Our Epic Trip back to Canada

We had everything packed on Sunday night and were ready to load the car on Monday morning. We picked up coffee at McDs on the island then went to the post office. It was open before 8:30 - yay! There was one parcel for me but the two other pieces of mail that I had been waiting for weren't there. The postal worker said I could call the post office later in the week and we could arrange forwarding any items that came in.

We left SPI at 8:30am and made it to Buffalo TX by about 6:30pm. In Buffalo, we ate at a barbeque place near the hotel (so we could walk there). There was only one other couple dining at the restaurant. The next morning, only cold cereal (no milk), yogurt cups, coffee, and juice were available. Nothing that was prepared by a hotel staffer. 

As we progressed northward, we sensed that more people were getting the message to keep a social distance. We stopped in Sikeston MO for dinner after a very long day of driving through the rest of TX, across Arkansas and into Missouri. Rather than go out again for dinner we remembered that we had a bunch of tamales that had been frozen solid when we left SPI the day before. I had wrapped them up with a solid lump of ice. Almost all the ice was still frozen and the tamales were still cold so we popped them in the microwave and ate them in our room. The dining room was roped off. The next morning we could serve ourselves breakfast but again, had to eat it in our rooms. 

Wednesday, we made for Marshall MI. Dining rooms in Illinois were closed so we ordered our salads at Subway (excellent by the way) and ate them in the car. Instead of taking the loop around Indianapolis, we decided to trust the GPS and whistled right through downtown on I-70 then zoomed northward on I-465 then I-69. We were too tired at Marshall to wait for good food to be prepared for pickup (Applebee's) so we ordered a pizza at the new Domino's in town and I went and picked it up at the drive thru. 

Some places are not accepting cash - only credit or debit.

We stopped to fill the tank and pick up milk, cream, bread, and cheese before crossing into Canada. We were asked if we had any COVID-19 symptoms, told to self-isolate for 14 days, and were given this piece of paper:

We were surprised that it just said to avoid places near others if you become ill - highly inadequate instruction IMHO.

We grabbed burgers at an ON Route at Ingersoll. All the tables had been removed - no eating in. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the Burger King Bacon and Cheese burger was.  We wolfed them down in the car and continued eastward. We had planned on taking the 401 through Toronto as we knew the traffic was WAY down. We then learned about an accident that had a couple of eastbound lanes closed ijn the city so we decided to take the 407 after all. We got home by 2:30pm.

Now we have quarantined ourselves. Kind friends did grocery shopping for us and left the items on the front porch. We exchanged a couple of words through the storm door. Other neighbours delivered our mail and checked to see if we needed anything. We had lots in the freezer, too, so are in pretty good shape for the next few days. I will be looking into shopping online and either having the goods delivered or picking them up. 

I am still recovering from driving 3200km in 3.75 days and still haven't fully unpacked. All the laundry is done, though. Since I'm confined for the next 12 days, I have plenty of time to get things in order.

I miss my stitching friends. I have downloaded the Hangouts app so we hope to have a group video chat sometime soon.

We are sad to have our holiday shortened by a month and be missing the warm weather and wonderful, spring bird migration. That being said, I am very grateful our travel medical insurance provider made us get our butts in gear when they threatened to cut off our coverage. I'm also grateful our government ordered us to come home quickly. It is unsettling to not know from one day to the next if regular services will be available. As we drove northward, there were more and more restrictions.  Thank goodness we didn't have any symptoms or that would have been a whole other issue to deal with. For now, we are staying put, riding out the rest of our quarantine, and lining up things we can do around the house in the meantime.

I haven't done a lot of stitching. I've spent a lot of time on the phone - mostly on hold - trying to figure out how to access some accounts online. Today I spent over 2 hours on hold with Bell Canada and got disconnected before talking to a representative. Argh!!! Our landlline doesn't work yet even though I put in an order on Wednesday to be reactivated. The TV worked when we got here on Thursday and the Internet service seems to have sorted itself out. We only get telemarketing calls anyway so I'm really not that worried about the phone still not working. If I'm up in the middle of the night, I'll call Bell then.

Did I mention it's really good to be home?

Things are Happening Quickly

It’s been a while since I posted. Since last time it rained a couple of days and we went to movies at our little cinema both days - “Parasite” and “Onward” respectively. Then we went birding at the university in Brownsville with our birding group on Thursday and continued up the valley to McAllen for our vacation from our vacation

Since Thursday the COVID-19 pandemic has been declared and every day there are new travel restrictions. We initially decided we’d leave on April 1. Then this morning, I got an email from our travel medical insurer stating that since the state of emergency was declared in Canada last night, we have 10 days before our travel medical insurance will be cancelled. We counted back from March 23 5 days and figured we could leave this Wednesday the 18th with a couple of days to spare. Since then we have decided to leave on Monday morning (the 16th). I have to stop at the post office when it opens then we’ll hit the road.

