HAVING TROUBLE LEAVING COMMENTS?

Just a quick note for anyone that is having trouble leaving a comment on my Blog. I'm told, you need to sign up for a google account first in order to comment. Once you have a google account, you select that as your profile and you can comment. Hope this helps. 

DOWN SOUTH IS OVER, UP NORTH IS ON

Yesterday we went out to the old aircraft hangars where our boat is stored for the winter.  It's an indoor heated facility where we can come out for the weekend work on and sleep on, the boat.  The building has washrooms, showers, a galley and a lounge for the boaters use. 

This is a view from our rear deck.  The boats are all packed in and waiting to be prepped for launch.  It is certainly nice to have a place (out of the weather) where you can work on your boat every spring weekend. 

As I step into my Galley, I get that welcome home feeling and am anxious to get started on this years boating season.  But, Dan reminds me that this trip is only to drop off stuff we brought home from the US and not a working weekend.  Besides I have to hunt down and buy a used commercial sewing machine so that I can do some canvas work this year. 

IT'S NICE TO TRAVEL, BUT IT'S NICE TO BE HOME

We are off!!  7:30 am and it's time to hit the road.  With any luck we may be able to make it home today.  Council Bluffs, Iowa to Winnipeg Manitoba, is doable. 

The roads are clear the weather is perfect as we slowly settle into the rolling hills of South Dakota.  As we travelled through there, it got very windy.  We bucked a 40 - 55 mph wind most of the way through that state.  We have always encountered winds in South Dakota.  They talk about winds in Texas, they are not nearly as bad as the winds in South Dakota. 



As the roads flattened out and we entered the "Real Prairies", that us Manitobans are very familiar with, the winds died off and it was clear sailing. 

But of course, as we approached the Canadian border the weather started to turn into rain.  As we finally picked up good old CJOB we were listening to reports of snow and sleet in Winnipeg.  We just shrugged and said, "Oh, well", isn't this typical for us, we always seem to hit lousy weather on the way home. 

We are all glad to be home.  Sea-Enna, has now gotten over the travel sickness she used to suffer from and now travels very well.  She doesn't really enjoy it,  she just endures it.  So she is glad to be home, so she can relax.  And she sure knows how to do that. 

Dan, who has had to do all the driving for the whole 2000 miles, is finally getting a chance to relax as well. 

As for me I still have a lot of unpacking to do.  I can't let these crates stay piled up here in my living room.  A lot of stuff we brought home is for the boat as well, so we will be heading out to the hangar on Friday to drop a lot of that stuff off at the boat. 

So that was our southern travels for this year. 

For our new Winter Texan friends and our usual followers, I will be keeping my blog going all year round.  So that you can see what us transplanted Manitobans do in the Summer when we are not relaxing down in Texas.  If your interested I will still be posting at least once a week. 

750 MILES. A GOOD DAY FOR US

I am sure Sea-Enna is thinking do we have to do this driving thing again today. 

While Dan is saying "Let's Roll". 

As we headed out of Denton, the sun was not up yet and the low areas were covered with fog.  Very pretty.  Then the sun crested the horizon, as we headed out of Texas and into Oklahoma. 

The first town we pass in Oklahoma, is Thackerville.  One of these days we really should stop in there and see what the town is all about.  I could also do some ancestry research.  Maybe we have some rich relatives there.  We didn't stop though, as we are trying to make headway. 

I love the rolling hills of Oklahoma and the rock cuts through them for the roads.  Very impressive. 
Even more impressive when the same thing is done through solid granite in northwestern Ontario. 

We made great progress today.  We managed to cover 750 miles from Denton Texas to Council Bluffs, Iowa.  We accomplished that by not even stopping for breakfast.  (We ate cold left over Pizza in the car as we traveled.  I like left over Pizza for breakfast once in a while, but only if I can heat it up.) 

  The only stops that we made were to fuel up the truck and relieve ourselves, as necessary, as Sea-Enna can attest.






And my last thought for tonight.  I really must find out what these trees are.  As we travelled north all day we were seeing these trees.  (what I assume are a type of fruit tree, but obviously a wild one) They were all in full  magnificent bloom everywhere we looked. 


Well that's it for tonight we are off, out for dinner.  No more Pizza for me this trip.  More tomorrow. 





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.