Happy New Year!

We welcomed in 2013 with our square dancing friends tonight. We started with a pre-party at Jean's place. She had fun fixing some great recipes, including a baked brie in puff pastry and a delicious guacamole made with tofu (you'd never guess). The place she rents in Pharr South makes for great entertaining, as does the hostess with the mostest!

Randy Dougherty called some fun advanced and C-1 dancing. We shared lots of snacks and socializing. Randy and Darlene and some of the Pharr South dancers put out a baked potato bar with extra large potatoes, chili, and lots of toppings. A great time was had by all.

Bob and Pat, Judy and Hardy, Steve, Lee, Jan, Terry, Hugh, Peter, G.W., David, Jean
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Busy Day

We started out this morning by joining our friends for breakfast at Mi Challitas. One of our number was missing: Bob Boyink had a cough and wasn't feeling well. We're hoping he gets better soon.

This afternoon several of us gathered to take a hike in the state park. We walked the Resaca Vieja Trail and took one of the side trails off of it. The main trail is quite wide and well maintained, but the side trail has some encroaching undergrowth and overhanging branches. Of course I misjudged and banged my head smartly on a heavy branch--ouch! We saw a roadrunner, some green jays, chachalacas of course, mockingbirds, doves, and miscellaneous little brown birds, as well as several interesting butterflies.

We encountered a geocaching neighbor of Hardy's who offered to take a photo of our group.

When we returned to our rig, we gave Jean and John and Sandy the quick tour before settling on the patio to eat snacks and our brown bag lunches. Jan and Steve joined us after attending another party. When the weather turned cooler, we moved to the fire pit in our circle and gathered around a campfire. Some of us roasted marshmallows.

When a mention was made of pudgy pies, I asked what they were. An outcry ensued: "You don't know what pudgy pies are???" Steve went to his truck and pulled a pudgy pie maker from his truck box. Buttered bread and filling of choice (we used apple pie filling) are put in the pie maker, and the pudgy pie is cooked over the coals, making a yummy toasted treat.

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New Neighbors

Another chilly day, with no sun until afternoon, so we walked in the park rather than ride our bikes. We have more protection from the wind that way. We walked over through Retama. We haven't been there for a few days. Jim and Niroo Bangman have arrived with their New Horizons Majestic. We stopped to say hi. They've been on vacation in Argentina. Now there are six New Horizons, two in Bentsen Palm and four in Retama.

We notice that more sites in Bentsen Palm are filling up, probably with folks who stayed north for Christmas and are now escaping the winter weather. We have only one open site in our circle.

We reconnected the Blu Ray player and watched some episodes of the BBC series, Planet Earth. The photography is absolutely stunning.

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Flat Tire!

We biked in the state park this morning. A mower was trimming the verges of the road, throwing the cut grass and vegetation onto the roadway. Unfortunately, one of the bits of vegetation had a long, sharp thorn, which penetrated Ken's front tire and tube. Darn! Just after we had been telling Bob Boyink that we had not had any flats on Ken's Electra Bike because of the Kevlar protecting the tubes. Guess the Kevlar wasn't entirely thorn proof!

We managed to repair the tube, but found it definitely difficult to remove the tire from the rim. The Kevlar reinforced tire is quite thick, stiff, and sturdy. Besides, we had to experiment a bit before we remembered exactly how to get the tire off and back onto the rim--it has been years.

Bentsen Palm Village has won several awards and high ratings this year, and a new sign popped up outside the entrance to brag a bit.

This afternoon we spent some time washing windows and doing some light cleaning of the exterior of the rig. The windows on the sunny side will need more attention tomorrow morning before the sun gets to them. It's hard to clean a hot window.

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What Day Is It?

Somehow the holidays have left me really mixed up about what day it is--too many "Sundays" or something.

This morning it was chilly. We put our laundry in the washing machines and went to the exercise room to walk on the treadmills (and read). It warmed up in the afternoon, fortunately.

This evening we danced to Darryl. He called a lot of "Alter the Wave" with modifications to the number of diamond circulates. The floor was having trouble. It's much easier to do the automatic thing.

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Back to Dancing

A cold front came in last night, so we turned on the furnace this morning. We walked around the RV park rather than biking because the wind was quite chilly.

This afternoon we went to Jerry Story's C-1 dance, which had four squares. To start, Kristy danced with G.W. because his partner wasn't there. Kristy is very sweet, and Jerry helps her out, but it must be stressful to dance a level you've never taken lessons in.

This evening we danced to Joe Saltel at Tropic Star, where we had five squares. We're hoping that more dancers will be showing up in the Valley soon.

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Merry Christmas, Friends!

Today was warm and sunny, a lovely Christmas day. We celebrated with friends at Bob and Pat's house and had a great dinner and a wonderful time. After dinner we watched a Netflix movie, The Christmas Bunny. Then some of us went for a walk. When we returned, we ate some more. Yum!

We also got to see some of Bob and Pat's photos from their wonderful trip to Amsterdam this spring. They spent a week on a bike and barge cruise and then a week in Amsterdam on their own.

This evening I Skyped with Terri. It still impresses me that I can see my daughter in Tokyo and talk with her--all for free! My Christmas cards haven't gotten there yet--the APO mail is slow--but warm Christmas greetings across the miles. Kelley called from Arlington, where there's snow and ice, brrr. Anara called from Portland. She said they had a good trip to the coast for Christmas. She's got a D&D camp at Guardian Games this week.

Uncle Jesse called this morning to wish us a merry Christmas. He had more surgery last week to remove a skin malignancy from his neck but says he is doing well now. Essie Lee is feeling poorly with dizzy spells. I talked with Beth and Aunt Iris as they were on their way out the door to go to Michael's for dinner. Iris is having severe back pain that has laid her low. Beth says no more surgery for her.
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Happy Birthday, Chris!

