Mission, Texas Day 10 Continued

Today we went to a couple of flea markets. The first one was recommended to us and turned out not to be much. The other was so large that we were only able to walk through about a fourth of it. That was probably okay since every fifth booth was a repeat of the same stuff. Looked a lot like what we saw in Mexico. We then went to Walmart to get a few things and on the way back decided to drive out to see the hand pulled ferry boat on the Rio Grande at Los Ebanos (the "n" needs a tilde,but I don't know how to find one on my computer). I guess that if I stay in south Texas long, I will have to find it.

We got to Los Ebanos at 4:00 and the ferry closed at 3:30. Los Ebanos looks like it is on the wrong side of the river. Everything is really old and run-down, but it was very peaceful. Zero traffic. Seemly, there are more goats than people. One was taking it's nap in the middle of the road. It's hard to believe that places like this exist in the USA. It was a nice trip even though we missed the ferry. I threw in a picture of our camp at Mission.

On the way back, I stopped at a little mexican tire place and used my limited spanish to ask the kid to rotate my tires. He finally understood and I asked him "que mucho". I think that translates "what much", but it was as close as I could get. He said five dollars and dropped everything and started immediately. It only took him about 10 minutes, but I gave him 10 dollars. Came home and Emily gave me a much needed harcut. I found the nearest english-speaking baptist church online so we will probably go in the morning.

Mission, Texas Day 10

More and more people are leaving the park here to return home. Most of these folks seem almost as fearful of the summer heat here as they are of the winter cold back home. The weather is still nice with temperatures in the 80's in the daytime and 60's at night. Overall, it is not at all uncomfortable.

Yesterday we went on a boat ride up the Rio Grande river. It was on a 50 foot pontoon boat and lasted two hours. It was interesting, but the scenery changed very little for the twelve miles that we traveled. The water level ranged from 5 feet to about 40 feet. There is very little development along the river except close to one of the towns. There are a few private river cabins and RV's but nothing else. There are much nicer developments on the mexican side than on the US side. Of course, we only saw a few miles close to Mission. We did see some South-To-North traffic across the river at one spot. While we were waiting for the boat ride, we ate lunch at the resturant at the place where the boat leaves from. It is called the Riverside Club.

On Thursday, we went to an orange grove where they had "you pick or we pick". We chose to let them pick. The oranges that we got were Valencia which is the only variety that is still in season.

Mission, Texas Day 6

Steve and Ellen left this morning for Falcon Dam. We went to see the Pump House Museum at Hidalgo. It is one of the last steam-powered irrigation pump to operate in the USA. It was a very interesting tour . Next we went to a jukebox museum. It is just a hobby operation run by the son of the man that started it over fifty years ago. His business is supplying modern music machines to businesses, but he has all of the old jukeboxes displayed in his shop. It is located in an old movie theater.

Mission, Texas Day 5

We went to San Benito yesterday to visit the rest of our North Dakota friends. Had a real good visit with Harold, Judy, Carol and Jerry. We went to a barbeque place to eat and it was good. Today we will probably just rest; we get tired real easy. Steve and Ellen are getting ready to move to Falcon State Park tomorrow, but we will stay around here for the rest of the week. The weather and temperatures continue to be great.

On The Road Again (Thanks,Willie)

Well, after 15 months of very enjoyable time at Grandview, we have finally gotten our wheels under us and are moving again. We left home last Monday after an all night rain on Sunday night. Needless to say we couldn't pull the trailer out due to the rain. Had to hitch up the tractor to pull the truck and trailer out. We went first to Huntsville to fix Janet's electrical problem. Since it had been raining there, we went to a campground east of New Waverly. We spent two nights there, got the problems fixed and started out for the Texas valley on Wednesday morning. We drove in hard rain nearly all day Wednesday and stayed in Victoria that night.

