Just hangin' out in the RGV

We have just enjoyed a few days of R & R. On Tuesday, we (I) drove the motorhome back to LaFeria to get a couple things fixed. We have 5 things I think that needed attention. We left there at 10:30 a.m. and went to Harlingen for Terry's blood work. We got done there at 11:30 and figured we would head to South Padre Island, since we hadn't gotten there this trip. Terry thought it was only about 25 miles (try 60), so off we went. We got over to the island and drove up and down the strip and then went to a county park and walked out onto the beach.

It was beautiful out there. It was very windy and the surf was up, but it was lovely, just the same. While we were there, the dealership called to tell us the motorhome was finished. It was 1:30. Just couldn't believe that. But it was done and we headed back. We stopped in Port Isabel and ate lunch, then back to Texas Trader and the motorhome.

Mom and I have hit the pool a couple days this week. Such is life. The hot tub is great and it sure feels good to hop in the pool when it is in the 80's and the sun is hot. But I like it that way. . . I'm not complaining.

Yesterday on our way back from town we saw the sign for Canyon Lakes RV Park. Earlier in the month we had tried to remember who it was we knew who was in another park around Mission with the word "Lakes" in the title. We weren't even sure which park. And we weren't sure who it was who had told us that, but we finally decided it was someone from the family reunion. As we brainstormed trying to figure out who it might be, we settled on James Taylor, a nephew of Terry's Dad's, although he was a year old than Henry.

So we drove around Canyon Lakes but didn't find anyone who looked familiar. Terry decided to stop at the office and inquire and one guy in there said, "yeh, he's down on 105." So we drove on around. At that site there were a couple men sitting around talking and we stopped and asked for James Taylor. He was inside his rig, but they called him out and sure enough. . . that was "our" James Taylor. He and Mary Francis had just arrived the day before. Had we looked for them earlier, we would not have found them or known where they were. So we had a nice visit and then today, they drove over here to see our new motorhome. So we had another nice chat with them and got some pictures.


We still have not gotten our plates which should be on their way. We are making plans to head out the day after they arrive, so we could be leaving anytime soon.

Till next time . . .

Dale

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all. May your day be filled be blessings as we rejoice in the reason for the season.

Yesterday we were treated to a golf cart Christmas parade from another park.


Today we started out the day by going with Mom and Dad to church. They have an early service which I think is primarily populated by Winter Texans. Very nice. We got home and had plenty of time to fix dinner. I had invited Mom and Dad over for dinner today. That was rather brave since I am still just getting used to my convection/microwave but we managed to have enough good food. We had ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, ham gravy, sweet potato casserole, cranberry salad, gingerale salad, dressing, rolls, a relish tray and pecan pie. Way too much food, but Mom and I aren't planning on cooking the rest of the week.


We had planned on leaving tomorrow, but decided to wait here for our license plates to arrive from South Dakota. We are hoping they will come in another week. Tomorrow we are also getting ready to take the coach back to Texas Trader for a couple minor adjustments. They will do everything in one day and we will come back here. I think we are going to move to the other site we actually had rented for the month (we ended up staying on my parent's back lot at their request). We will have full hookups at that site and will be able to try the washer/dryer out.

We have greatly enjoyed our time in the RGV and it is now warming up into the 80's during the day. Great pool weather and we have been there a couple times already. We have been looking at the weather through where we must pass to get to Quartzsite, and it is a bit cooler than here. It will be hard to leave this warm weather. We are thinking that we may just head directly to Quartzsite and not do much siteseeing in between as we had originally planned.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Pepe's on the River

Tonight we met some fellow Class members (Graduating Class of 2005) at Pepe's on the River for their "all you can eat shrimp" night. Dave and Yong are in the Rio Grande Valley for the month of December before heading to Casa Verde, Arizona, and possibly a stopover at the Quartzsite gathering. They are staying in a park in Donna, while we are at Mission, Texas.

