Entertainment in the Valley

We have had a couple days of cool rainy weather again. I think this area is already ahead of their normal rainfall totals for the entire year! It is supposed to turn very warm again tomorrow, so I will add to the blog today. Tomorrow I plan to be outside!

Our friends from Creighton, Lenny and Carol (and Carol’s brother John), came to stay in our park for a couple weeks. It was good to see them and spend a little time visiting. I just realized that we have known them for 36 years (that was when we moved to Creighton)! There were some wild times back then! Even though we thought they were nuts, they decided to return to the frozen north during a lull in the weather between here and there. Last night they called to say they had made it safely home.

Last Saturday the entire park had a not so pleasant adventure. An electric company had been trying to fix a nonworking streetlight all week. Determining that they needed to push a new wire under the driveway of the park managers, they managed to puncture the water line that was also there! This put the entire park out of water starting at 9 a.m. Those of us in RV’s who always put water in our holding tanks in case of such a situation were okay, but those in park models and mobile homes do not have such an option. Can you imagine how many sidewalk superintendents were at the site off and on throughout the day? Over 700 spaces full of retired people? After many hours of digging and scooping out water by the electric company, a plumbing company with a jackhammer arrived to put a hole in the middle of the driveway and find and repair the break by about 8 p.m. Everyone who did not have water in their holding tank before filled the next day!

We could go to the hall in our park for some activity nearly every evening of the week if we chose to do so. Potluck supper, soup supper, bingo, and some form of cards or games are played every night of the week. We usually choose to play joker at our friends house instead of the hall and usually only once or twice a week. Friday nights there is entertainment at the hall for a reasonable price (usually $5) and every Saturday night a band plays for the dance. One can go to entertainment at other parks too. Craft shows, quilt shows and park sales and flea markets abound everywhere each week.

I snapped a picture of of the workers trying to find the water main break and one of Lenny, Carol, John and Duncan (the dog) near their motor home. I will also post some pictures and links to some of the entertainers we have seen recently.

Bill Brooks:: Elvis impersonator, also does other country music and gospel.

http://www.billjbrooks.com/

The Link Family: very talented family of 5 plus two spouses of two of the children who do bluegrass and gospel.

http://linkfamilymusic.com/

Bernie and Red: a married duo of comedy and music. Very funny and the singing is good too!

http://www.bernieandred.com/index.html

Sherwin and Pam Linton Show: Mostly sing old country songs (a little old rock and roll and folk songs thrown in). Sherwin does a great Johnny Cash. He told Curt he had played the Knox County Fair, so it is possible some of you have seen his show, although I don't know how long ago that was.

http://www.sherwinlinton.com/

Everyday Living

Once more it has been a while since I posted anything here. I think it is more difficult to find anything new to write about or pictures to post for my small band of readers. Last year we did a lot more sight seeing and road trips than so far this year. I guess the weather has not cooperated as well this year and our road trip friends, Marv and Marietta are not here!

People often ask us what we find to do all day every day. They think we are just “on vacation”. But since we live here for four months, it is not all vacation like. Much of it is just every day living as we do at home, except some of it is more time consuming than the same chores at home.

Laundry is the biggest pain. First, you have to load everything up: dirty clothes, detergent, fabric softener, spot removers, quarters, hangers, something to drink and read while you wait. Be sure to take your cell phone and key to the house in case communication is necessary or your husband leaves and locks up before you come back. Don’t forget to wear your name tag so you can be identified in case you fall in one of the dryers! Even though the laundry room is only a block and a half away, I have to drive the pickup down because I don’t have a large wheeled cart on which to load my baskets and push them down. You you learn quickly not to go on Monday morning. So you wash and then the dryers burn up your clothes and you can fold and hang and schlep them back home to put away. The whole process usually takes at least two hours from start to finish. (more if you get into a lengthy conversation with someone and can’t get away when you are finished with your laundry.) I do carry my sheets down in a bag and wash, then bring them back to hang outside on my little clothesline when the weather permits.

Of course there is the never ending dishwashing. At home I can hide my dishes in the dishwasher and wash when it is full. Here they sit on the counter or in the sink, which means you have no space to do other things there unless you wash them!
Cleaning is not a huge chore I guess, except sometimes we have to wash the outside of our house as well! The Texas dust does sift in pretty quickly when it is not raining – it is not quite as dusty this year! One advantage of the wetter than normal weather is that the sandburs which were such a pain last year seem to be at bay. In such a small space, clutter and such seems to accumulate more quickly than usual.

Grocery shopping is sort of a regular chore: because we have a refrigerator and freezer that is pretty small, it is not possible to stock up on large amounts of food. Thus more frequent trips which take a lot longer than running down to 2nd Street Market at home!

There is tank maintenance – Curt does the tank dumping and rinsing. Trash is taken to the end of the street to the dumpster, and we seem to have more trash than normal, probably because we do use some paper plates – which we do not use at home.
And repairs – it seems Curt is always fixing something. Our black tank valve had been working extremely hard and finally the other day it just quit working. That is a huge problem! Under the belly of the 5th wheel we went to take the plastic loose and look under the insulation at the valve and cable. Curt finally discerned that the cable was broken, probably due the difficulty of closing and opening the valve. First we had to remove the old cable and pull, then go to the RV Service Center to get a new one. Back at home, Curt laid under the 5th wheel and tried to move the valve back and forth manually to get it working better, but it continued to stick. Then he had me pour a bunch of Dawn down the toilet – he put water in the tank and worked the valve back and forth. The Dawn seemed to clean and lubricate and make it work better. He hooked up the new cable and things seemed to be working – keeping our fingers crossed that it holds! That job took one whole afternoon!