Sorry no pics right now. I’ll get caught up once we’re on the road.

A Big Day!

Yesterday was our regular Thursday morning outing with the Bay Area Birders. Our destination was the beach at Boca Chica at the mouth of the Rio Grande River. Skip and I got to the end of the road where the beach started before the rest of the group so backtracked a bit to do some birding along the road.

This little guy had the look and colouring of a scissor-tailed flycatcher and he was flycatching. Skip read in one of our field guides that juveniles don't have the long tail feathers right away. After we got back to the condo we were looking through phoebes in the field guide and saw that this bird was indeed a Say's phoebe. Mystery solved.

On the watery flats, a few sanderlings were running around.

We thought this next bird was a long-billed curlew but after looking at other photos online, we now think this is a whimbrel.

Here's a shot of the two of them together.

A Chihuahuan raven was on an overhead wire. First, it snagged a little crab. Then it flew down and grabbed a piece of orange.

The wind blew its feathers such that we could see white beyond the tips of the ones on its head. I didn't even know this was a thing.

This Harris' hawk had a band on each leg.

To get to the beach, we drove past Elon Musk's SpaceX. It looked like something out of "Lost in Space" - very rinky-tink.

There was a launch recently of an unmanned craft that immediately crashed. The debris was just lying beside the road. I'm glad it didn't crash over an inhabited area.

Then our birding group showed up in a convoy of 5 cars, drove off the end of the paved road and onto the beach. They tore off before we could get the car turned around to the right direction. We did see them in the distance so followed - driving on the beach - kinda slithering along. It was very strange because the water was almost at high tide. Then the convoy disappeared around a bend up the beach  and it was just us, following their tire tracks on a beach about three car widths wide.

We drove about a kilometre before we confessed to each other that we were very freaked out. In some places the water had already washed away some of the tire tracks. So we bailed. The beach was too narrow to do a 3-point turn so I drove backwards for several hundred yards until there was a spot wide enough for me to turn around. We were very glad to see the beginning of the paved road. I don't have any pictures because we were in survival mode.

On the way back from Boca Chica Beach, there is a Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint. Armed officers with German shepherds check each car that goes through to make sure there are no undocumented people or contraband in the car. Being right at the southern border would make it very easy for boats to come over and leave stuff on the beach. With our skin colour, Tilley hats, and Ontario licence plates, they just wave us through.

We decided instead to go to the Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary at the very south end of Brownsville. But first, we needed to grab something to eat and get some gas in the car. We pulled into a Sunoco station that displayed Laredo Taco Company menu.

I ordered the taco plate for $4.99 and a Diet Dr Pepper. The plate came with two sides. I chose charro beans and sopa de fideo (noodle soup).  It tasted a lot better than it looked.

Skip had the Gran Tocino the 'Big Bacon' taco. Instead of 2 for $3, he only ordered one so it cost him $1.99. With a bottle of water and tax, his lunch cost $3.18.

My long-time readers will remember our past experience with gas station food, and our sighting on our way down to TX this year.

Actually we had heard a lot of good things about the Laredo Taco Co. tacos over the past years so were glad they didn't disappoint.

While at the Sunoco station, we saw a couple of our birding friends. They were as freaked out as we were when they drove along the beach. Our intrepid leader had misread the tide chart. She thought it was going to be a really low tide. It turns out they didn't really see much anyway so we really didn't miss anything after all.

In order to get to Sabal Palm, we have to drive through the border wall. Here, it is going through a farmer's field and goes up along a levee that we have to drive over through the wall. The opening is patrolled 24/7 by the Customs and Border Patrol - a big white Chevy Suburban with a diagonal green stripe. They don't give us any problem, like their colleagues at the checkpoint we went through earlier.

After checking in at the sanctuary we walked directly to the feeding station. There are picnic tables and benches for observers. The tray in the centre of the photo is kept stocked with food for the birds. The box on the taller post to the left contains a live cam that operates during daylight hours.

Below the tray are a couple of water features.

Before long, some green jays came in for some food.

Then a white-tipped dove - a Texas specialty.

Cardinals

There were several Altamira orioles - another Texas specialty bird.

Olive sparrow.

Every time we come here we see a black-tufted titmouse.

The long-billed thrasher flew in to feed and back into a tree before I could get a good shot.

The office is in part of this house which was built in the early 1900s. Recently it registered with Airbnb. I asked the volunteer about the Airbnb thing and he said it was more of a 'B' than a 'B and B'. No breakfast is served. Someone lives in another house on site. He also said it would be a pretty secure place to stay because of the Border Patrol folks. I'm not sure it's my 'cup of tea'.