Pepe's is a restaurant of legend in the Mission/McAllen area. The original place we patronized years ago burned to the ground and while the owners said at the time they would not rebuild, it was eventually rebuilt. I think they are different owners, but then a 2nd Pepe's, Pepe's Backyard, was also established in the same area, side by side.

It was great to share dinner with people who share the full-timing interests and we had a most enjoyable time. Good luck in your travels, Dave and Yong, and we hope to see you again down the road.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Done!

I am done now with my Christmas shopping. If I had bought what I wanted when I first saw it, I would have been done about 2 weeks ago. Then when I went to get it, I couldn't find it. That's the way it goes.

We also drove back to the RV dealer today and got the title which wasn't ready the other day. We will overnight the paperwork for our license plates to South Dakota, as we are legal residents there now. Then hopefully they will overnight the plates back to us here and we will be good to go. We are planning on staying here at Mom and Dad's until we get the plates. Don't know if we will have another good mail drop in the next week or so.

We also have an appointment to take the motorhome back to the dealer on the 27th for a couple minor items to fix. Nothing major, but things we want to have fixed before we leave for Quartzsite, aka the Big Q. So far, since we left home, we have accomplished everything we set out to do which is quite a feat. We have had a great time down here in the valley. Friday we are meeting up with some other members of our "Graduating Class of 2005," an informal group of RV'ers who have gone full time in 2005. We post on RV.net and have become friends through our posts. We are meeting at Pepe's on the River, a really neat open-air club on the Rio Grande.

My connection is slow, so I am trying to post a new picture of our rig every day.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Tired!

Man, this movin' stuff is for the birds. Ugh. We spent last Friday moving from one motorhome into the other. We only had what was in the coach, as we had emptied the basement compartments into Dad's little storage barn. The next day I spent straightening things up and going through stuff I had just "thrown" into the coach. When we were all done with that, and were proud of ourselves for having done such a good job, we realized we had not yet started hauling stuff out of the barn. The pile in there seemed to get bigger instead of smaller every time we looked at it. In fact, it was a bit depressing. Where DID we have room for that stuff in the old coach. We have so much more room in here and lots of storage, but we seem to be running out too quickly. So now we are sorting some stuff out that Dad has volunteered to take back to Indiana for us next spring. They take very little back and forth, so they have room in their motorhome for some extra junk. :-) Mom helped me sort through some stuff and I was able to make the decision to get by with less.



Yesterday I pretty much finished up going through the stuff in the coach. I am still missing some things I cannot find, but I am hopeful they will turn up when this process is complete.

Mom and Dad haven't seen a whole lot of us unless they come out here. It is so pleasant to sit in the Phaeton and relax and be comfortable. Terry is still trying to figure out the remotes. I think we have 5 or 6 of them. I'm not even going to go there. I am trying to learn to cook in a convection/microwave oven. So far, so good. At least I can read the manual.

Today we are taking Mom and Dad and running over to Harlingen. The dogs are getting low on dog food. They eat a special kind because Neal (with his seizures) can't have any preservatives, etc. So we cannot find it everywhere. We are going to stop by and pick up our title for the motorhome since it wasn't ready the other day.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Mexico!

Sorry I haven't been writing. It's not that we haven't been doing anything, but we have spent a lot of time just relaxing, enjoying the great weather and doing a little Christmas shopping.

We took another trip down to Mexico. Probably will be the last time we go this trip. We go early in the morning and by 11:00 it starts getting crowded. Mom and Dad say that's the time to leave, and we are usually ready to go too. I bought a manger scene made of pewter. It is kind of hard to describe. It is all one piece with the figures lined up. The stable scene is in the middle. I had not brought a manger scene with me and this one is compact and fits in the motorhome nicely.

I haven't been posting pictures because my connection is not very fast. I have tried a couple times, but it just stalls.