On thursday, we made it to Mission, Texas and met up with our friends from Maine. We are now staying in the RV park with them and have signed up for a week. Steve and Ellen are leaving on Tuesday, but we will probably stay a few extra days. We visited with our friend Sidney from North Dakota yesterday. He took us out to eat at a nice Italian place. Then we, along with Steve and Ellen went down to Progresso, Mexico and walked around and shopped for a couple of hours. The picture shows a Rio Grande swimmer. He is swimming north to south, however, whatever that means.

The park where we are staying is very nice. It is not at all crowded since a lot of the "Winter Texans" have gone home. The weather and temperatures have been good since we have been here. Today the temperature got into the mid 90's but it didn't seem too hot. The temperature always seems to cool down at night. I will try to keep up on the posts whenever I have internet service.

FALL'S HERE - WINTER'S COMING

It's just been two months this time. I'm getting better. My how the time flies. We are still in Grandview, having been here since January. Maybe we are finally through with the doctors for this year. Emily's thyroid condition is better and the last scan didn't show anything unusual. I have to have another biopsy in January, but we are through until then.

We had to cancel out at Medora this year because we not through with the doctors in time. We were really disappointed but that's the way it goes. We hope to get away somewhere soon but don't have any plans yet. It always seems extra hard to get up and go when we have been in one spot for so long. Larry and Evelyn say that they are coming south this winter, so maybe we will go with them. The weather has changed abruptly. We seemed to have gone from 100+ every day to lows in the 40's and 50's at night. Some days when the air conditioning and the furnace are both on they start fighting each other. This surely beats those hot days that we have suffered through all summer.

Emily's aunt and two cousins from Alabama dropped in to see us yesterday. They had told Emily that they were planning to come. She didn't believe them, though, since they have said that before so we were surprised. We enjoyed the visit even if it was short. We went out to eat at the Blackeyed Pea and Rebecca and Caitlyn went with us.

The kids are all extremely busy. What with football, soccer, jump-rope, track, cheerleading, and talent shows, they are always doing something. Rebecca is going back to college at night to get her Master's Degree. She got a new job at the school as Counselor. That really adds to the hectic pace. Emily tries to go to as many of their activities as possible, but I can't keep up.

Surviving The Hot Summer In Grandview

Well, it's been three months now since an update. We are still in Grandview waiting to finish up with our "doctoring". It seems that it is taking longer each year to diagnose and cure all of our ailments. I finished up in July with a prostate biopsy that was negative. No kidney stone problems since about January. Emily is still trying to get her thyroid problems straightened out. The doctor is trying to determine what medicine will get her thyroid regulated without having to do surgery. She was supposed to have a thyroid scan done last week but they had to delay it a month since one of the medications that she had been on would interfere with the scan. We have had to cancel our trip to Medora.

It is still terribly hot here. It gets up to 103-104 nearly every day. We don't do much but just stay in and try to stay cool. We would like to find somewhere that is cooler(since our house is on wheels) but it doesn't appear much better anywhere in the country. The grass and pastures are all dead and we are having to feed the cows. Of course, in this kind of weather the price of hay is terrible. We took the kids(and Rebecca and Rachel) swimming at the big swimming pool at West yesterday afternoon. Emily and I didn't swim so it was very hot. The kids had a very good time though. Afterwards we ate at IHOP in Hillsborough.

About two weeks ago we went to a Fort Worth Cats baseball game. They have rebuilt the ballpark on the site of the old Cats field that was torn down years ago. When they started construction on the new field, they discovered that the old original concrete dugouts had been filled in and leveled. Since they wanted to build new dugouts closer to home plate, they were going to dig up the old dugouts. Someone suggested that they clean the old dugouts out and use them for special suites. The dugouts seat up to ten so we researved one for the ten of us and attended a game. We were served complementary(??) water, cokes, hotdogs and popcorn and were given Cats ball caps. The mascot spent a lot of time with the kids since we were so close to the action. Carly got to dance on the field with the mascot(named Dodger since the old Cats were a Dodgers farm club) and Dominick caught a foul tip. The first base coach threw Carly a ball. Everyone had a good time.

CATCH UP TIME

Well, it's been about two months since I last updated the blog so I better try and catch up. I don't want everyone to get tired of looking and give up.