This is one of the Sabal palms that had been recently planted. It is the state tree of South Carolina and Florida. Its silhouette is on the SC licence plate. Sabal palms are resistant to freezing temperatures that can occasionally occur in the south.

Then we headed back to the island and decided to stop in at the Sheepshead lot to see what was there. It was nice and sunny.

My first scissor-tailed flycatcher of the year!!!

I take pictures of any monarch butterflies I see.

While at Sheepshead, we saw Bev from our birding group. She told us about a western brown pelican that was hanging around the boardwalk at Jim's Pier. We didn't even know there was such a creature but she told us it had a red pouch instead of a pink one. We beetled over there to see if we could spot it.

It wasn't hard to spot.

But we never did get a good shot of a stretched-out pouch,

There were a few royal terns perched on various posts along the dock.

The less mature ones kinda look like Groucho Marx.

Ruddy turnstones were  busy strolling up and down the pier as well.

 The field guide referred to its 'calico plumage'. That's a very good description.

Back at the condo, we crashed. There had been a lot of activity - most of it amazing. Some was scary (beach drive), and most of it was a lot of fun.

Late Afternoon Birding

Skip and I got the car's oil changed today in Brownsville. We then had lunch at D'Tony's just up  the Frontage Rd from the Toyota dealer. After lunch we went shopping at TJ Maxx, Target, Michaels, and Office Depot.

Back on the island we stopped at the Sheepshead lot and got to see a couple of new birds for us this trip.

Skip spotted our first black and white warbler. They really seem to like the bugs attracted by the weepy honey mesquite trees.

He then spotted a long-billed thrasher.

Our first blue grey gnatcatcher.

 We were losing the light so it was hard to get a great shot

These two great kiskadees were OK sharing this tree.

This is the first time I've seen the yellow crest peeking through the tops of their heads.

We didn't see a single bird at the lot on the other side of the street. Then we realized why when we spotted the resident Cooper's hawk.

It was pretty cool to see some new birds. The migration has started.

Planning Fabric and Floss

Teresa has finished with the pre-orders of her patterns and is stocking up for Market in Nashville this weekend. Some people have asked what fabrics and floss colours are used in some of the samplers so they can order them ahead of time as well and stitchery shops can stock up. She has decided to, on her blog, show the backs of her patterns which has that information.

Here's the front of 'Heaven and Nature':

and the back: 

Notice anything??

This is so exciting.

Late Afternoon Sunshine

It was lightly overcast today. We had brunch at Yummies Bistro near the causeway. I always have the Happy Eggs Benedict.

Then I went next door to Renee's - the only shop that carries Pandora beads on the island.

I bought myself the turtle Pandora bead that I've been admiring for a while now.

It has a blingy (cubic zirconia) shell.

This is the other side. There is a terrific turtle rescue centre on the island which we plan to visit someday soon. Turtles are one of my favourite animals - along with cats and donkeys.

After naps, we visited the Birding Center. It was high tide.

At the mistflower bed there were lots of fiery skippers, queens,

and both kinds of Buckeyes.

The tropical buckeye's middle 'eye' on the wing is larger that the one on the forewing. Also the ring around the eye on the forewing has a tawny circle around it.

The common buckeye has a lighter colour around that forewing 'eye and a lighter streak up to the top.

This tropical buckeye has a chunk out of its right hind wing.

Over by the pond at the entrance, the green heron was surveying the area.

The smaller red-eared slider was really pestering the larger one.

We finally saw Big Padre. Only his eyes and snout are visible to the left of the bubbling action in the pond. The smaller gator in the foreground is a female.

Way over in the mangroves to the north was the a male belted kingfisher.

A marbled godwit worked the flats, now flooded due to high tide.

Low tide 

High tide

The yellow-crowned night heron was out in nthe open.
I've never been so close to a roseate spoonbill this red. 
Over by bird blind #5, the black-crowned night heron was also out in the open.

The juvenile dozed a few feet away.

Down in the water, this turtle was moving quickly.

We make it a habit to scan the waterline of the reeds and mangroves. Skip spotten this least bittern. They are very small - about half the size of the American bittern - and really blend into their environment. I've never been able to spot a bittern. They've always had to be pointed out to me.

See how well it blends in with the reeds?

A short-billed dowitcher was over on the fresh water pond.

Lesser  yellowlegs.

This sabal palm has been nicely trimmed. They can tolerate freezing conditions.

The fronds bend back and do not have spines on the stems as compared to palmettos that have more of a fanlike frond and spines along the stem.