quarter to go into Mexico and 50 cents to get back in along with your passport—Jessica’s for cheap drugs (all except narcotics), lunch came with a free margarita and you really had to push it to spend $5 apiece.  There are dentists, pharmacies and manicurists everywhere.  Steve says they are so cheap because they don’t worry about legal fees.  I chickened out on the manicure—communication was pretty spotty and I have had a bad experience before but they are only $10!

Main walkway in Progresso Nuevo-it is like walking through Opry Mills-venders on both sides of the sidewalk.  They start the kids out young--Children as young as Leeton and Holden were selling Chicklets and Christmas decorations

Main Street in Mexico

About 3 days before we went home for Christmas it snowed! It does get COLD in south Texas we had 3 frigid days and the snow was the first they had had in 15 years—not funny. 

We needed to get out of the RV and went to a local Bar/Restaurant in La Feria featuring a babbling Canadian lady, awful Mexican food, and good Travis Tritt music.  Nashville has them beat in food and music but at least the music was stuff we hadn’t heard in a while.  I read a really terrific book called Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck that had been recommended by my English Professor friend, Kate Daniels.  He and his dog cross America in 1960 when Steinbeck was 58 years old. They were in a 1960 version of an RV—how fun it was to read the 1960 version of what Fitz and I are doing now.  On Dec. 13^th we traveled to San Antonio to get on an airplane and go home for Christmas.  Pictures of this part of the trip are few and far between because my phone died and I lost the pictures, I should know better.