A Fun Meeting

We had a great and fun meeting with friends Tom and Jo Ewers at Bob Evans in Branson. Wednesday night we got a phone call from Jo saying they were heading for Kimberling City, just west of Branson to have Christmas with Tom's parents. They found out we were in Branson on Facebook. We set up a rendezvous for lunch on Christmas Eve Day.

We had a great visit, sharing a lot of laughs and catching up on the families. What a nice surprise this was. We had last met at Silver Spring Park, near Ocala, FL some 3+ years ago. It was like we picked up immediately where we had left off, and we are hoping the next meeting will be in the near future! If the weather stays funny, they may be able to come by Sunday or Monday, and maybe meet up with the kids. That would be cool.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! I know a lot of folks' Christmases were affected by the blizzard, we are just praying that everyone is careful and chooses to wait it out rather than try and get somewhere by car.

It looks like all three of the daughters' families are going to do just that. Heather (near Iowa City) is still undecided, but if ice is likely in eastern Missouri, they will wait until tomorrow. We want all to be safe and get here late rather than have a travel problem.

Meanwhile, Ellen and I are hunkered down in our condo in Branson. It got rather cold and windy last night and we did have some snow...not enough to cover the ground. Our thoughts are of all those under 1 to 2 feet of snow.

Ho Ho Ho--Rhymes with snow

Ho Ho Ho...Christmas Eve.

Well, here in Branson, it is raining off and on...changing to snow later today. 2 to 4 inches here, but that is a dusting compared to Iowa and northern Missouri where our kids are trying to leave from tomorrow morning. The lows here will be in the teens for about 4 days starting tonight.

Looks like Christmas will be delayed for us, as the upper midwest is getting hammered. But that's ok, just so everyone drives safely and waits til it is ok to drive. What a mess for all those who have holiday travel plans.

Ellen has been making lots of goodies...snack mixes, cookies...yummm. Now we need more people to enjoy it.

Moving Day

We have spent the last couple of days stacking stuff up in the living room of the fifth wheel that we have to take to the condo. Yesterday we loaded the back seat of the truck full of bags of food, suitcases, and other stuff we know we will need over the next 11 days. I buttoned up the Excel, stowing all loose objects, water hoses, filters, etc.

We checked in at about 2 in the afternoon. We are quite pleased with the 2 bedroom condo at Wyndham at Mountain Vista. After living in less than 400 square feet, this place is huge!!! The master bedroom seems larger than our RV living space. This is not to say we want to settle down yet, but rather that it is amazing the difference between what you think you need and what you really need.

The Christmas event we have planned and thought about for months now seems a reality. This will be the first time ever that all three of our daughters' families will be together for a holiday. But don't get too excited, the weatherman says a winter storm is headed for the midwest for Christmas Eve and Day. We are banking on the hope that he is oftentimes wrong.

Good friends!

We had a wonderful get together with the families of great friend Laurie Feldman. She and her daughters' families came to Branson for a Friday night ride of the Polar Express, a Christmas train activity out of the old Branson train depot.

We met at the Farmhouse Restaurant in old Branson for breakfast, and a totally enjoyable meal. The four kids (Grace, Luke, Zoe and Ava sat at a table on their own and behaved like angels... The ladies sat at another table (Ellen, Laurie, her daughters Megan and Katy), and the men, (myself, Rich and Steve)at a third.

After breakfast and some browsing at Dick's old 5 and 10 Cent Store, we drove to the Marriott Condo where they had been staying, and while the kids played and swam in the pool with Megan, Rich and Steve, the rest of us sat around talking and watching the frivolity. It was an extremely enjoyable time together.

Rich also gave me a nice present, a pair of "Yurbuds" a great product he has come up with which is now available on www.bestbuy.com The soft rubber buds fit over conventional MP3 earbuds, and keep the buds comfortably in your ears, without them falling out or being painful. I don't know if you ever have this problem, but I had to jam the ear pieces into my ears, and they HURT! These things are awesome!!!

We hugged and parted ways, and we checked out our Wyndham resort and activity center, getting ready for the troops' arrival on Christmas Day. Hungry again, we had a late afternoon meal at Hong Kong Buffet, which was nice until Ellen got a fuzzy hair in her fortune cookie. The fortune read "you have only cookie in Hong Kong with fiber." Ah so.

Once back at the RV, we had a nice Skype call (with image) with Matt and Nohora. We had a great visit. They are leaving for their cruise from Rio de Janiero, Brazil to Santiago, Chile tomorrow morning.

We are in the Branson Area

We spent last night at the Stage Stop RV Park, near Neosho, MO. Friendly Camp Hostess, but the place was really lacking in ambience. We left at about 10 AM and had a nice sunny drive to Springfield, where we shopped a bit and had a great lunch at an Olive Garden. Ellen had her soup and sald special and I had a great shrimp frontchessa (sp?) dish.

