2 NEW LIFE LESSONS LEARNED TODAY

We started the morning very well.  Had breakfast, defrosted the fridge, disconnected everything from the trailer and were all ready to roll.  Just hit the button, and pull in the slide.  Oh! Oh!, the slide wont work.  It took about an hour for Dan to crawl around under the trailer and find out that there was an electrical cord wrapped around the slide mechanism.  Lesson 1.  When you run power to the new shed, you should not rap the  cord around the slide mechanism  on the trailer. 

That was easily solved, so we said our goodbyes and off we went. I was a beautiful drive all the way to San Antonio. The wild flowers are in bloom and these are not just weeds, they are everywhere and in so many varied colours and shapes.  They are gorgeous.  So we saw the beauty of south Texas and the ugliness of the refineries of South Texas.   

Then we hit San Antonio.  It was unbelievable.  Bumper to Bumper traffic, with delays sitting in traffic for 10 and 20 minutes at a time, with slow downs where we were creeping along at 5 mph.  Know what it was?  Besides the extreme traffic, there were at least 4 different accidents in San Antonio, Austin, Waco , and in each incident it was a young adult, in the ditch, or crunched into another car or spun out against a guard rail.  It finally dawned on us that this was the last day of Spring Break, and all these kids were heading home or back to university.  Lesson 2. Never leave the Rio Grande Valley on the last Sunday of spring Break. 

So here we are settled into Motel 6 in Denton, with a stiff drink and a Pizza and hoping for a better travel day tomorrow. 

OUR LAST NIGHT OF DANCING IN TEXAS

Last night a group of couples from Paradise Park, went over to Winter Ranch in Alamo for a dance.  It was our last chance to go Dancing before we leave Texas for this year. 

When we were young we used to go dancing all the time.  I had forgotten how much I love it, until we started going to dances down here.

Dan & I had a wonderful time we are definitely going to do more of this next year. 

People here search out their favorite band and follow them from venue to venue.  If your really into dancing you could go dancing every other night here.  It's BYOB, and they provide buckets of ice and popcorn, all for $4.00 a head.  You can't beat that for cheap entertainment.  There is a lot of country music down here, which isn't exactly up my alley, but as long as it's up beat and danceable, it is tolerable.  So next year we are going to be searching out bands that I like and I will be following them from venue to venue and we will dance our little hoofies off.   It's good exercise too. 

So this morning we started to pack up thinking it was going to be such a big chore and that we wouldn't get it finished until Sunday night and we would leave Monday morning.  Well, It's just after 12 noon and I have done all the laundry and packed up all my patio.  (Low and behold it all fit in the shed with plenty of room to spare. )  We are certainly more than half finished, so we are thinking maybe we will finish up tonight and start for home tomorrow.  It will be nice to get a start north on a Sunday with less traffic, especially through Dallas.  I will be blogging daily as we travel homeward and I think I will keep my Blog going during the summer to keep in touch with some of our new Winter Texas friends.   

WEIRD THINGS IN THE RIO GRAND VALLEY



I have always thought it weird the way the Texans like to put vehicles up on poles as a form of advertizing or attention grabbing. 

Its not just cars either.  I've seen trucks and even full size Semis.  Truck Cab and Trailer.  And it's not just in the Valley, I've seen them all over Texas. 

WE HAD A HAPPY ST.PATRICK'S DAY

We are all lined up and waiting for the Parade to start.

The Parade was full of fun as usual.  I think our little park with their decorated golf carts, puts on a better parade than all of Winnipeg Beach does for Family Fun Days.

We had a good turn out for our party, Dave and Donna Reimer of "Curmudgen"even came all the way from Winnipeg.  Casey and Sharon of "Loafhaven", were also in attendance.  Everyone seemed to have a good time.  I know I did.

Dan lends a hand with the serving, while I pushed my guests to try an "Irish Car Bomb". 

(An Irish Car Bomb, consists of 1/2 a glass of Guinness's Beer, plus a jigger 1/2 filled with Bailey's Irish Creme and topped up with Jamison's Irish whiskey.  Now you take that wiskey laced jigger of Bailey's and drop it into the Guinness and Chug-a-lug the whole works.They are delicious. )

We all got our Irish on and a good time was had by all, we will definately do this again next year. 



DAN'S LATEST CHORE IS COMPLETED

As we did not travel with the trailer this year, the park insisted that we had to "skirt in"our trailer.  This is something we were originally told we would not have to do, because we were still going to be travelling with it.  But, they insisted, so Dan had to come up with a way to close it in, in a way that could be easily removed when we want to pull out again. 

Well, it's done.  It's setup to be quickly removable when we are ready to travel.  We plan on bringing the trailer home next spring, as we want to "Do"the east coast next year, while we still have the smaller trailer. Some day we want to sell this trailer and buy a bigger one that will then be permanently set up on our lot.  But that's way down the road for us.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY IS COMING

It's getting close to that time again.  My celebration day is almost upon us. 


                    Time to fly the Flags.

  Send out the invitations. 

                 Stock the Bar with Jamesons,
               Guiness and Bailey's Irish Creme. 


                                  
                                       Dig out the Irish Music. 


               



Dust off the party supplies.  It's time for me to get ready for my annual St. Patrick's Day Party.  


This year I am going to try to make Irish Potato Cakes like my mother used to make.  But, I'm leery of the flour down here.

( I finally quit making bread after I ran out of Canadian flour, and started having failure after failure.  Next year, I'll bring enough flour to make bread for the whole 3 months.) 

But I digress.  This is my one hostessing opportunity, down here.  I am looking forward to this last big bash before we start preparing for the journey home.  The day starts with the Paradise Park, St. Patrick's Day Parade, then the Club has Beer and Brats, then my celebration.  I hope the weather holds, as I don't have room in our little trailer for everyone if it pours.  Even with two patio umbrellas, I think my party would be ruined. 

THE FLEA MARKET

We went to the flea market today. 


There were so many things that if I had unlimited funds I would buy, but oh, well. 

There is always next year.

I found a concrete Armadillo, that I am definitely going to buy for my patio next year. 



Forget about cowboy hats, horses, lone stars etc., an Armadillo, now that really says "Texas".