Today is Christmas Eve and always a reminder of my first Christmas eve as a mom. Chris arrived just after 10:00 a.m. on December 24, 1965, so today he's 47--but still my firstborn and my baby. When I talked to him today, he and Shawn were walking on the beach. They're at the coast for the weekend, but will return to Portland tomorrow evening, since they have to be at work Wednesday and Anara has a camp.

We celebrated today by fixing turkey breast and trimmings for dinner. We also did part of the work of making desserts for the party tomorrow with our friends. The rest will wait until morning, but the brickle bars needed to be baked today so they could cool thoroughly. While we had the oven hot we also made the flour and nut crusts for the other two layered desserts. We're almost ready for the feast!

Today we watched/listened to some Christmas programs we had recorded, including Christmas at Belmont, Christmas With the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and White Christmas. We also got several Christmas cards in the mail, adding to our Christmas spirit.

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Miracle on 34th Street

This morning we biked around the state park, looping twice around the perimeter. There are lots fewer mosquitoes, fortunately, especially in daylight hours. Now that we've passed the Winter Solstice, we'll have more daylight hours every day.

We got into the spirit of the season today by watching Miracle on 34th Street again. It was the colorized version, which somehow doesn't have as much nostalgic appeal, but we still enjoyed the upbeat defense of innocence, imagination, faith, and generosity.

Tonight we're watching a bit of the Sound of Music while we wash the dishes, and then Downton Abbey. We're getting rather tired of the DirecTV holiday music--not enough variation, so we hear the same songs over and over again. Some of them bear repeating more than others.

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Party On!

We started the day today driving to Nuevo Progreso and walking across the bridge into Progreso, Mexico, to join our friends for a birthday celebration for G.W. and for Mildred. We gathered at Jessica's Center, where Santiago and Toni have joined forces as "Santoni." We ended up adding more and more tables to accommodate everyone. We had around 30 at the table for drinks (margaritas for us) and lunch.

Here's the birthday girl and Hugh

We definitely overtaxed the capacity of the kitchen. The first folks to get their meals had long ago finished eating before the last person was served, which was rather awkward. Everyone enjoyed the birthday cake and the humorous birthday cards and wished G.W. and Mildred very happy birthdays.

In the evening we went to a Christmas gift exchange, the kind where people take turns choosing wrapped gifts from under the tree--or stealing a gift that has already been opened. Since there were more than 50 people, the game took over two hours, with lots of fun and laughter.

Large tins of cookies were very popular and therefore stolen, as were wine and spirits. I ended up with a package of Johnsonville crackers and sausages and cheese food. Ken selected a gift which turned out to be an electrical wine opener. It was later stolen, and he stole a bottle of amaretto to replace it. When that was also stolen, he stole a gift certificate to the Red Snapper restaurant in Progreso. Our gang is going to Progreso again January 4, and we plan to eat at the Red Snapper, so that worked out quite well.
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End of the World?

Today some say the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world. Hey, any excuse for a party! We all got together at Jean's house this evening to celebrate our survival. John and Sandy have just recently arrived in the RGV, so we were very glad to see them.

We had a potluck, and Jean made delicious roast beef and roasted carrots. She had some interesting wine--Merlot in beer bottles. It turned out that her son had decided to brew some wine. Since he's a craft brewer, of course he has beer bottles--so.... The wine was delicious, and the party was great fun.

This afternoon the DirecTV tech showed up to check out our problems. After a bit we were able to convince him that the problem was not in our equipment but in the DVR. He replaced our receiver with an updated model HR24, which has the nice feature that it can use an RF signal for the remote, so we don't have to point at the IR repeater. He also gave us an Internet connection kit so the DVR can download movies via wifi and we can listen to Pandora and other features we haven't checked into yet.

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DVR Crash!

We often listen to music on DirecTV during the day, but today the DirecTV receiver (our HD DVR) kept restarting itself (which takes eight minutes or so, so it definitely interrupts the signal). This has never happened before. Our first move was to reset the receiver, which seemed to work, but only for a few minutes. Googling our problems, we found a suggestion that blips in the power supply could cause restarts, so we turned off our shore power and ran on the inverter for a while. No help. We found something online suggesting unplugging and keeping it off for at least 30 minutes, so we tried that.

When we returned from our evening walk, we saw that the DVR had frozen and would not respond to either the remote or the buttons on the front of the unit. After that it started saying it was searching for a software update or downloading software, but no progress was made. Then three blue lights started flashing on the front of the DVR, and it was sending no signal to the TV. Bottom line, we called DirecTV technical support, and after some troubleshooting were referred to the Protection Plan department (we pay $7.99 a month for this protection). They finally decided to send a tech out tomorrow afternoon, so we'll see.

Today was very windy and definitely cooler. We were nearly blown over when we were out in the open walking this morning.

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Unseasonably Warm

I don't know if it made it, but today was supposed to be a record high temperature here. It was definitely over 90 degrees, which is actually too hot for a good bike ride, but we rode around the park anyhow, hoping for some shade from the trees. We didn't see many birds, just a roadrunner and the flock of chachalacas. Maybe the rest were trying to stay cool!

We danced to Jerry this afternoon and Joe tonight, both interesting dances. Jerry was calling back to front and front to back J box calls, including Zing. The floor was hopelessly confused. I think we finally saw the formation, but it wasn't easy. Joe worked on some difficult any hand swing the fractions. No blood on the floor, and we laughed a lot.

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Johnny Cash!

We had a quiet day today--did our laundry, soaked in the hot tub, and did some planning for our trip to New Zealand. I finally did my Gelish nails again (it's been over three months).

