Reynosa has suddenly gotten more violent. Over the last several months, violence between the authorities and the cartels has been escalating. There have been several stories about it in the McAllen Monitor, including this one from today. Additionally, there has been other crime, most likely linked to the cartel violence as well. Last Sunday armed men hijacked several well-known restaurants in succession, and robbed patrons of jewelry, cash, and other valuables. A Spanish-language article about the attack is here.
There doesn't seem to be much that the U.S. payroll employees of my company can do, but today we decided to start carpooling and caravaning to the office. We're going to meet in Sharyland Plantation, then drive in two cars directly to the plant. We'll also return at the same time. The basic idea is that by traveling in a group, we would be less susceptible to kidnapping, and that if anything did happen to one of us, the others would be there to at least witness the act and report it to the authorities.
Does that sound ineffective? That's because it probably is, but it makes us feel better.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Into the Valley
We're back. The trip back was good. Betsy watched movies and played on her Pixter. Lola slept, gagagoogooed, ate, and cried. Luckily the crying was very minimal, and she slept probably 60% of the trip.
It rained from about Sugarland to Refugio, but somewhere south of Corpus Christi the sun came out to stay. After freezing temps at night in Splendora, it was a balmy 81F in McAllen. That's one of the good things about McAllen in January!
It rained from about Sugarland to Refugio, but somewhere south of Corpus Christi the sun came out to stay. After freezing temps at night in Splendora, it was a balmy 81F in McAllen. That's one of the good things about McAllen in January!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Out of the Valley
No, we're not leaving. But we're out of the valley for the weekend. I took off from work on Friday and Monday, and we loaded the SUV to the gills and drove to Splendora. Google it -- it's about 40 miles NE of Houston. My parents live there, and Victoria's parents live about 15 miles from there. So it's a family weekend.
The trip started off great. Vic and I did not argue at all, because I didn't complain about the quantity of luggage or the amount of time it took to get ready. And my complaining typically gets any long trip off to a terrible, argu-riffic start. We picked up Betsy around 11am, and some 6 hours later we hit Houston. Yes, we managed to arrive at the outskirts of Houston right at 5pm, and it was raining too. The 4th largest city in the US does not think highly of visitors that arrive at this time of day and under these conditions.
The rush hour and rain combined to push us to about 1.5 hours to get through Houston. This caused Betsy to say "I'm bored" about 8.3 million times. It caused Victoria to mercilessly rag my ethical but ineffective driving (I refuse to try to push to the front of the line and force people to let me in). It was not fun, yet sacrifices must be made if you want to visit your family for the weekend.
For the past year and a half, these kinds of trips are normal for us. It's 6-7 hours to get to Houston, 5-6 hours to get to Austin. Most of my family seems to think it's perfectly fine for us to make this trip, and that it somehow puts a tally mark in their favor on the "family visits" chalkboard. We seem to go to Austin or Houston almost monthly, yet my family rarely makes the trip to the Valley. I try to make myself feel better knowing that we're "doing the right thing", but other times I just swallow the resentment, and let it fester. Right now it's festering.
The trip started off great. Vic and I did not argue at all, because I didn't complain about the quantity of luggage or the amount of time it took to get ready. And my complaining typically gets any long trip off to a terrible, argu-riffic start. We picked up Betsy around 11am, and some 6 hours later we hit Houston. Yes, we managed to arrive at the outskirts of Houston right at 5pm, and it was raining too. The 4th largest city in the US does not think highly of visitors that arrive at this time of day and under these conditions.
The rush hour and rain combined to push us to about 1.5 hours to get through Houston. This caused Betsy to say "I'm bored" about 8.3 million times. It caused Victoria to mercilessly rag my ethical but ineffective driving (I refuse to try to push to the front of the line and force people to let me in). It was not fun, yet sacrifices must be made if you want to visit your family for the weekend.
For the past year and a half, these kinds of trips are normal for us. It's 6-7 hours to get to Houston, 5-6 hours to get to Austin. Most of my family seems to think it's perfectly fine for us to make this trip, and that it somehow puts a tally mark in their favor on the "family visits" chalkboard. We seem to go to Austin or Houston almost monthly, yet my family rarely makes the trip to the Valley. I try to make myself feel better knowing that we're "doing the right thing", but other times I just swallow the resentment, and let it fester. Right now it's festering.
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