Padre Island

We finally took a day to tour a little bit, we decided to travel to Padre Island and enjoy the day. Padre Island is a very nice place and lots smaller than I remember as going as a little girl. All I could really remember about Padre Island was the long bridge across to it and my grandaddy walking and looking for sea shells. We really chose a great day to go because it was a very quiet, not to many people and slow rainy day. So as for the beach---we didn't get to experience it, but we did decide to take a Dolphin Watch tour, and it was much more enjoyable to me. When you sign up for things like this you always wonder if it will really be as good as they make it out to be. Well it WAS!! We watched dolphins for almost an hour, so peaceful seeing how they just enter in and out of the water. We took probably 30 or so pictures to try to get a glimpse of them on camera, Curtis had lots more patience than me so the pictures you see are the ones he was able to capture. It was a 2 hour tour and along with the dolphins the tour guide dropped a net to catch just anything out of the ocean--it was very intersting too. Thankfully he was very knowledgeabel of marine life and explained everything that was caught. The most exciting thing was seeing a "Butterfly Ray", family to the sting ray. It was huge to us---

Looks like we will be in Harlingen for another week. We really felt we would have been moving on by now, but it seems just as we get wrapped up, they drop another 10-20 claims for us. We are so thankful!! All of our friends that we have become acquainted with in Oklahoma left us this past Thursday morning, so we feel like company has left us and we are having to find new friends. We were so fortunate to have some of our friends from Oklahoma here with us.

We have met a great couple from Lafayette, Louisiana, they too have been doing this since Wilma and have been on the road for a year now. They have 3 grown children going to college and all still living at home. We have really enjoyed getting to know them and know that we will be in contact from now on. In this business you may see someone here and work together for 2-3 months and never see them again. .

Our claim load now has stretched form Mission, Tx to Brownsville, Tx. The whole valley area. When we arrived in McAllen a month ago(wow, that doesn't seem possible), it brought back so many memories of my grandparents living here many years ago. I can remember their orange grove, their lovely friends that came for winter visiting and the wonderful smell that was in the air.

After the hurricane, there was no "good smell", it actually smelled bad, dirty and yucky. We have thankfully been here long enough for the sweet aroma to return to the air. It is so amazing how fast God's creations can come back to life so fast. All flowers are blooming again, trees are blooming and if it wasn't for the blue tarps and tree debris stacked on the side of the road you would never know a hurricane was here one month ago.
Padre Island had more damage to structures, several motels and restaurants still closed, I am posting a picture of one of the motels with a big hole in the side. I cannot imagine staying and riding one of those storms out. Way to scary for me!

Our claims are getting smaller and smaller and lots less damages. Other than having a communication barrier at times, the work is getting faster and faster. So it is much less stressful now. The first two weeks of any storm is very hectic and takes time to get into the groove with all the new bosses and trying to get the most severe damages handled first.

I hope to post again soon with report as to where we will be next, that is the most exciting thing about this job, we never know when, where or for how long, but we just pack and go and take each day at a time.
Until then.............