Our Chief Engineer Chuck Ingle and I were talking about Texas the other day and some of the Mexican border towns where people can just walk across a bridge, or drive across, and spend some time buying certain products that you would either not find or find them a little cheaper.

 

I found out that Chuck and I have visited this one border town, Neuvo Progreso which isn't too far from McAllen.  The town is a combination of open air markets, shops, restaurants, pharmacies, with nice department store buildings, along with other structures that would not come close to passing any kind of inspection in the U.S. 

 

Many folks will come across to places such as this to buy cheaper drugs, visit dentists and doctors and buy Coca Cola sweetened with cane sugar as opposed to corn syrup.  You could buy Cuban cigars there, but you'd have to smoke them before you come back into United States territory.

 

There is a great restaurant there called Arturo's, which has some of the best food in the region, and is one of the few places I've eaten that serves frog legs, which, by the way, tastes like chicken.

 

A few years back, I purchased a couple of large bottles of vanilla at a pretty inexpensive price that I thought I could use for baking purposes.  I find out on the Food Channel a few months later that some bottled vanilla from Mexico has ingredients that are considered carcinogens.  Well, at least the bottle looked pretty.