OUR DAUGHTER, CARRIE, VISITS THE RGV.

Thursday, October 23  - The next few posts will be a bit dated, but when Carrie is around, it is go, go, go. Carrie arrived early this morning. We packed in as much as we could on day one. She is only here for the weekend and wants to experience everything we have done in five years in three days. This should just about kill us for sure.

After picking her up at the airport, we visited Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle National Shrine. Our first visit here was in 2010. It is just such a gorgeous Basilica. For centuries Christians have made pilgrimages with a spiritual purpose to holy places.The history of this Marian Shrine begins in 1920, when the Reverend Alfonso Jalbert, O.M.I., built a small wooden chapel in San Juan, Texas as a mission church of St. Margaret Mary Church in Pharr, Texas. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops designated Our Lady of San Juan del Valle a national Shrine on March 24, 1998, and the following year on June 12,1999,  Pope John Paul II designated it as a minor Basilica. If you are in the area, be sure to put this on your must see list. You won’t be disappointed.

There is a gorgeous walking tour of about a mile. It commemorates 14 key events on day of Christ's death. The majority of them concern His final walk through the streets of Jerusalem carrying the Cross. The fourteen stations of the Cross are depicted by life-size statues crafted in bronze and resin. There are 30 life-size bronze figures in all. Absolutely gorgeous…according to Marsha.

Our next stop was the famous Los Ebanos Ferry Crossing. This is a must see, must do for people who have been there, done that. It's the last hand-operated ferry operating on either border. It is a 3-car barge crossing the Rio Grande River from the U.S.  to Mexico. At the crossing there is custom/border patrol. You can park and walk onto the ferry, or you can drive your car on the ferry. Most U.S. citizens that cross over into Mexico here go to buy liquor or cigarettes. They must be desperate. We wouldn’t cross here, that’s for sure!

If that wasn’t enough for one day, we had a social and game night at the clubhouse. There about 20 of us playing horse racing and Farkle. Wonderful time with dear friends.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

LA LOMITA CHAPEL

Thursday, Oct 16, continued – After our lunch, written about in the previous post, we traveled about a mile down the river to visit a historical mission. La Lomita (the hillock) was first built in 1865. When the City of Mission, Texas, was founded in 1908, the city was named “Mission” in honor of La Lomita Chapel. Now, La Lomita Chapel is a religious shrine and a favorite site of historians that provides a glimpse into an important part of the history of Mission and South Texas in general.

La Lomita became an important site for the Calvary of Christ, the missionaries who rode up and down the Rio Grande Valley visiting widely separated Catholic churches, baptizing newborns, performing marriage ceremonies and blessing the dead.

Church records indicate that La Lomita was rebuilt in 1899 with stones carved from the hill it was built on.

Pretty surprised that the church is left open, and the many religious relics are not bothered.

 These notebooks contain prayers that visitors leave.

Gifts are left In the back corner of the Chapel.
 

Virgin Mary.
 

Earthen oven

We had a wonderful few hours with our friend, John. Thanks for sharing this Mission with us.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

LUNCH WITH A DEAR FRIEND

Thursday, Oct 16, 2014 – We met fellow blogger and friend, John (Shoeless Joe in blogland), for lunch this afternoon at the Riverside Club located on the banks of the Rio Grande River. Friends, Angie and Rick, came along to renew their friendship with John. We introduced Angie and Rick to John at this same restaurant last year. We've been here several times and enjoy the atmosphere on the river.

L-R: Angie, Marsha, Paul, John, Rick

John was pulling for St. Louis to win the National League Pennant, and Rick was pulling for the Giants. The Giants are headed to the World Series. So sorry John.

The special here is the Pork Tenderloin sandwich. It is so huge. Paul couldn’t eat it alone, so we shared it and still had plenty to eat! Another “special” is the boat ride on the river. We've yet to take this excursion. Not sure we are interested in playing “chicken” with the border patrol gunboats flying up and down the river...LOL.

Border patrol fly by on a regular basis.

We did enjoy watching the turtles, catfish, pan fish, and even a rather large Gar, we saw in the river. The waitress even brought us out some uneaten French fries to feed them.

Can’t believe people swim in this water.
 

There were even some horses bathing in the river on the Mexico side and one lonely mule. This is near the same spot many children were crossing the border illegally this past summer. To say the border patrol is very active in this area is an understatement.

A pretty neat place to visit after a wonder lunch with friends.

Boys will be boys.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!