Tonight we joined a group and watched a DVD on the big screen TV of selections from the Johnny Cash Show, which aired from 1969-1971. Lots of old memories there. It was interesting to see and hear all the musicians from our youth. A very young looking Ray Charles was on the show singing his own version of "Ring of Fire." Ray was celebrating his 40th birthday. The Everly Brothers appeared with their dad, Ike. The boys looked like young teens. Nothing like nostalgia for the music and songs of our long ago youth.

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Christmas Decor

We danced to Darryl at TVA this afternoon. The hall is decorated for Christmas, so Ken took a couple of photos of Darryl with the Christmas decor. Hal and Dorothy were there, having recently arrived in the RGV. We had five squares exactly so no one had to sit out. Dick was dancing with Lila--Mary Ann is still down with a respiratory/flu infection. Steve and Jan weren't there because Steve was in Kingsville getting a hitch put in their new pickup.

Darryl worked us hard on Relay the Shadow from various starting formations, including left handed ones. The floor seemed to be having serious difficulties with the call from any position other than plain vanilla.

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Wanda

Somehow I managed not to see A Fish Called Wanda when it came out in 1988, so when we watched our recording today, it was my first introduction to its wacky British humor.

The movie was definitely full of zany characters and wildly entertaining, even though none of the characters was at all endearing. Kevin Kline won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Otto--the guy you love to hate even while you're laughing at his antics. Despite the guns and knives and general gore and violence, no one is realistically hurt--except for the poor fish that Otto swallows (and I'm sure no dogs were actually harmed in the production). We were hardly tempted to quibble at the giant plot holes. Imdb describes it as a heist film, but the heist itself is only a bare preliminary to the double and triple cross action.

This morning as usual we joined our friends for breakfast at Mi Challitas. We talked about our plans for the End of the World Party at Jean's and for Christmas at Pat and Bob's. Judy told us that John and Sandy had left on their trip south, so they'll be here soon and join us for the parties. We'll be glad to see them again.

We biked around Tanglewood this morning, trying to keep ahead of the mosquitoes. Tonight we walked on the treadmills, also trying to evade the stinging critters, but we both got bites just in walking the couple of hundred feet to the exercise room and back. Have I mentioned that we hate mosquitoes? We'll be glad when at least some of them clear out!
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Garage Sale Fun

I don't often get out to garage sale, but this morning was Aladdin Villa's neighborhood wide sale, so I got up early and ventured out. Most of what I saw was stuff I could easily live without, but I did find a few treasures. My favorite was a brand new unopened Oregon Scientific atomic travel alarm clock. I've been looking for a better small flat battery powered alarm for my bedside. Another fun find was U-pick grapefruit and oranges.

This evening we went over to Retama Village for the annual Christmas reception. We shared punch and cookies and chatted with our neighbors. We saw Ron and Barb Bergquist, whom we had met at Sedalia in the vendor area (they distribute waterless car wash products). Of course we also visited with Stuart and Lynn.
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Beauty and the Beast

We were shocked and very saddened, along with the rest of Americans, by the senseless loss of life at a Connecticut elementary school today. Our hearts go out to the parents and loved ones, and we can't help thinking the unthinkable--what if it had been our children, our loved ones. What can have motivated the shooter to cause such overwhelming grief to people who had done him no harm?

We got most of our Christmas cards out today--but we send only a limited number. Most of our Christmas greetings are via the Internet or the telephone these days.

This evening we attended a high school musical with a group of our friends. Sharyland High School choir and drama students presented Disney's Beauty and the Beast. No photos or recordings were allowed during the production (lest the long arm of the Mouse reach down and impose a fine on the school), so we can't show you how impressive the set and costumes were.

We were very impressed by the talent and energy of the students--sixty-six were involved, and many of them were actually on stage at the same time. It was rousing entertainment, and we were very glad we had chosen to attend.

NOTE: Mr. Watkins followed up on this post, offering some photos from a tech performance, so here's a photo of the cast:

Afterward we went to the DQ and visited with our friends. Everyone agreed that the performance was really great.

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Bike Ride

Today is my grandson Sam's sixth birthday! Happy birthday, Sam the Man.

We went on a group bike ride this morning. About half the group (including us) rode ten miles (five out and five back) on the Mission Hike and Bike Trail, while the other half stayed in the state park, either riding around there or bird watching.

When we returned from the Hike and Bike Trail, we joined the rest of the group at the picnic pavilion to eat our lunches. Then we rode around the park, stopping at the bird watching stations. We saw green jays and chachalacas, a couple of squirrels and several butterflies. The highlight was an Altamira Oriole. They are so brightly colored that they are very easy to spot.  Altogether we rode fifteen miles and felt like we had gotten a good workout.

This evening we danced to Darryl, but not at our usual Thursday evening location. Tropical Valley Acres was using their hall for a holiday event, so the dance was moved to La Hacienda. That's where Bob and Doris used to live, so of course we thought of them and missed them.

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Sunny Dancing Day

We danced twice today, first to Jerry Story at the Peppermint Palace and then in the evening to Joe Saltel at Tropic Star. We saw lots of the same friends at both dances, but at Joe's we missed Steve and Jan. Steve's back has been bothering him.

We heard some sad news on the radio today: Wolf 832 was killed by a hunter just outside Yellowstone National Park on December 6. One of the thrills of our trip to Yellowstone was seeing this wolf up close as she crossed the road ahead of our truck. She was the alpha female of the Lamar Valley pack.

On July 18, 2010, we were driving Chris and Anara to the airport at the end of their visit. We were heading into the Lamar Valley area when traffic stopped, and the magnificent gray wolf crossed the road. On the other side, she stopped and looked back, presumably for her cubs to follow her, we thought. When they didn't show, she crossed back.

