rollingin2007pg05

Montana Keeps on Rolling, Travels for 2007
Part 5

There is a fabulous zoo in Brownsville Texas, the Gladys Porter Zoo. I have been wanting to go visit for a couple of years, and somehow it never happened, so this year we made it happen. We picked a day we hoped would not be too hot (funny after all the cool and wet weather we have been having, eh??). We were thrilled that when we got to the zoo it was slightly overcast. It was a great photo day, no sun glare to deal with. They had a number of animals that we had not seen before, the animals were displayed in natural settings, some of the viewing areas were behind glass and we were quite delighted with how close we actually were to the animals, sometimes only a few feet seperated us from wild cats. Between 3 couples we took well over 500 photos! Yep, it was quite the photo op!

Click on the Zoo photo to the left and go to the slide show for the Gladys Porter Zoo, there are 25 photos, of the most unusual animals, or animals that we enjoyed being close to, or that had babies.I have tried to identify each photo, and on some I have information on the animal, such as land of origin.

We decided to drive to the zoo along Route 281, which runs from Hidalgo to Brownsville along the Rio Grande River. On one stretch of the road we found about 5 or 6 small cemeteries. What fascinated us was the fact that several of them were right along the road, in fact, the front boundary of the cemetery laid right next to the road, no right of way or shoulder for the roadway. We stopped at one, just to have a look. Here is an overall view of part of this cemetery. By the way, the Rio Grande River and Mexico are just beyond that line of trees in the back of the photo. It was very well kept considering how old it was.

Right: This stone is one of the most unusual I have seen. It marks the burial place of at least 4 or 5 family members, of the Torres family. The shape is very unusual, the surface appears to be some form of tiles. It is very handsome indeed.