Early up. Early out.

Port Mansfield is small but packed with interesting sights.

A spin through the Laguna Point Recreation Area just outside Port Mansfield reveals a large herd of White-tailed Deer and a raffle of Wild Turkeys. Probably the same deer herd from last night. Locals say there are more Wild Turkeys in Mansfield than people. I know about that. Most of my friends back in Staunton are wild turkeys.

Back to Port Mansfield and route 186 west, then south on 1420 to Willimar (population 15), then Rio Hondo (population 2,400). Brilliantly flowering Jerusalem Artichokes guard the roadsides for miles. Wind tower blades turn slowly, churning out those megawatts of electricity to power air conditioners in McCallan, seventy-five miles to the southwest.

Flat agricultural land, with crops as far as one can see.

On 1420, we stop and talk about crops with stout, pleasant and cheerful, straight as a beanpole Glen, who is working with a mate to load fertilizer into a spreader. He is impressed that we are from Virginia and assumes we must be lost to be on this back road. “No,” I say, “we don’t know where we are, but we are not lost.” Glen smiles and says, “well, what can I do for you?”

“Tell me what these crops are,” I reply. Glen smiles again and delivers a most informative mini-lecture about farming in this hot, dry country. “Well,” he says, “we have cotton here. We grow lots of cotton in these parts. It doesn’t need much water. Over yonder, that there is sorghum. In those fields to the south, we are experimenting with a corn variety that our agricultural agents developed. They say it can tolerate drought much better than the variety you grow back in Virginia. We shall see about that.”

From Rio Hondo, we drive east to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge for a visit. A 97,000-acre wildlife mecca with wetlands, tidal flats, desert & prairie habitats for birds and other of God’s creatures.

We stop at the visitor’s center. Cherry rangers maintain bird feeders there. We are lucky to see Green Jays (Cyanocorax yncas), Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus), Altamira (Icterus gularis) and Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula) eating oranges and seeds.

Don’t you art majors love those Latin names?

A walk along Atascosa Lake reveals two American Alligators and big piles of poop. I mean big piles.

We find out later from the cheery ranger that the poop belongs to Nilgai Antelope (Boselaphus trogocamelus), which the King family introduced into the area in the 1920s and 30s for oil barons from Houston to hunt in their spare time. Nilgai Antelope are the largest such animals in Asia and are endemic to the Indian subcontinent. A large bull can weigh about seven hundred pounds. They are, of course, exotic creatures in this refuge and do much damage to the ecosystem. Occasionally the refuge sponsors hunts to lower their numbers.

They spent their time wandering about, eating native Texas grasses, generally tearing things up and pooping a lot.

Sort of like us.

The poop piles are so big we decided there must be elephants in the area. As it turns out, Nilgai Antelope are “aggregate poopers.” If you are a Nilgai Antelope and you find a pile of Nilgai Antelope poop, you are supposed to deposit at that same spot, thus aggregating the poop. What’s the heck?

Now the mad rush westward on the very busy and congested I-2 corridor through Harlingen (population 65,000), Mercedes (population 15,600), McAllen (population 143,000) and finally arriving at a dog friendly La Quinta Inn in Mission (population 77,000), Texas, our first stay in a nice hotel, our first stay in any hotel. Time for a long, hot shower. We even bathed Sawyer. I’ll be surprised if the hotel staff doesn’t quarantine our room after we leave.

Hau, Mitakuyepi! Mikakuye Oyasin