The wolf on the right is 832, leader of the Lamar Pack.

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Chilly and Overcast

Not my favorite weather today: cloudy, with one of those gunmetal skies that just seems to oppress the spirit. We bundled up and braved the chill for our walks, but otherwise stayed inside most of the day. We played a couple of games of pool. Ken won both, or rather I lost both by fouling, darn it.

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Almost Margaritas

We woke up this morning to high and gusty winds. The effect inside was quite a racket, since all the slide toppers were flapping in the wind. We decided to get our exercise indoors at the exercise room. We noticed a couple of new machines, including a shiny new treadmill, which I used. It had a great place to prop a book or something to read (I was reading on my phone, but next time I'll take the iPad).

We danced this afternoon to Darryl. We had 23 couples--almost six squares, but that meant three couples had to sit out each tip. Bummer. Darryl workshopped lots of concentric calls. We all definitely need the practice.

Afterwards our gang decided to go to Las Margaritas for dinner. We've been hearing good things about the restaurant, so we decided to go, even though it was only 4:00 p.m. and rather early for us for dinner. When we were almost at the restaurant, we got a call from Jan and Steve. The restaurant was closed, so they were going to Diaz Diner. We decided to pass. So . . . almost Margaritas!
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Sunday Breakfast and Bike

We both set our alarms for this morning, and both of us promptly turned them off and went back to sleep. Luckily Ken woke up and looked at the time: Yikes! We had to run to make it to breakfast with our friends. They saved some seats for us, and a good time was had by all.

We biked through Tanglewood today, figuring that staying out of the woods was a good idea to avoid the danged mosquitoes. We did evade most of them. We saw several more homes under construction. Ken took some photos of the McMansions.

This evening we walked around BPV and spotted several rigs that have moved in recently. (We did not, however, manage to escape all the mosquitoes.)
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Another Quiet Day

On our walk this morning, we visited Retama Village and walked around, checking out the new construction in progress now and the homes added since we left in the spring. It's pretty clear that sales at Retama have begun to recover.

Then we walked through Tanglewood, the family residential neighborhood to the north. We saw materials laid out to begin construction on a new home and a couple of spec homes available, but otherwise not much going on there. The homes are mainly quite large--the type we refer to as McMansions. Some are even three stories high.

A few mosquitoes found us as we walked, but there weren't many, fortunately. We'll definitely be glad when their numbers decrease (soon, we hope).

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Resaca Vieja

We walked over to the park today and hiked the Resaca Vieja Trail. Workers have been cutting down dead trees and clearing some of the tangle of dead wood caused by the flood a couple of years ago. We were able to walk all the way to the observation platform. A tree emerging from the platform used to provide some shade, but it died and has been cut down.

I stopped by the holiday bazaar at Retama Village today. Didn't find anything I couldn't live without. There weren't many vendors.

I finally got it together to get a hair cut. After eleven weeks it was looking pretty shaggy. While I was out I went to Sprouts and also looked for a couple of thrift stores, but didn't find either one, so I settled for stopping at Target to pick up a few things.

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Ride in the Park

Today we made our first visit of the season to the Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park/World Birding Center. We biked through the park, figuring that maybe the mosquitoes wouldn't be able to keep up with us! It probably also helped that we went during the day, the sun was shining, and the sky was blue.

On the way in we saw this sign:

We're not sure what all the "repairs and improvements" might be, but we did hear that some drought stressed trees are having to be removed because they might fall on visitors.

We didn't see much wildlife on our flying trip through the park, but Ken did spot this little critter walking along beside the road. It basically ignored us. Guess having a hard shell home makes it feel safe

We saw some green jays and cardinals and chachalacas.

This afternoon we went to an informational presentation in the clubhouse about NABA and the nearby North American Butterfly Center. The new executive director is a native McAllen girl and full of energy and enthusiasm. It was interesting to hear about the fermented banana brew they make to entice the butterflies. The secret ingredient is imported dark beer, which they figure is especially good for fermenting the bait.

After the program we headed home, and Tim and Rosie knocked on the door. It turned out that they also had been at the butterfly presentation. We enjoyed our chat with them. When they left we realized it was after 5:00 p.m. so we hurried to put dinner on the table.

After dinner we cleaned up and dressed for dancing. Hardy and Judy are back from their trip, and se were glad to see and dance with them. We also were glad to see that Gabe and Martha are back in the RGV.
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Double Dancing

Jerry Story has arrived in the RGV, and today was his first Wednesday afternoon C-1 dance at the Peppermint Palace. Needless to say, we were there, along with 17 other couples, so we had four squares dancing. Lots of fun as always.

Tonight we went to Joe's dance at Tropic Star, We had five squares, including many of the dancers we danced with earlier today. Joe called a pretty challenging dance, including some variations on Tally Ho and some Tandem and Siamese calls. Jan and Steve were there. They had heard from Hardy and Judy, who were in Falfurrias and planning to be home tonight.

This morning we started out on our walk but ended up visiting with Beth and Lee. We got to tour their new Excel. Beth is very positive and high energy, so she's fun to be around. She's also very creative. She didn't like the paisley fabric on the lambrequin covers, so she replaced it with some cream colored fabric she found on half-price sale at Joann's.

Lee and Beth came over to get the nickel tour of our new home too. It's always fun to share ideas and admire each other's new toys. However, the hour that we spent on tours meant that we didn't get our walk in. However, since we had two dances today, we didn't feel too bad about that.
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Mosquito Hordes

This morning we did our laundry. Some of it didn't dry completely, so we hung it out behind the rig on our ladder mounted drying rack.

After lunch we went to DSW where Ken found two pairs of shoes. Of course I didn't find any that fit. I suspect that I'll end up buying online.

