Goodbye for Now

This morning we went to a yard sale in the clubhouse. As usual, we had fun hunting through the "treasures." I found some things I really like, including a new purse and a lightweight little travel pillow, just right for my trip to Atlanta next week. Ken found a handy small Olympus Stylus 470, just the right size for a pocket and advertized as "weather resistant," which should be a plus when we're traveling.

This afternoon we had planned to go to Jerry Story's C-1 dance, but our schedule got tight, so we decided to go only to Joe Saltel's C-1 this evening. Meanwhile we stopped at Costco (again) because we seemed to be missing part of the paperwork for the American Express card. While we were there we visited the fresh produce cooler and stocked up on berries.

We went to the Texas room to finish prepping it for our departure. We picked quite a few grapefruit and took some to Jan and Steve. We left some on the tree for our neighbor, Chuck. He promises to pick it clean before they leave.

We applied the Bayer Advanced citrus tree insecticide. We're hoping it will protect our trees from citrus greening disease. We sealed all the drains as much as we could and left some containers of water to humidify the place during the summer. Just before we left, we set off bug bombs in the shed and Texas room and put our mouse and rat bait, hoping to keep the critter count down.

We ate dinner at the clubhouse and then headed to Pharr for Joe's C-1 dance. It's our last dance of the season--and Joe's last dance here before he takes off for his square dance cruise. He and Jerry Story are the callers organizing a one-week cruise of the western Caribbean. It departs from Galveston, so there was some concern that the recent oil spill in the Ship Channel would cause the cruise to be cancelled.

Carol talking to Mary Ann; Steve and Jan with Tim

We said goodbye to all our Valley friends today. We stopped by to see Hardy and Judy. She is having a lot of pain with her knee injury, and it will be two weeks before she can see the orthopedic doc. They are going to Wyoming and on a trip to Amsterdam and a cruise that will take them to Moscow, which will check off an item on Judy's bucket list. Hardy has an IEEE meeting in Amsterdam, so they're piggy-backing the cruise on the business trip.

We stopped to say goodbye to John and Sandy. He has received the parts needed to repair the damage from a blowout on the way south last fall. After they're all fixed up, they'll head back home. They're planning a trip to Colorado and they'll join family at a place to be determined, presumably one of the western national parks.

Steve and Jan were at Joe's dance tonight, so we said goodby to them after the dance. They're going to the gate guard job in Cotulla, TX. When they leave there, they'll come back to the Valley. Then the plans are for a trip to Minnesota to see Jan's son and family and then a trip to Peru.... Sounds like everyone has an exciting summer planned.

We said goodbye to Bob Boyink at the dance tonight. Pat is going tomorrow for her final weekly chemo treatment. Next she'll have chemo every three weeks for several months. They're planning to make arrangements to get the treatments at various places as they travel this summer.