08/03: More than Geocaching
Category: General
Posted by: The Agnew Family
Ed has seen La Joya Lake on the local maps for years and decided that today was the day we were going there. La Joya is about 15 minutes west of us. There was only one problem with Ed's plan ... you can't get there from here, at least not as the general public. Found two driveways into the lake, one was a private fishing and hunting club and the other one had a big gate with lots of padlocks on it emitting a huge sense of PRIVATE. Even though we didn't see the lake we still had fun geocaching.
One of our stops was at the Hand Drawn Ferry crossing in Los Ebanos. We had heard the ferry wasn't running this year but found that information to be incorrect when we arrived in Los Ebanos. In fact, a new customs building is under construction. We chatted with some winter Texans who explained they were there to purchase some duty free liquor. The procedure is purchase liquor at the duty free store, the store takes the liquor to the border, the purchaser walks down to the ferry after paying the dollar fee to ride the ferry, the purchaser then rides the ferry to Mexico and remains on the ferry and rides back to the US, the purchaser then goes through US customs with the the duty free liquor. If you time it right it takes less than 15 minutes to ride back and forth and go through customs.
One of the caches was at a National Wildlife area. Didn't see any wildlife but did see this moth/butterfly (how do you tell the difference?)
Two more caches were at this cemetery. Mexicans fill their cemeteries with flowers and decorations.
The cache was called Fidel's Stogie ... we were in the town of Havana and the cache was a cigar container.
While looking for another cache we came across these burned / burning fields. Our neighbor says it's a method of weed control used when fields are irrigated and the owner doesn't want chemicals to leach out.
The "Big Tree". Ed and I have been here before but John and Carol hadn't. This is a 900 year old Montezuma Cypress. Yes, there was a cache here but we opted to pass on it as it was in the middle of a scrubby area with 2 foot tall weeks all around.
The Big Tree is south of the wall (built to keep Mexicans out) but there is a break in the wall so we went through. The breaks in the wall are for the farmers who have fields south of the wall. Not sure that this wall has stopped any Mexicans from illegally entering the US.
One of our stops was at the Hand Drawn Ferry crossing in Los Ebanos. We had heard the ferry wasn't running this year but found that information to be incorrect when we arrived in Los Ebanos. In fact, a new customs building is under construction. We chatted with some winter Texans who explained they were there to purchase some duty free liquor. The procedure is purchase liquor at the duty free store, the store takes the liquor to the border, the purchaser walks down to the ferry after paying the dollar fee to ride the ferry, the purchaser then rides the ferry to Mexico and remains on the ferry and rides back to the US, the purchaser then goes through US customs with the the duty free liquor. If you time it right it takes less than 15 minutes to ride back and forth and go through customs.
One of the caches was at a National Wildlife area. Didn't see any wildlife but did see this moth/butterfly (how do you tell the difference?)
Two more caches were at this cemetery. Mexicans fill their cemeteries with flowers and decorations.
The cache was called Fidel's Stogie ... we were in the town of Havana and the cache was a cigar container.
While looking for another cache we came across these burned / burning fields. Our neighbor says it's a method of weed control used when fields are irrigated and the owner doesn't want chemicals to leach out.
The "Big Tree". Ed and I have been here before but John and Carol hadn't. This is a 900 year old Montezuma Cypress. Yes, there was a cache here but we opted to pass on it as it was in the middle of a scrubby area with 2 foot tall weeks all around.
The Big Tree is south of the wall (built to keep Mexicans out) but there is a break in the wall so we went through. The breaks in the wall are for the farmers who have fields south of the wall. Not sure that this wall has stopped any Mexicans from illegally entering the US.