When we got home from the shopping trip, we went for our evening walk. I put on some Deet repellent, but it was very warm, so I wore a short sleeved shirt and shorts, as did Ken. We walked along the levee over to NABA and then along the road back to the park. We were bombarded by mosquitoes the whole time, but they got even worse as it got later. By the time we were approaching the park, we noticed it was after 5:00 p.m. and the back gate was closed and locked. We were slapping ourselves silly trying to reduce the local mosquito population, but without much success, so now we're both covered with welts.

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Friends

We visited with fellow Majestic owners Stuart and Lynn Jeffries this afternoon. They've been at Retama Village since November 6. It was good to see them again. While we were sitting on their patio, we heard a loud crash. A motorhome next door at Bentsen Palm Village had backed into the chain link fence between the two parks. It was actually their motorcycle trailer that impacted the fence, so no serious damage except to the fence.

We danced today to Darryl. Kurt and Jean were there, and Steve and Jan were back. Still five squares, but lots of fun.

We got our cable modem from Solstar today, delivered by Joe, and I'm happy to report that we now have a 3.0 MB upload, blazing fast for us. It definitely took a while to finally get the Wifi Ranger to recognize the Ethernet WAN input, but now all is well.

We missed Tom and Donna Clapham. They're only in the RGV visiting briefly, and we were out at the dance when they stopped by.

We watched an episode of Downton Abbey Season #2. It was a repeat of course, but we still enjoyed it. Nothing like a good soap opera set in an English mansion!
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Busy Sunday

Today was a full day. We started by joining our friends at Mi Challitas for breakfast. There were only eight of us today, because Hardy and Judy are still out of town. We had fun planning for Jean’s End of the World party.

After breakfast we went with Jean to Sam’s Club. Jean had a coupon that had been printed in the newspaper for a one-day pass. When we arrived, we first had to stand in line for nearly half an hour for Jean to register and get a pass number. Altogether we didn’t have a very positive experience. Jean wasn’t able to find the things she had hoped to buy. The store was crowded and just didn’t seem to have the same variety and quality of offerings we find at Costco in the Dallas area. Then when we checked out, we were charged a 10% non-member “upcharge.” We all agreed we wouldn’t be back.

When we got home, Ken set up the chairs and tables and solar lights outside. He deployed the rear window awning and set up our LED path light “bushes.” Meanwhile I got out our Christmas decorations and figured out how to set them up in our new home. They came out looking rather festive.

This evening we attended our second McAllen Community Concert. It was a piano performance, and rather an unusual one. The pianist, Yana Reznik, is an entertainer as much as a musician. She is definitely a talented pianist and plays with passion and grace. She’s on a mission to spread the love of classical music around the world. She told several stories of the lives of composers and how they influenced their music—mainly tragic stories—but she managed to keep the mood light and injected plenty of humor.

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Moving Day

Today was a moving day for us, and it was the big moving day for Chris and Shawn and Anara. We moved to Bentsen Palm Village RV Resort. They moved to the brand new townhouse (still in Portland, only 2.6 miles from the duplex). We saw the townhouse under construction when we were visiting in July, but we're looking forward to pictures of the finished home.

Speaking of homes, here's a photo of our new home for the winter.

Here's a view of the 600 circle, where our site is:

We have Excel owners two sites over, Lee and Beth. We met them last year toward the end of our stay. They're here for six months this year, and with a brand new Excel. Tim and Rosie also arrived today, another couple of fellow Excel owners we met when they were here year before last. We're looking forward to visiting.

We also stopped and chatted with one of our 500 circle neighbors, Darlene. She and Ron have moved to a supersite. She caught us up on all our mutual acquaintances. We were sorry to hear that Ron and Ann won't be coming this year because of some health issues.
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Ready to Move

Tomorrow is another moving day, our last for the next four months. We're headed to Bentsen Palm Village site #608 for December through March. Today we packed up the lawn chairs and drained the tanks.

We also flushed our water heater for the first time. We used our new water heater flushing tool to stir up the sediment on the bottom of the tank so it could be flushed away. Now that messy job is done for six months.

It was a great day today for walking and soaking in the hot tub and reading by the pool.

Today is Julie's birthday. We gave her an Amazon gift card which she promptly used to buy an Ultimate Sandbag Training Core Package Pink!

Guess she really wants to get ripped for her birthday!
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Heat to A/C in Five Hours

When we woke up this morning, we turned on the electric fireplace to take the chill off. In the afternoon we found ourselves turning on the air conditioning. We're glad for the sunshine.

We're trying to figure out what to give the kids for Christmas. It's especially hard to do when the kids are all far away.

This evening we watched a recording of the ordination and installation of Fr. Joe Strickland as the fourth bishop of the diocese of Tyler. Carol was in the diocesan choir, but we weren't really able to figure out if she was in any of the choir shots.

Ken has been playing with (oops, working with) his new Asus tablet. He has a keyboard/dock/extra battery. When the tablet is in the dock, it looks like a netbook.
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Fashion Statement

I've been wearing my Tevas, with socks, today, including to the square dance tonight. Actually, it's not to make a fashion statement: it's to protect my injured toe. The toe seems to be getting better, but I want to avoid putting pressure on it until it's completely okay.

We danced to Joe Saltel this evening. We saw some folks we hadn't seen yet, including Dick and Karleen, whose site at Bentsen Palm Village we inherited when they moved to Retama.

Ken's new Asus tablet arrived today. He had to plug it in to charge for eight hours before he could start playing with it. That took a lot of patience. Now he has the keyboard/dock plugged in for its eight-hour charge.