We arrived at Turkey Creek Park, an Escapee park in Hollister MO, just across the river from Branson. Nice clean park and really friendly folks here. The park is situated right on Turkey Creek, kind of wooded around the edges of the park.

Leftovers tonight, then Survivor and maybe the Thursday Night NFL game to see if the Colts can keep it going.

Almost out of Texas

We're on the move, leaving Rockport at 8 AM this morning. We got a great start, as there was no rain nor fog! We decided to go as far as we could today, so the next 2 days could be shorter legs, especially day #3, as we are planning a stop to finish up some Christmas shopping in Springfield MO before heading south to Branson.

It looked good on paper, until we got caught in a traffic snarl caused by a two car accident on the beltway around Dallas. That made us 'late' getting to the north end of Dallas, so we ended up fighting commuter traffic all the way to McKinney, TX. We took it nice and cool and it just made our day a bit longer.

Ellen drove a nice middle leg of the day, about 2 and a half hours worth, which allowed me to relax and sleep a little bit. The long day netted something like 460 miles, very out of the ordinary for us. We are snuggled in at the Lazy L RV park on the south side of Sherman TX, about 20 some miles from Oklahoma. Low tonight of 27 or so....

today's thought: If everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Fixin' to move on

Today is our last day at Bay View Resort just north of Rockport TX. Heavy fog this morning and still at 1:30 it still was foggy along the coast. We washed the Ford while in town, and it was unbelievable how much crusted mud came off.

We had a nice inexpensive lunch at Vallarta Restaurant on the south side of Rockport. Good tacos and enchiladas.

We will do some pre-packing today and sorting out of things so we can get off to an early start (early for us!) to morrow. The trip to Branson is almost 900 miles, and we are going to take 3 travel days to get there, with third hopefully a short one.

My Packers now have won 5 in a row, and are in pretty good shape for a wild card berth. Here's hoping!

Holiday stuff

Yesterday was a cloudy day, but not too cold. I rode the bike to the clubhouse to check our mail, but the mail forwarded had not yet arrived. Upon my return ride to the RV, the sky opened and rained and rained some more. Our puddles are back, and I was soaked.

I spent much of the afternoon painting my holiday carved works of art. That was a lot of fun. Should be able to finish them today. Ellen worked on our Christmas letter. I think we are going to send most of them electronically, and then snail mail those folks who don't have email. Our eco contribution!

Popcorn and a movie

We went to the Rockport Cinema 4 and saw Blindside with Sandra Bullock. Wow, what a great story. It was amazing how this lady took in a homeless kid, who ended up coming out of his shell, learning football and ending up in the NFL. The tough thing was to see and know how so many other kids never have a chance to escape the projects...Of course we shared a nice big bag of buttered popcorn.

It was a chilly day today, but the sun shone for most of it and that is very good. Ellen baked a pecan pie that is simply awesome!!! I am putting the finishing touches on my holiday woodcarving projects, and then I can paint! Hooray!

Quiet times

It has been quiet here in Rockport, TX. I feel guilty complaining that it has rained a bit and the sun hasn't shone much--after hearing what Iowa and Wisconsin is getting hammered with....a terrible blizzard.

We did putter down to Port Aransas the other day, taking the free ferry from Aransas Pass. Ate at a small diner that actually had a smoking section. We couldn't recall the last time we saw that. And pee-yoo, it stunk. Hard to believe I used to thrive in clouds of smoke.

It was drizzling much of the time., but we saw several dolphins during the short ferry ride.

Yesterday we wrapped Christmas gifts and continued watching the HBO series Rome.

Brrrrrrrr

Friday, Dec. 4

Brrrrrrrr, it's cold outside! Today was a blustery day, and we had rain and some snow showers on and off throughout the day. We were out in Rockport, renting a couple of 'Rome' DVDs from Blockbuster. The clerk had her two preschool boys playing behind the counter, and she shared that the Rockport Schools dismissed early because of the weather!!! There was no snow on the ground, and yes it was cold and windy, but it was like 40 degrees! The gal said 'hey this is south Texas, they don't know how to handle any 'bad' weather...maybe they thought it was going to freeze.' I remember braving icy and snowy roads in Iowa because it wasn't 'bad enough' to cancel school. Houston did get quite a bit of snow though, and that's only a few hours north.

It did get colder, but it was 37 when we retired to bed. We were nice and warm in our Excel, and we totally enjoyed a few episodes of 'Rome', which is really full of historical notes on the era of the Roman Empire. The special feature allows you to watch the episode, and historical notes pop up, dealing with every day life, slavery, the family situation of Caesar, etc., clothing, food, and on and on. Thoroughly enjoyable, protected from the wintry elements, but it wasn't too cold for us to snack on some Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.