The big news we have is that we have a new home! We drove it home yesterday. We have been looking since we left home. The rig we had, while very nice, was not a fulltiming coach and we just took our time looking everywhere we happened to be. We checked a couple dealers out one day and when we left the last one, we had put a deposit down on one. We had been looking at Tiffin or Newmar for manufacturers. We bought a Tiffin Phaeton. This dealer was really looking to sell and we were looking to buy and we were able to buy a new one. This one is a diesel as opposed to the gas one we traded in. More power and more storage. It has four slides and it is just like a small apartment. It is quite comfortable.

We took delivery yesterday, Friday, and spent all day at the dealership. We had the entire basement of the other motorhome emptied and it still took us 4 hours to transfer everything over to the new one. By the time we were done, I could hardly walk. The sciatica in my back has really flared. We had the coaches facing each other with a walkboard in between so we didn't have to step out of one into the other, we just walked across the gangway. It was an exhausting day. I didn't feel much better today, but pain pills help. Today Mom and I spent a lot of time unloading cabinets and reloading them. I still have a lot of changes to make and we have all the stuff we carried in the basement of the old one to move over. It is in Dad's little barn.

Tonight we went out and I bought some throw rugs and runners. We have a lot of laminated flooring in this coach which is really nice since we have the dogs.

Well, I am too tired to stay awake, so I will try and send a picture with this then quit.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Life in the "not so fast" lane!

We have just been hangin' out here in Mission with Mom and Dad. Sleep in every day, drive the golf cart around, take naps, eat . . . It's tough.

Our Wheaten Scottie, Neal, started having seizures again the other day. Had about 5 in 12 hours. Kinda scarey as we thought we had them well controlled. Don't know what triggered them, and we were totally surprised by it. I upped his one med and then started with a larger dose to get them stopped. Now I will probably back off a little, but probably keep it a little elevated. Thank goodness our vet has instructed me pretty thoroughly on what to do when this happens. It's truly frightening, but I am on a forum for epi-dogs and one of the members has seizures herself. She said she is in a stupor too afterwards, but they are not painful and she doesn't remember them, so she assures us we shouldn't worry about that with the dogs. He's getting back to his normal self now and he and Bailey are back sleeping in the same enclosure. We separate them when Neal has trouble as we don't want Bailey to get in his way.

Today they had a craft sale in the hall and "patio" sales, not unlike a garage sale, but no one here has a garage. Hah. Didn't find anything I need.

The weather has turned cold. It was cold last night and it rained. Down to about 36 degrees. Today it got up to 48 and tomorrow it will be back in the 50's. Then Monday back in the 70's. Sure is a lot better than shoveling snow.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Down in the Valley. . .

Rio Grande Valley, that is. Hey, what's not to like? It is 78 degrees, yesterday was 90. A breeze all the time, cool nights and sunny days. Does it get any better than this?

Just been hangin' out with Mom and Dad. Mom's had a cold, so she's trying to keep from giving it to the rest of us. Dad and Terry have been adjusting the little barn doors so Dad can put the golf cart in there when they leave for the summer. The little cart is a lot of fun. The dogs have taken turns going with me for rides. They seem to enjoy looking at the scenery. We just go around the park and then sometimes we sneak into one of the neighboring parks.

More and more Christmas decorations are going up. We have started doing our walk at night. Very pleasant then and don't have to worry about getting back to start something else. By walking at night we are able to see what new decorations have gone up since the previous night. It should really be lit up as we close in on the holidays.

Yesterday Terry and I went to the big flea market at Donna. I guess I'm spoiled by the Shipshewana Flea Market as everything else pales in comparison, but I was able to find a couple things I had wanted.

Today Terry and Dad are finishing up the latches on the barn and I have been doing some reading. Ah, the life of the retired. This is leisure living at its best.

We read the headlines of the hometown newspapers daily and see snow on the ground back there. Pretty to look at, but I am glad we are here in our shorts and t-shirts.

Till next time. . .

Dale