Hidalgo

Hidalgo is the town RIGHT next to the US/Mexico border bridge to Reynosa. We are little by little, poco a poco, learning about the area and what's around, so we took a little field trip down to explore Hidalgo. If we didn't turn left, we would have been on the bridge, and then we would have been in Reynosa, that's how close you are to the border in Hidalgo.

Yesterday I finished a book about immigration and crossing borders, Enrique's Journey. The book tells the story of a boy's travels from Honduras to the United States in hopes of reuniting with his mom. It is a hard story to read, but it's a true story, and an important glimpse into the world of immigration. The entire time we were at the border, scenes kept flashing through my mind. But that, perhaps, is for a different post...

We visited the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, the primary source of irrigation in the Rio Grande Valley from 1909 to 1983, but now a museum. Irrigation literally changed the landscape of the Valley, and in aerial photos, you can still see the difference today. The pumphouse is an old dusty building, cobwebs hanging from the beams. The light from the many windows illuminate the particles hanging mid-air and standing next to an open window provided a breeze to cool the rapidly warming day. If you stop, say hello to Melissa and Vernon and Miss Mary (who is a Winter Texan from Schenectady, but she's slow getting north this year because there is just so much to be done in Hidalgo. If you need to find Miss Mary, just ask at City Hall, she advises us...). 

We tagged onto the back of a group of schoolkids getting a tour, which was just about my speed, wandering but steady, with bite size chunks of information to digest.  Thanks Wilbur. These kids were early elementary school age, full of energy and trying really hard not to touch when Mr. Wilbur asked them not to touch. They were fascinated by the towering smokestack of the pumphouse, and one boy was quite sure that he could replicate it with Legos. I bet he does.  

There is a huge model train in the Pumphouse, and the kids grinned wide when the engineer pulled the whistle. We watched him turn the roundhouse and line up the engines and move the freight trains to the right track. From up above, we followed the trains as they chugged around the model 1950's Valley.

Then we discovered that Hidalgo is home of the World's Biggest Killer Bee so I couldn't leave without a picture of THAT, of course! And since it was lunchtime... we stopped at formerly-a-gas-station but now Su Casa restaurant, where I ordered the last chile relleno stuffed with white Mexican cheese and we all devoured tortillas de maiz hecha por mano! Mmm.

(I'm so thankful that learning culture and community includes eating...)

And that was a morning.

More exploration yet to follow!