Chilly, no, it's cold

It was sunny in the morning, but it clouded up by early afternoon and got downright cold. I was carving for a few hours, almost cutting myself once---saved by my protective glove as my knife slipped! I also chipped a pice off, which had to be super glued back into place. That's when I quit carving.

We drove into Rockport and picked up a prescription, shopped a bit, and Ellen got some Apple Care help on a few items on our Apple Laptop. She had tried while out at the RV Park, but phone service isn't the best, and after 12 minutes on hold, the phone signal was lost. She got everything worked out and we headed home.

We had a nice phone conversation with Jim Pearce, our ATV Guide from Sierra Vista, AZ. He confirmed we had a Honda Rincon waiting for us when we are at St. David RV Resort in Februrary!!! Hooray! We jsut have to hammer out the details, but we are pumped about it!

A QUIET DAY, SORT OF

Wednesday, 12/2

A quiet day in Rockport...I got everything fully set up and connected, as all we did when we arrived in the rain was plug in and put the slides out. The puddles are getting smaller and the sun is shining. Got a walk in and read the paper.

After this much of the day was consumed with the news from daughter Heather that my brother Tom was moved to a Hospice facility in Ames, IA. Tom has a host of problems, including congestive heart failure, kidney failure, an internal infection, and a broken leg. Lots of time on the phone, and finally got to talk with him and that was good. With the timing I decided not to fly to Iowa.

Ellen made some great Italian Wedding Soup, which I got to roll up mini-meatballs (less than three fourths of an inch in diameter)--there must have been 200 of them. It's a great recipe, and tasted very very good.

I tried Texas Hold'em at the clubhouse which turned out to be an exercise in futility. They play really fast here, and that is not comfortable for me...this is not an excuse, just the facts. It was like 'how many hands can I deal in 5 minutes??' I went out early, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

We did some shopping, picked up some prescriptions, and took a look at the gulf. I did have very nice phone conversations with my daughters Heather and Erin.

DECEMBER!!??!! We are in Rockport, TX

It is hard to believe that December is here already! Time flies when you're having fun. We left Lake Conroe on an overcast morning, saying goodbye to a couple of folks we've visited with.

Our trip today was over 200 miles, a little more than anticipated as we went west out of Houston to get to a Camping World in Katy TX. We had to exchange a toothbrush/toothpaste holder we had purchased in Louisiana. Ellen took over at the wheel which was very welcome by me. We stopped to fix a lunch on the go, and as I took over again (somewhere between I-10 and Victoria TX), it started to rain as I approached Victoria. It never stopped raining, and at times the rain became a downpour.

By the time we reached our park (Bay View RV Resort) near Rockport, the fields were full of water, and the ditches full. As we found a site the rain increased again, so we decided to just get as level as possible, not unhook from the F-450, and just get our electricity hooked up. We have a beautiful site, nestled in some trees with character...yet we are able to obtain a satellite signal!!!--I hope to post a photo of our site here in Rockport soon.

It is nice to be warm and out of the nasty weather

Last day at Castaways

We've been staying at the Castaways RV Resort near Willis TX. This is our last day here, as we travel to Rockport tomorrow.

I caught this home made RV trailer as it was leaving the park...it kind of looks like a log cabin on wheels...well, with A/C.

It rained through the night last night, and today has been chilly and overcast. We got some shopping done in Conroe and had a late lunch at Panera.

Nothing too exciting...tonight we will do some prepacking for our departure, and maybe catch some of the Monday Night Hoopla, 9-0 Saints hosting the Patriots. If Wes Welker gets 13 or more fantasy points my team won't win.

Turkey!!!

As I mentioned yesterday, we ate Italian in Houston. Today Ellen fixed a traditional Turkey dinner!!!! A day late was fine with me...mmmmm....turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and rolls. And did mention she also baked a pumpkin pie??? Everything was delicious, and boy, do we have leftovers even though I tried to eat as much as possible!

I spent a lot of the afternoon carving, and that felt really good. It clouded up and kind of cooled off, but I stayed out there and did as much as I could. We had a little happy hour with two of our neighbors; Don from North Dakota and Bill from Williamsport, PA. Don popped some popcorn, and we had a nice little chat. Their wives both were not feeling up to it, so it was just the four of us.

I think I might go and fix some leftover turkey and dressing........

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Thankful for ever so many things in my lifetime, I enjoyed this day in humility and gratitude for the freedoms to numerous to mention that I so often take for granted. Coffee in the morning, reading the Houston Chronicle, and realizing that the kazillion pages of ads and doorbuster inserts meant nothing to us. We just don't shop, at least the way we used to. We just can't fit anything else in our RV!!!

