Do You Have a Pen: The Rio Grande Valley
The Rio Grande Valley
I had to go to McAllen, Texas—and I loved it. It’s not a place I anticipated liking at all and my perception was completely changed once I got there. I entered Texas just below Texarkana, Arkansas and drove the state roads south. There is an Interstate 69 corridor but that interstate is under construction. It is in tact for roughly 70 miles with Houston in the middle of that stretch and it’s a fantastic road, though any road going top to bottom would have been fantastic to me after driving five hours on state roads and U.S. highways that don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. I have been in Houston one other time but briefly and it remains a city I want to explore in depth at some point because it is beautiful from what I have seen. I believe you can tell a lot about a major city by it’s downtown skyline and Houston’s is amazing. Moving South, I hit the Corpus Christi area and there were these quaint little restaurants attached to gas stations (gas stations in that area seem to have a restaurant or bait shop attached to them). I was mad I had just eaten because fresh seafood would have really hit the spot over a Golden Corral.
Finally I hit McAllen after sixteen days of driving through Texas (it may not have actually been that long) and I fell in love with “The Valley.” Edinburg and McAllen are awesome! I loved McAllen almost as soon as I had a chance to walk around in its downtown area. It has most of the things I love about Los Angeles except the ocean and the cost of living is manageable. Like El Paso, it has a huge Mexican population and a vibrant downtown area because of it. My Uber driver dropped me off at the bus station and told me there was a Subway Restaurant inside. I had three hours till my bus and I smelled good food. I walked into a little place and seated myself. I ordered some tacos and a Coke. The owner asked if I wanted a Mexican Coke or a regular Coke. Please! I would have just eaten at Subway if I wanted “regular Coke.” The place was called La Mordidad and I will be back there. I had three pork tacos and a Coke for $7. When he told me the price I laughed in his face with excitement. That’s it? He got a nice tip. The food was so good that I left a five star review and and wrote out a review on their Facebook page while still in the restaurant. It may be the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. I had a few personal interactions with people in the area. Some didn’t speak English at all and my limited English compounded by the volume of the music being played where I was made accurate communication nearly impossible but everyone was gracious and appreciated that I at least made an attempt at Spanish. I figure my Spanish sucks but it’s better than their English.
One thing about my travels is that I’ve learned to find cheaper transportation. McAllen to Chicago was just shy of $600 on American Airlines but Greyhound to Dallas was $35 and Dallas to Chicago on American was $53. So add the extra $30 Uber and I still saved some $480. Smaller airports are just too expensive but the bus can get you places cheaper, but you’ll be stuck on a bus with the thought “this bus smells like corn chips and farts and I’m the only one not on meth at the bus station.”
Harlingen is another town in the RGV area that I loved with an old downtown area and some fantastic antiquing options. When I travel, I will sometimes plan my day around eating and a place with local shops is usually top of my list of areas to eat in. It’s rare for me to just order a pizza in my hotel room, especially if I have authentic Mexican food as an option. I have, many times, gone to a restaurant to stave off the initial hunger and ordered something lite as more of a snack when I first get there. Afterwards, I will go walking around downtown. Harlingen has some of the most amazing antique shops I have found with an interesting addition to what I am used to—records. If you want old vinyl, Southern Texas is the place to find it. The one shop had eight thousand records in stock while an employee at another was telling me the owner of that shop just purchased twenty thousand records at an estate sale in Pennsylvania. The shops seem to compete for record sales. It is amazing and I highly recommend the Rio Grande Valley, specifically Harlingen, for audiophiles to buy vintage records. Another shop had around ten thousand pieces on stock. The shop with twenty thousand pieces indicated that the owner cycled stuff in and out on a regular basis to see what sold and what was popular at the time. They had the old school milk crates of records on tables set up and it really sent you back in time to thumbing through new releases for the newest Sex Pistols or Black Sabbath album.
In Pharr I went to a couple different places. I needed a car wash and I was hungry. Fortunately the carwash was next to a Mexican restaurant. Because of where I live, I do hear Spanish on a regular basis and as I said earlier, I can speak a little, but there was a perceived difference. At home, Spanish speakers at restaurants usually speak English fluently and I look like someone who wouldn’t speak anything but English so there is never a question that I speak English only and they always come up speaking to me in English. Both places I went in Pharr, they started speaking to me in Spanish. My next assumption was that they didn’t speak English, so I tried going back to my limited broken Spanish just to hear them switch to near perfect English. They are largely bilingual down there! From the perspective of an average American from the North I was stunned.
Picture a young Michael Beebe, fresh out of La Porte High School in ’93, diving headfirst into the world of hospitality with a busboy gig at the old La Porte Holiday Inn. That hustle led him to an Associate of Science from Purdue-North Central in ’95 and a Bachelor’s in Hospitality Management from Purdue-Calumet in ’97 (those schools are now merged into Purdue-Northwest, by the way). Michael’s early career was a whirlwind—running a 140-room hotel in Indianapolis, where he learned the ins and outs of the industry but realized it wasn’t his true calling. What did spark his passion? Teaching. He found himself thriving in front of students at Ivy Tech Community College and Lake Michigan College, sharing the art and science of hospitality management. Oh, and he also moonlighted at WIMS radio in Michigan City, juggling both on-air and behind-the-scenes roles with his signature high energy.
Politics? That’s been Michael’s sidekick since he was 18, registering to vote with a fire in his belly to make a difference. He threw his hat in the ring for La Porte County Council in 2010, where he got a crash course in the power of social media marketing. Undeterred by not winning, he campaigned for Indiana’s General Assembly in 2012 and took another shot at the County Council in 2014 and 2016. Though he hasn’t clinched a seat yet, Michael’s relentless drive to serve shines through. Lately, he’s been pouring that energy into helping other candidates who champion personal liberty, amplifying their voices with his knack for strategy.
Here’s a twist: Michael once co-owned a tattoo shop, despite having no ink himself. As the business manager and marketing guru, he leaned hard into low-cost, social media-driven campaigns to put the shop on the map. That experience fueled his love for digital marketing, and now he spends his free time crafting websites and boosting businesses online—a true labor of love.
These days, Michael’s living the dream as an independent contracted transporter, crisscrossing the country while getting paid to soak up new places and cultures. When he’s not exploring, he’s parked somewhere scenic, laptop open, building his digital consulting company, Spark Plug Strategies, or penning his thoughts. He even wrote a few books.
Based in La Porte County, Indiana, Michael’s embraced a “decentralized laptop lifestyle,” blending work, travel, and passion projects into a life that’s as dynamic as he is.
The following is a blog piece from my Vagabonding America website (