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Ladder

We had more chores to do today. We found out last week that the park has a large stepladder that anyone can use. That's exactly what we needed to reach the area above our main awning where we had noticed some scratches inflicted by passing trees (well, actually, we were passing, not the trees). We have a stepladder, but it's only six feet tall, which is nowhere near enough to reach almost to our over twelve foot roof. So today we took advantage of the pleasant weather to Gel Gloss those pesky scratches. They're still there, but much less visible.

Our other major job was dealing with our dirty patio mat. Black flaky charred bits of sugar cane leaves had floated down from a nearby cane field and landed on the mat. Then it rained, so the ash was wet black smudges on the green mat. When we took the mat up yesterday, we found of course that the bottom was also muddy in patches. We folded the mat over and hung it on our bikes (on the bike rack) to dry.

Today we took it down, intending to somehow hose the mess off of it. We weren't looking forward to that process, because we figured that it would be impossible to keep a wet mat from picking up more crud from the driveway. So first we tried sweeping it off. That helped some. Then we thought of putting it up on the picnic table, piece at a time, so we could spray the spots with Simple Green and wipe it down. That worked really well. When we were done we folded it up and put it away, having no desire to repeat that process.

Our reward after all this work was a shower and a long soak in the hot tub.

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Missing Mom

Today would have been my mother's 86th birthday. She was 80 when she passed away, and of course I still miss her, especially on her birthday and at the holidays.

We danced this afternoon at Darryl's. We've joined his fan club, because you get a discount on dance admission, so now we have "Darryl's Drifters" tags on our badges. We had five squares dancing.

Today was Cyber Monday. I hadn't actually planned to buy anything, but then Amazon offered thousands of Kindle books at steep discounts, and I did find a few to add to our virtual library. Running through the list of books, I was amazed at the number of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" titles there are! Somebody found a gold mine there.

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Sunny Sunday

The sun came out today, and it got warm enough that we headed over to the hot tub for a dip this afternoon and spent some time reading by the pool. We had company today--several people were curious about our new Majestic, so we had an informal open house to show it off. The TV lift is always a big hit.

Today is Ed and Julie's twelfth anniversary. It brings back memories of a very happy celebration. How their family has grown over the past twelve years!

We watched a NOVA program about Hurricane Sandy tonight. The images and stories were awe inspiring. Both the power of nature and the fragility of human lives in the face of such an unbelievable storm are conveyed by the photos and video.

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Another Rainy Day

Well, actually it didn't rain much today, but it was overcast, gray, windy, and chilly. We didn't do much except listen to some of our favorite Saturday radio programs. Ken watched the Michigan-Ohio State game. Did I mention that he watched "unhappily"? The stadium was filled with red, and Michigan just couldn't keep up in the second half.

I talked with Ed. He's been having some allergic reactions, but he thinks he knows the causes, and they're foods he's eaten for years, so that's puzzling. Julie is in Florida for her cousin's memorial service, so Ed has the kids for the weekend.
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Rain!

We had plans to get some cleaning done on the outside of the fifth wheel today, but Mother Nature intervened. I guess that some cleaning might result from all the rain that's been pelting us.

Tonight we watched the 1964 movie My Fair Lady on TMC. It's been one of our favorites, but I haven't seen it in years. I'm reminded of the Nacogdoches High School production of the play many years ago. Chris played the part of Eliza's father.
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Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we went to Hardy and Judy's place along with several other friends to celebrate Thanksgiving with our "Winter Texan Family." We had turkey and all the trimmings you might expect, plus eggplant marinara. Turns out that's one of Hardy's favorite dishes, so Jan made it for him.

Bob and Pat, Hardy and Judy, Lee at front table

C.E. and Joanie, Jan and Steve

After dinner some of us walked over to Jan and Steve's to check out progress on their Texas room remodeling that Steve and C.E. have been working on. Where there was once a closet, there will soon be a mini-kitchen. Some of the wall tiles are up, including some decorative Talavera tiles from Don Wes Flea Market or from Mexico.

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Tropic Star

Tonight we went to Joe Saltel's C-1 dance at Tropic Star. We saw more old friends, including Roy and Phyllis and Joe's wife, Chris. The dance was lots of fun--as Joe's dances always are. He challenged the floor with having some dancers do phantom O circulates while others were doing phantom butterfly circulates. These are hard to see, and especially hard since they ended in blocks, another difficult concept. We'll have to work on them more next week!

After the dance we went to the nearby HEB to pick up some things for tomorrow's dinner. Unfortunately, hordes of other shoppers had the same idea. The shelves were bare of traditional Thanksgiving ingredients--like green beans for the green bean casserole. No fresh ones, and only whole frozen ones could be found. Next year maybe we'll remember to shop earlier!

This morning Ken called Cathy to wish her a happy 16th birthday. It was 7:30 a.m. on the west coast, and she was in the car with her best friend on the way to Disneyland for the day--of course. She loves Disney.
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Pharr South

This afternoon we went to Pharr South to dance to Randy Dougherty. Pharr is one of the string of cities that form the "Rio Grande Valley" area where Winter Texans flock to get away from the cold winter weather further north.

After the dance, Ken wanted to spend more time at Best Buy checking out tablets. He dropped me off at the Pharr City Library to have fun meanwhile. I talked with the people at the desk and found that anyone can get a library card with a driver's license and some recent mail sent to the address on the license. Several of the local cities have reciprocal agreements, so a card obtained at Pharr can also be used in Mission and McAllen and several other libraries. However, McAllen is the only one that circulates eBooks, and for that you must have an actual McAllen library card. So our next step is a visit to the McAllen library.

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Back to Dancing

This afternoon we danced at TVA to Darryl Lipscomb for the first time this season. We were happy to see many dancing friends we haven't seen since we left the RGV last spring. We had fun dancing as well as hugging and chatting with friends.

Judy brought our share of the sweet potatoes they stopped on the way down and bought in bulk. They look beautiful--just the size I like.

