Time is Flying By!

The internet connection we've been 'borrowing' has been erratic so I've not been able to blog regularly. Yesterday we went to an Internet cafe here on the island and also 'borrowed' a wireless connection in the parking lot of the convention centre to check our e-mail. Back at the condo last night, we are getting the connection much better although still intermittently. Also, the card reader on my laptop isn't working properly so I have to pepper this entry with links as I'm unable to post my photos.

Tuesday we grabbed a couple of sandwiches at WalMart and $0.25 Sam's Diet Colas and had a picnic lunch at Roloff Park in Laguna Madre, just up the coast from Port Isabel. The total bill was $5. We saw a flock of about 50 whistling ducks. Skip had been wondering when we were going to see them. After lunch we headed over to the Brownsville Golf Centre for a round of golf. It was cloudy so we didn't get sunburned. It also threatened rain but we only got a few sprinkles. On the golf course we saw a couple more whistling ducks and a beautiful vermillion flycatcher.

Yesterday morning we went to the boardwalks at the convention centre. It was pretty close to low tide so many of the shore birds were intent on capturing their morning meal. We saw tricolour herons, reddish egrets, great blue herons, snowy egrets all fishing. We also got a good look at the elusive clapper rail. We also saw the alligator again. He only exposes his front half while sunning himself. We had lunch at Coconuts - the coconut shrimp and margarita special - yum!

Last night a thick fog rolled in so we couldn't see the lunar eclipse. I guess we'll have to wait until December of 2010.

Today Skip and I went back to Atascosa NWR to see what we could see. This time of year, different migrating birds are coming and going so every visit is different. Today we saw an Altamira oriole for the first time. It was nesting just outside the registration office. We also saw a few eastern meadowlarks when we were on the 15 mile loop. The yucca palms are starting to bloom now, sending their white blooms up through the middle of the tops of the plants.

















Knittingwise, I've finished the Blossom Diamond Scarf. It turned out very well. I would like to knit the multidirectional scarf at some point. There is an appalling paucity of non-acrylic yarn at WalMart so I'm going to wait until we get farther north and hit a yarn shop. I finished the Lighthouse Gancey socks as well.

Now I'm working on the Cece cardigan. I'm finding the instructions really tricky to follow and should probably have made a spreadsheet first. For example, there is an 8 row lace pattern but there are increases every 12 rows. And on the sleeves, there is the same 8 row pattern with increases every 9th row. I'm just going to increase every 8th row - to heck with it. Argh! It is almost impossible to rip it back to a certain point because of the lace pattern and all the yarn overs. I toyed with the idea of knitting both sleeves at the same time on the one circular needle but decided to keep it simple for myself and do one sleeve at a time.

Today we stopped at the 'welcome to South Padre Island' place to get our picture taken. Sure enough a van pulled up with people who wanted us to take their picture so they took ours. They were from Mount Albert, Ontario and another group pulled up from Manitoba. They were interested in where we were staying and what we paid. I gave them the URL of the management company. This is the building we're staying in.