So here it is: a post that encompasses most of the ordinary things we do every week! Since I am sure you are not interested in pictures of us performing these mundane tasks, I will try to find something more interesting for that part of the post. Pictures are: social hour gathering on my birthday, from Mexico- selecting tequila, basket man, Kate Spade knockoff purses, and from an RV show we went to - Elvis!

Next time I promise something at least a little bit more exciting! FEEDBACK ON BLOG POSTS IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED.

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.

Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. We missed spending it with our family back in Nebraska, and yet we were glad we didn't have to deal with the blizzard conditions there. We got pictures via email and on Facebook and it did not look like a lot of fun. I know many families were not able to be together because of the storm. (and some got snowed in together!)

We got new steps for Christmas! RV steps are not ideal for long term use and Curt decided we needed something better for the winter. Richard (from Indiana) lives across the park and is a welder. He and his friend Wayne have started producing the support and railings for steps. We purchased a set from him, then went to Home Depot for treated lumber for the stair treads. When Curt started to put it together, several neighbors came over to lend a hand: expertise, tools and just another hand. I had a picture of the assembly process, but somewhere in the download from the camera, it got lost! So I am including a picture of the finished product in place.

Christmas Eve we went to the program at the community hall. We sang a lot of carols, listened to the story of Christmas, Santa stopped by and we ate a lot of finger food after. When we came home, the movie "A Christmas Story" was beginning and we watched it as is a tradition every Christmas season!

Christmas Day dinner was a noon affair at the community hall with about 300 others. People sign up ahead of time for a table (each holds 20-24 people) and then have a meeting to determine who brings different dishes. The park provides a turkey AND a ham for each table, but someone from the table has to cook them. Of course there is always more food than any one table of persons could possibly eat in one sitting. And so we go back again for evening leftovers.

I am including some pictures of the hall before and during Christmas dinner. Blame Curt for the "Let It Snow" banner picture! He is just glad he is not there scooping it! We truly hope for a better weather in January and February for friends and family up north.

Our weather is again cool (60's for daytime highs and 40's at night) and the forecast is for similar weather for the next week. We too are hoping for better weather in January and February!

We enjoy hearing from everyone, so keep emailing and phoning!

Progresso, Mexico

Last week (Thursday) we went to soup supper at the hall for the first time. It is usually too early for us to eat, since soup is served around 5:00, but we decided to try it. You have to go about 4:30 to get a table if a group wants to sit together and you bring your own bowls, spoons, bread, crackers or anything else you want to add to your meal. The cost is $2.50 per person. Numbers are drawn for the order in which tables can go for their soup and we were not the last, but close. If we had been at the last table, we would have won a cake! This week's soups were chili, ham and bean and broccoli/cheese. It was okay but probably not something we will do every week. After soup, we went to Dennis and Linda's and played Joker.

On Friday morning we ventured into Progresso, Mexico. Darold and Sondra drove, and Denny and Linda went along too. None of us had been there since the shootout between the drug cartel guys and the Mexican military that occurred on the main street there a couple weeks ago. (Three drug cartel members and one Mexican military man were killed that day, according to residents in Progresso. The actual release of information from the military was very sketchy.) We had talked to other people that had gone and they indicated they did not feel afraid. Though it is unlikely that it will happen again, nobody can guaranteee that.

While we always park on the American side and walk over the bridge, Darold drives in and parks in a parking lot, attended by a local who watches over your vehicles. That makes it a little easier because your heavy bottles don't have so far to be carried! The streets were all full of a thin layer of muck, due to all the rain in the area on Wednesday. The merchants were out cleaning off the sidewalks.

Three of the group wanted their teeth cleaned, so we stopped first at the dentist office. They could all get in within a short time, so Curt, Sondra and I left them there and went across to the street to get a few things. Curt got his booze and we got some quarts of vanilla. We then took them back to the car a block away so we did not have to carry them around.

Next all of us went to Angies salon. Linda, Sondra and Darold had pedicures. It was a cool day, and I didn't want my feet to freeze, so I just had a manicure. (you can get both for $15). While in Angies, there was a loud pop from outside, and all the people in the pharmacy in front of Angies were nervously looking out the windows! We went for lunch and discovered the source of the pop was a transformer blowing and everyone was without power. At the Red Snapper, they assured us they could still cook, so we had lunch. I took a photo of part of the mural wall in the restaurant.

The Red Snapper is upstairs with a balcony, and I snapped a photo of the street below. You can see there are not the crowds of people on the sidewalks as there usually are - I think the incident really hurt their business - it is such a poor town and only survives from the tourist trade.

When we left, Darold and Curt saw a post with large hole in it from flying bullets. (at least that was their theory, so they snapped a photo.) We split up then - the ladies went to look at jewelry and purses and the men to pharmacies to get medications. Not Curt, but the other two.

We met back at the car and traversed safely out over the bridge, declaring our purchases and paying the Texas tax on our alchohol.