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Sunday Breakfast Gang

We went to Mi Challitis Restaurant on Bryan Rd. this morning to meet our friends for breakfast, a long-standing tradition. We were very glad to see Hardy and Judy and Steve and Jan and Bob and Pat and Jean and George. The restaurant is a bit longer trip than Angel's was, but we were very happy with the food and the service--and the great company.

After breakfast we went out in the parking lot with Pottingers and Spauldings and talked trucks. First we showed off our truck and especially its newly cut down bed. Then we went over to admire Spauldings new Sierra.

Spauldings' shiny new truck!

Tonight we listened to the Holidays and Happenings channel on DirecTV for a while. They're playing Christmas music now, mainly tunes from the 40s and 50s. After dinner we watched the first part of the new Ken Burns documentary on the Dust Bowl. It is hard to imagine the scale of the calamity, with children dying of dust pneumonia and farmers giving up in despair and committing suicide.

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Laundry Day

You can probably tell from the title of this post that nothing very exciting happened today. It was mostly overcast again. We did our laundry at the clubhouse, where several women were decorating for Thanksgiving. Wow, it sure seems like Thanksgiving has rushed upon us unawares this year. We've been so focused on making it to the Valley that we haven't given much thought to what comes next.

I looked at the Rio Grande Valley Square Dancing website today. Looks like we'll be getting back into the swing of dancing, starting Monday afternoon with Darryl Lipscomb.

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Regroup

Today we slept in and had a generally quiet day. It's been overcast and a bit chilly all day--definitely not the weather we were hoping for. Lots of our neighbors have commented on our new,larger, fancier rig. Maybe we'll have an open house--but we'll certainly wait until the weather improves.

On thing that hasn't improved is the sand burrs. We started picking them up at Lake Corpus Christi. I hate the darn things, and there doesn't seem to be any good way to avoid them.

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We've Arrived!

Today we left Lake Corpus Christi State Park and headed out on the final leg of our journey to the Rio Grande Valley. We drove through Alice and Falfurrias, seeing more and more flat land covered with scrub. We saw the sign put up by McAllen welcoming Winter Texans home.

We got everything set up and then looked around and congratulated ourselves on having made it back to the Valley one more time. We went for a walk around the park and stopped to hug and chat with friends who made it here before us.

After dinner we went to the opening performance in the McAllen Community Concert series for 2012-2013. We met Hardy and Judy outside the doors to get the tickets. It was wonderful to see our smiling friends waiting for us and welcoming us home for the winter.

The group that performed was called “425,” but they’re in the process of changing their name to Voice Play, which is more memorable and much easier to look up on Google. The six members of the group each provide something special for the mix, including what they call “vocal percussion.” That means that instead of large, heavy, expensive drum sets, they have Layne, who provides much of the percussion sound effects.

In addition to some impressive vocal effects, they draw the audience in with humor. Everyone seemed to enjoy the performance. They got a standing ovation.

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On to Lake Corpus Christi

We started the day with a walk in a Texas state park, McKinney Falls State Park, and we ended our day with a walk in another state park, Lake Corpus Christi State Park.

We've been here once before, on our first trip to the Rio Grande Valley in 2008, but that was in our 32' Excel. We were glad to find that there are several full hookup sites that we can still fit in with reasonable ease, even with our 38' Majestic. We're in site #41. We've seen several deer as well as birds and squirrels

Today is our friend Hardy's birthday and my cousin Beth's birthday. Enjoy!

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Austin Again

We were pretty satisfied with ourselves last night when we chose a place to park along a far curb, behind another fifth wheel that had arrived before us. Unfortunately it was the noisiest spot in a long while. First we heard very loud rock music, and then we began to notice large trucks whizzing past, sounding like jets trying to take off. We were apparently parked right next to a regular route for large, loud trucks. Despite the noise, we both got a pretty good night’s sleep.

This morning I called Loretta again to check on Teresa’s status and to make plans to get together this afternoon--if all worked out. Later I saw that I had missed a call from her and listened to a voicemail: Teresa was being checked out at the hospital.

We set up camp in site #29 at McKinney Falls State Park. It's a semicircular pull-through with a good view of the southern sky. It took a bit of maneuvering to position the rig, and we were concerned that we might not be able to get it level, but everything worked out fine.

When I called Loretta, she said that Teresa had been sent home from the hospital. We agreed that I would drive over so Loretta could stay close at hand in case she was needed to do Grandma duty.

When I arrived at Teresa's, Loretta and little Joe came out to greet me. Isaac, his younger brother, was napping, but I got to meet him later. It was nice to see Teresa, who is of course extremely pregnant.

Loretta and I went to the Barton Creek Greenbelt to walk. It's a nice peaceful trail--except for the bicyclists who come zooming past, often with little warning. We had an enjoyable conversation. I'd like to do this more often, which might be easier to plan if Loretta and John decide to relocate to Austin after John retires next summer.

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Bleeding Brakes

We left RV Parks R Us in Tyler again this morning and drove to Pro One Automotive in Whitehouse. We had high hopes that when we left, they would have discovered the source of our brake problems with the trailer and fixed it. Mike and Dave and their crew certainly worked hard and got complete information from Tucon technical support on how to test the system.

After extensive testing, they decided to bleed the brakes again. They started by bleeding the hydraulic reservoir and then bled all the lines twice thoroughly. The theory is that the two passenger side rear wheels have been the ones carrying the load because the other lines have had air in them. We are hoping that this analysis is correct and that the problem is finally solved. We took a test drive of a 22 mile loop, applying the brakes frequently along the way.

When we pulled back into Pro One, all the brakes were hot, including the truck brakes. The trailer brakes were uniformly hot on all the wheels, which indicates that for right now, there's no problem. Only time will tell if the fix is permanent.

