Great Weather

I know it has been a while since I posted, but the weather finally cleared a week or so ago and now we have had sunny days and warm temps in the mid to upper 80’s. Sometimes we have fog in the morning, and we have had some pretty stiff breezes, but a huge improvement over earlier weather. We have been busy just enjoying being outdoors.

A small town story in the big Rio Grande Valley: We went with two other couples to the Mcallen Convention Center a couple weekends ago for the Travel Show. We then had lunch at a buffet type restaurant over there. On our return home, I discovered my magnetic name tag was missing from my jacket. We did not want to drive all the way back over there just to see if it was at the restaurant, so I figured I would just have to order and pay for a new one. Our neighbor Jeanie said not to worry, it will find its way back here, but I had my doubts. The very next morning I started out for my walk and a friend from line dancing came walking toward me carrying my name tag! Someone from our park had been at that restaurant for breakfast and they saw the name of the park on her tag and asked her to return it to me. She did not know me, but asked a couple people and found someone who did!

We attended the All Valley RV Show at Mercedes last weekend. While we are not especially in the buying mode, it is always fun to look at new options. Plus they always have a lot of informational and tacky and/or useful merchandise. booths.

Last weekend we also attended a 50’s night at the hall. Fonzie’s diner served burgers, fries and root beer floats. Linda was supposed to do the music (she also does karaoke nights and has a great sound system), but due to a death in the family, she returned home and was not here for the evening. Thus the sound system left a lot to be desired and the music played from CD’s was not especially good. Some of the ladies dressed in poodle skirts and I snapped a picture of them together. It was Betty and Joes anniversary and they had a solo dance and I was the official photographer for that as well.

Last Sunday we had some surprise visitors – Gerry and Murielle, the French Canadians that were near us here in the park last year. Along with Monique and Yvon, they are in a park over at Mission this year. Gerry likes to jam with other musicians, and the Mission area is the top place for that. We have jams here on Tuesday afternoons, so he thought he might show up over here some Tuesday. After they left, our Bloomfield friends called and said they wanted to come over for happy hour. A while after they showed up, Joe and Betty and Darold and Sondra did as well.

Curt spied a hummingbird in our grapefruit tree, so he put up a feeder on our back window. The hummingbird comes and goes too quickly for a picture, but another little bird that looks something like a finch lands there constantly, so Curt snapped a picture of him.

Park spaces have been changing hands like crazy since the end of December. A lot of people left as they were here for October, November and December. Some people came in before their January spot was open, so were parked temporarily in another spot and then had to move again. Then someone buys a park model or mobile home and moves, opening another spot which someone wants to move into. Then someone else comes to fill in that spot and so on. It is a little like musical chairs, only with lots! The other day a new mobile home went in on the next street over – it was a major event: people in lawn chairs,, bicyclists, walkers and those in golf carts congregated to watch it being maneuvered into place. Doesn’t take much to entertain a winter Texan!

Pictures are: Poodle skirted ladies at 50's night, Joe and Betty's anniversary dance (they are friends and neighbors from Minnesota who live across the street from us), a happy hour on our site, Curt's bird friend on the feeder, the house moving in ceremony. My camera has been acting up, so some photos I took did not turn out.

Keep Your Cold Up North!

The cold weather has arrived here. It is supposed to only be in the 30’s or maybe around 40 today. I will make a pot of chili in the crockpot again and some biscuits in the oven. I do have line dancing this afternoon, so that will get me out of the 5th wheel for a couple hours! We won’t see warmer temps until Sunday, although sunshine will return tomorrow.

I continue to do lot of reading and genealogy work on days when the weather is cool and rainy. I just finished “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, which I enjoyed very much and have started “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay. Two more Dan Brown books also await me! In genealogy, I have been given an assignment by Curt’s sister Vicky – a branch of their family came to Brownsville, Texas around 1920 and I am looking up obituaries and we will trek to the cemetery there for photos when the weather is nice.

Having played Joker quite a few times, we are learning it pretty well – although we still need advice sometimes on how to play that Joker! It can get complicated, especially when we have more players at the table.

I can't decide whether I am happy or unhappy that Texas lost last night. It would have made us look even better if they had won (and when we beat them next year!) Too bad Colt McCoy got injured though - if they were going to get beat it would have been better for them to be at 100%! Did anyone notice how many times they mentioned Nebraska during the broadcast?

I had some more pictures of the flea market that I wanted to post so will do that today. We go there often because we always need something from the farmers’ market and then we usually walk across the street to the flea market. There is entertainment on the stage and lots of old junk and new merchandise to peruse – not to mention a variety of food that is bad for you including: kettle corn, mini donuts,(my personal weakness), awesome blossoms, ice cream and much more!

A New Year

My first blog post of the new year - January is always tough because you have to remember a new month and a new year at the same time, no small feat, particularly when you are not working - the days and months just seem to flow into one another.

The weather continues to be a major player everywhere in the country I think. We have received a lot of snow pictures from up north and reports of the bitter cold. I do not miss being in the middle of that, and I do have much sympathy for those who are. There just has to be a break coming sometime soon, doesn’t there? The cold weather further north continues to impact our weather here as well – those who have been coming here for 20 years say they cannot remember a winter as cool and wet as this one. Sunny south Texas has not been seeing the sun very much. The end of this week could bring record lows for us!

In the meantime, we get glorious days from time to time. The park comes alive on those days, with everyone out enjoying various activities. Curt went golfing (a foursome) on one of those days last week, and they are planning another today. I washed sheets and hung them on my little clothesline that day. Because our clothesline is in back, facing north, it doesn’t get much breeze or sun and the sheets had to be sort of bunched up, so it took all day for the sheets to dry, but it was so nice to have fresh from the outdoors sheets that night! Gee, simple things make me happy, huh?

Curt has been watching as many of the bowl games as possible. We watched the Husker game with our Iowa friends – not quite the same as watching with other Husker fans, but the Big Red made us proud! Iowa State better watch out next year!

New Year’s eve there was a dance at the hall, but we opted to stay home that evening. The card players in the hall had an unpleasant surprise that night – a bullet came through the roof and brought insulation and all raining down close to where people were sitting. Along with the fireworks which kept us awake for quite some time, people shoot guns in the air (even though all day the police had been warning people not to do so) and evidently one of those came through the roof. Kind of scary because it definitely could have injured someone. It was a rifle bullet by reports from those present. The police came, but I am not sure what they can do.

We have made several trips to the farmers’ and flea market at Donna. We got pecans, fruit and vegetables and a few other items. I took a photo of my fruit and veggie haul when I unpacked it - can anybody tell me an approximate cost for this pile at home? Just curious if we made a buy. We spent $9.50 on a seedless watermelon, cleaned and cored pineapple, green pepper, 5 baking potatoes, basket of grape tomatoes, a cucumber,a bag of radishes, four oranges, bag of four sweet onions. I have a lot of pictures, so perhaps will split into two posts. I did find the picture of the step building so I will include it in this post.