Getting Acquainted

We have spent the past eight days getting acquainted with the Lower Rio Grande Valley, with Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, with the other tram drivers and the staff we will be working with, and the material we will be sharing with visitors. It has been a very busy week.

During that time, we have ridden the tram through the refuge twice. We have been encouraged to hear each of the current tram-driver couples make their presentations and we have heard two of them so far. We also explored the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco. We are actually volunteering for that organization when we lead the tram tours, as they have a cooperative agreement with the refuge. One day a week we will be volunteering in the refuge visitor center.

Tuesday through Friday, we had training each day, learning about flora and fauna, about the techniques of effective interpretation, and lots of other specifics about the job we will be doing for three months.

It has been several months since we had such a demanding schedule, so it has taken some adjusting. We were tired, but each day we adapted a little better.

One day, Martin, who is executive director of the Valley Nature Center, showed us this bit of fauna--a Texas Milk Snake.



The Milk Snake has the same colors as the highly poisonous Coral Snake. We learned the following couplet to tell them apart:

Red touches yellow, kills a fellow
Red touches black, venom lacks.
You can be sure that is something we will remember!

We spent most of our training time inside, sitting around a table. Here you can see Tom, Hermy and Judy facing the camera, as well as Martin, our trainer. My back is to the camera and Sue is out of the picture to the left. John is behind the camera. We are enjoying our coworkers and think it will be a good winter.



We also have been able to do some bird watching. That is the biggest Eco-tourism draw in the Valley and something we are really looking forward to learning more about. This is an impressive Harris's Hawk that we saw on the tram tour.



We saw this Long-billed Thrasher at the Valley Nature Center.



There are lots of these Great Kiskadees in the Valley.



I am really excited about the birds we will see here and that I can photograph. You will be seeing a lot of them.

What a Change!

We're not in Arizona anymore, Toto. That is what we felt like today. For more than a year we have been in Arizona and Colorado and New Mexico, all locations with low humidity. Now we have come to the Lower Rio Grande Valley--hereafter to be referred to as "the Valley"--and today it has been warm and humid. We expected both and came because of the heat. But it will take a while to adjust to the humidity. It helps my skin and eyes, while also making me uncomfortable. When I got up this morning, at 6 am, it was 66 degrees and 91% humidity. The high was in the low 80s this afternoon, with quite a bit of wind. Give us a few days to get used to both the humidity and the wind.

Tomorrow, we begin our training as tram drivers at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The tram is actually operated by the Valley Nature Center in nearby Weslaco. We will have training almost every day through the end of the month, including learning about vegetation, birds, butterflies, and how to operate the tram. We know we have a lot to learn, even though they sent us, in advance, a 17-page tram talk script. We have been studying it and thinking of how to make it our own and this training will help.

Since the tram has been in operation since November 1 and we don't start driving it until February 1, the current crew is still living in the RV sites reserved for us. So they put us up in the Bit-O-Heaven RV Park in Donna, also nearby. This is a very friendly place with over 700 sites for RVs and park models. It gives us a connection to other Winter Texans.

We arrived on Friday, so we have spent three days getting familiar with the area. We visited the refuge, which we had not seen before, went on a tram tour, and visited the Valley Nature Center. Now it is time to get to work.