It was late in the day when we left Pro One and headed toward Austin. We're spending the night tonight in a Walmart parking lot in Palestine, TX. Unfortunately it seems that there is a very loud club across the street, with pounding rock music. We're hoping that things will quiet down at some point.
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Rainy Sunday

We woke up this morning to rain, and it continued pretty much all day. Sometimes it was drizzle, and sometimes it was heavier showers, but we didn't see any of the possible thunderstorms. Our morning walk found us wearing raincoats and carrying umbrellas.

Tomorrow we'll be getting up early and going back to Whitehouse, hoping for a quick resolution to our brake problems.
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Skyfall

Carol and I went garage saling again this morning. There were lots of sales, and we had fun. We found some good things and saw some interesting items for sale, including a couple of old CRT computer terminals. People have strange ideas about what will sell sometimes.

Afterward, Carol went to choir practice for the installation of the new bishop. Ken came over, and we went for a walk before lunch. Then Carol and Ken and I went to see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. Daniel Craig plays Bond, and in some ways the movie revolves around his relationship with M (Judi Dench). This Bond specializes in "resurrections" rather than the suave "shaken not stirred" image of Sean Connery's Bond. SPOILER ALERT! Although I love Judi Dench, I found her death at the end of the movie surprisingly unmoving. The movie overall was spectacular and had some genius moments. It was entertaining.

After dinner we watched "Doc Martin," a BBC comedy/drama. It was very British in its humor.

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On to Whitehouse--and Back Again

We got up early again this morning to finish getting ready for our move to Whitehouse.(Hey, we're retired, and 5:30 a.m. is the middle of the night for us!)When we hitched the Majestic up to the newly modified truck, we were very glad to see a nice wide clearance between the bottom of the fifth wheel overhang to the truck bed rails. Instead of 4 1/2" at most, we now have 8". It will be wonderful not to have to worry about hitting the trailer with the truck (or vice versa) whenever we pull across uneven ground.

When we left our of our site at RV Parks R Us, we said goodbye to the manager couple and headed first to Mallory Propane. Both of our 40 lb. tanks needed to be filled. The folks at Mallory were very friendly and helpful. They lifted the tanks down to fill them and then lifted them back onto the trailer.

They asked where we were going, and we said we were heading south for the winter, but first had an appointment at Pro One Automotive in Whitehouse. Two of the guys immediately said some very positive things about Pro One. Everyone we talked with has had a really good opinion of the business, which makes us feel confident that we're putting our trailer in good hands.

The trip to Whitehouse wasn't too long--it's less than 10 miles south of the Tyler loop. When we arrived, two guys immediately came out to guide us into a spot in the driveway between their two buildings. We filled out some paperwork and talked with David, one of the co-owners, about our brake problems. He asked if we had a manual for our DirectLink brake controller. We carry that in the truck, so we were able to give it to him quickly.

He went inside, and we waited. They obviously had lots of business, with several vehicles being worked on. We waited quite a long time, wondering if anything was actually going to happen with our problem. Then David came out to talk with us. He had been reading the manual and talking with Alan at Tucon. He presented a plan of action involving some extensive tests that Alan had suggested. We felt immediately that he seemed to know what he was doing. Although he did warn us that it might be a week or more, we're confident that they will get to the bottom of our problems and actually get a repair that deals with the cause and not just the symptoms.

David suggested that we might be more comfortable back in Tyler for the weekend. We're scheduled to return Monday morning. Meanwhile we're back at RV Parks R Us for another three nights. Good thing we paid for a month!

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Wow! We Have a New Truck Bed

Today was the big day. We got up early and drove our bob tailed truck to Mount Pleasant to have the modified bed installed.  We arrived at Morris Metal Works at 8:30. Bob. Was ready for us. He drove the truck to their other location to get the work done. Meanwhile we settled in for a wait.

We went for our morning walk and then returned to read and work on our computers. Ken spent his time mainly in researching tablet computers. His Acer died a week after the one year warranty expired, and it would cost so much to have it repaired that it makes more sense to replace it.

At noon we ate lunch and then waited some more. Finally at 3:00 p.m. Ken said, "It's here." We went out to see the results of two and a half weeks' worth of work. It was beautiful! We were delighted with the very professional results. Bob and his crew had been able to retain our tonneau cover and rear camera. Everything looked great.

Bob and Matt standing by their handiwork.

The truck bed is now about 5 inches lower than it was, just as we had hoped. We headed back to Tyler to get ready for our move tomorrow.

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Another Day of Waiting

We had another day to wait for our modified truck bed to be completed. Fortunately, we heard tonight that we can have it installed tomorrow. That means getting up very early and driving to Mount Pleasant.

Meanwhile, we spent most of the day at Dick and Carol's, visiting and doing laundry. Carol had a DVD of An Unfinished Life. We really like Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Lopez turned in a good performance too, as did the bear (listed in the credits). We enjoyed the movie, even though it was a bit predictable.

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Election 2012

WooHoo! Obama reelected! Elizabeth Warren elected in Massachusetts, reclaiming the senate seat vacated at Ted Kennedy's death.

We sent our absentee ballots in a couple of weeks ago. We've complained in the past about the Texas requirement that we mail in a request each election for absentee ballots. In California we were used to being able to sign up one time for absentee voting and just get our ballots in the mail automatically. I don't think I'll complain again about that inconvenience after hearing stories of people standing in line for five hours or more waiting to vote, or of people voting in the dark in some areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.

We're very glad that the presidential election has been called tonight and is not going to drag out in recounts and the courts. We still await the final vote count and concession speeches.

We biked over to the airport again this morning. While we were there we watched this American Eagle flight take off.

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