Crossing the Rio Grande

Not as sunny this morning, but the warming trend continues.

As the day progresses we will have crossed the Rio Grande but not entered Mexico; the crossing did not involve using a bridge, or any form of vehicle, yet we didn’t get our feet wet. How did we do that?

After breakfast I headed out to see what the problem was with the rearview camera which died on the trip from San Antonio. After much searching and removing many bolts to reveal the areas where the cable runs the problem was found. Most of the cable was protected as it was above the base of the trailer, in a couple of places the cable was exposed to the elements, in one of these areas the cable had been damaged. I am guessing a small stone hit it at speed and damaged the outer cable as well as severing the powerline. With this repaired I tried out the setup, only to find that it still didn’t work. Further investigation revealed an intermittent connector on the camera, once this was fixed all was good. All I have to do now is put it all back together.

Meantime Lyn was working on her quilt, all must have gone well as there no mutterings today.

After lunch we headed out for our first serious geocaching expedition this year. We headed about 10 miles north, and first went into the Post Office for some stamps. We found a couple of caches close by, then headed about a mile west and drove along a levee on the edge of the mighty Rio Grande. All around this area are acres and acres of pecan orchards, at the moment all the trees are without leaves, but in the summer there will be millions of pecans on them.

Pecan Orchard

A series of caches had been placed along the levee, and we found the first one very quickly. The next one was on an island in the middle of the river, this could pose a problem.

The Mighty Rio Grande

As you can see from the picture above the river is totally dry, the island is showing on the right. In fact at this point the river only gets filled during the summer, I would guess from the heavy rain storms down here. Also at this point the Rio Grande no longer defines the border with Mexico. Just outside El Paso the Rio Grande heads off to the North West but the border swings west overland.

Further along the levee we came across a very different cache.

It was a bird box with a number of screws bolts and nails in both sides. One of these screws / bolts / nails on each side was connected to an electrical circuit. When the correct pieces were touched a buzzer went off and a code was displayed in a small window in the front of the box. This code then had to be used to open a combination lock, which then allowed the base of the box to open, revealing the log book. Very nifty!