Mission, Texas

The Grapefruit City, Mission, TX. Home of Tom Landry former Dallas Cowboys FB Coach

We arrived in Mission, Texas, and have joined thousands of “Winter Texans” from across the U.S. and Canada. The draw here is the weather. The area is a tropical, sunny area situated along the Rio Grand River, bordering Mexico with an average winter temperature of 76 degrees. There are over 300 RV parks in the region to accommodate all of us old retired types. The city is the “home of the Ruby Red Grapefruit” commonly grown in the area. Vegetables and fruit are grown here year round because of the rich soil and warm climate.

We are staying at the Retama Village, a luxury RV, age-restricted community with a mixture of deeded RV lots, “port houses” with attached RV ports or garages, and single family winter homes, not to mention three heated pools, fitness center, craft center, outdoor kitchen, lounge, library, billiards room, game rooms theater, laundry and much more. Lot owners rent their lots out when not in use. The owner of the lot we are renting owns 3 lots and uses the income to support his retirement life style. Not a bad idea considering the problems renting a house out. Not a lot can go wrong and not a lot to worry about renting out a lot. That’s a lot of lots in one sentence…We’ll be here through February and then have to move down the road to another RV resort.

Tom Landry, the former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was born and raised, and played high school football here in Mission. Landry was one of the great all-time coaches in football.

We ran over to South Padre Island the day before yesterday for a quick visit and had lunch at a place called Dirty Al’s. The restaurant is right on the Gulf of Mexico, and Dirty Al and crew go out each day and catch all their own sea food which is sold to large crowds of loyal customers from near and far.

South Padre Island is a high rise strip of hotels and condominiums surrounded by beautiful beaches. Not sure I’d want to be here during Spring Break.