I also enjoyed spending the day with Ellen, driving to Houston to visit Oscar, Ellen's foreign exchange student from the mid-1990's. Oscar is from Bogota Colombia, but now resides near Rice University in Houston with is wife Patty and 6 week-old daughter Tatiana. We had a great visit, with a great lunch at Buca de Beppo (fantastic Italian food), walking distance from their apartment.

Oscar and Patty are a delightful couple, and Tatiana is a beautiful baby. We spent quite a bit of time sharing, and also managed a Skype video call to Matt and Nohora in Medellin Colombia, Matt caught up with Oscar, and he too got to meet Patty and Tatiana. Finally, Oscar gave Ellen and I an auto tour of Houston, the university area, the sprawling medical complexes, downtown and the Galleria--the central city mall. Houston has obviously grown a great deal in recent years with many new and impressive buildings....traffic, however, is something else. It was a good day out--and the Packers won!!!

We hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!

Shopping and Poker

Wednesday, Nov. 25: Thanksgiving eve

This morning Ellen fixed a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, after that it was leftovers the rest of the day. That is one thing about RVing--the fridge isn't big enough to keep more than a couple of days of leftovers.

Then we went into Conroe, braving the traffic on I45--bumper to bumper at times, especially northbound on our way home. We did some relatively early Christmas shopping and were pleased to find some of those 'perfect' gifts. It was a beautiful bright sunny day,not really warm but very comfortable.

I took a major nap in the late afternoon--two hours' worth! In time enough to head for Texas Hold'em at the clubhouse. Not much like our old poker group, as the buy in was $1.00, no alcohol, and 24 folks vying for the money. Met some really nice folks, and had a good time, even though I only finished 11th. Oh, another difference from our old FD group--the timer was religiously set and followed on upping the blinds.

Willis, Texas

We pitched camp at the Castaways RV Park on Lake Conroe, Texas this afternoon after a pleasant drive from our overnight at Grand Coushatta Casino. Ellen drove almost half the way here, and I must say it is so great to be able to be a passenger.

Ellen is an awesome driver. She did get excited as we were on the 210 beltway around the south side of Lake Charles, LA. As we approached a huge turning bridge, the roadway was lost in fog and mist on the river. She didn't think it funny when I told her that at least you can't see the what's down below...it was like a bridge over the clouds.

We decided to get off the interstate system at Beaumont, and we were treated to a bevy of abandoned and ramshackle buildings all along Texas Highway 321. It was saddening to see so many examples of failed human activity. Oh, not all of the homes were empty either. It is so different to see junk and crap strewn all over the yard, or wherever it broke, compared to the tidy neatness of the Midwest.

We are mellowing out, planning on watching who wins Dancing With The Stars tonight...we're plugging for Donnie Osmond.

A KINDER PLACE

Kinder, Louisiana that is. We left Abita Springs this morning, hitting a Camping World in Hammond, LA to pick up some RV stuff. We had a picnic lunch at the Achalafaya (swamp) Welcome Center. Beautiful sunny day, and we got to use the one picnic table there. The swamp looks a lot better than the last time through here (2007) when it was raining buckets. We saw a lot of egrets, Ellen saw an alligator.

We rumbled west and then north to Kinder. A huge casino here and a nice RV Park ...they call it a 'premiere RV park'. Concrete sites, grass between, nice little lake, and quiet...far from the road and the casino parking lot...all for only $17.00 for a full hook up.

The Grand Coushatta Casino will lay claim to some of our money tonight, but I plan on getting some of the gambling losses back on the buffet. Ellen might win at blackjack---she is the lucky one in the family. I'm lucky to be with her, but that doesn't translate into gambling wins.

Abita Springs,Louisiana

We are at an RV Park of the same name as the title of this post. Nice park, friendly people. We are about 45 minutes north of New Orleans, and we were able to spend one day in the French Quarter.

Met new friends, George and Suzie, from Ontario---really nice folks. George is the catalyst for this new start of blogging. Also Jon and Angelo, from Lafayette, LA. Two great guys, getting ready to full time in their Cardinal 5th wheel. All 6 of us had a nice outing this week to the Abita Brewery, just down the road. The brewery is growing at a good pace, and with the open bar before and after the tour, I found I liked beer more than I thought!

A NEW BLOG SITE, A NEW BEGINNING

After messing with the Google Blog Site, and not being able to access the 'new post' page, I have gone ahead and started a new blog site. Hopefully this is a good move. I am hoping to gain a readership of sorts, perhaps those who may be interested in where we are and what we are doing.

I also hope to try and post every day, however short it may be! That may help too, because in the past I did not keep up with our travels and activities. After well over a year I managed only about 100 posts. I hope to do better starting today!!!