We've been here at Grandview most of the time since we got home for Christmas. We spent a while at Floye and Marshall's. About three weeks ago our friends from Maine (Steve and Ellen) called and said that they were going to be in our area. We met them at Holiday Park on Lake Benbrook and camped with them for several days. They had to get to Missouri to take care of Ellen's mother for awhile, so when they left we decided to stay a few days longer. It is a beautiful Corp Of Engineers campground and we enjoyed the peace and quiet. During the week there was hardly anyone there, just us and a few other old people like us. On the weekends it got busier but was not bad since the camping spots are pretty well spread out. The kids came out two times while we were there, and the last weekend Caitlyn, Carly, Miranda and Dominick got to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa. We had a lot of fun complete with bicycle riding (everyone brought their bikes), playing in the water and cooking and eating lots of SMORES.

We have just about completed our series of doctor visits and tests. We each have one more visit this week and hopefully then will be through. We have to do this once a year in order to re-up on our prescriptions. About six weeks ago, Emily woke up one morning with super high blood pressure and an erractic heartbeat of about 160 per minute. I called Rebecca and she came over and we took Emily to the emergency room at Hugley Hospital. They said that she was having atrial fibrillation or heart arrhythmia. They kept her for three days to get it regulated. The conclusion was that it was probably related to her thyroid. She has been doing okay since.

I have been helping the kids with a few projects around here. We fixed the roof and walls on the sheds by Rebecca and Drew's house. Then we built a well house for Rachel and Tim. I have been mowing pasture for the last few days and it really makes it look better. Hopefully we can get the trailer washed and ready to go in the next few days. We want to leave soon and do a little camping. We are scheduled to volunteer at Medora, ND the last two weeks in August.

Fun Day at Pecan Plantation

We spent an enjoyable day with Dawn, Greg, Kayla and Amanda at their house. Too tired to write much now, but told Dawn that I would send this picture.

Thanks for the wonderful meal and fun day. Kayla and Amanda are super kids!

Sun Is Shining

It's beautiful today in Grandview. We really needed the rain, but it is also nice after a week of rain to see the sun again. It's presently 69 degrees with only high, light clouds. During the cold, I burned up all the firewood on hand so today Drew and I went down and cut a truck load. I just got through splitting all of the larger pieces. It probably won't be cold enough now to need any more, but I guess that will be okay too.

Emily has gone with Rachel and Dominick to Dallas today. Dom is having a checkup on his legs at Scottish Rite Hospital. Drew and I went to Grandview and got a hamburger for lunch. Last wednesday it warmed up enough to get in the attic and check on the central heat. I found the problem and called Robert and he had the part that I needed. Emily and I rode to Burleson to get the part and visited with Robert and Carol for an hour or so. Came home and put the part in and everything works fine now. Last Saturday, Emily, Rebecca, Drew and I went to On The Border in Burleson to have mexican food.

We ordered our perscriptions and they will be sent to Grandview so we will be here for a little while longer. I think that Emily will also have to schedule a visit with the doctor while we are here. If the weather stays nice, we can get a few jobs done that the kids need.

Cold And Rainy In Grandview

We're still in Grandview and the weather continues to be cold and miserable. We had a good weekend with the kids. We had barbeque at Rebecca's house on Saturday and everyone was there. We played cards and had a good time. Sunday afternoon we all got together again and Rebecca and Rachel both cooked roast and potatoes. We played Chicken-Foot dominos and had a good time. The kids have all gone back to work and school now so we are just by ourselves. The weather is warming up from what it was over the weekend, but it is still cold and dreary. The central heat in the old house has gone out so I have used up all of the available firewood trying to stay warm (my internet is in the old house). I plan to get in the attic this afternoon (if it gets warm enough) and see if I can find out what is wrong with the heater.

I just found a little more firewood, so maybe the heater urgency is reduced. I do enjoy sitting in front of the fireplace with my wireless internet. Listening to Rush streamed live from KPRC in Houston. Life is good.

Back In Grandview - Again

After a couple more weeks in Huntsville, we have returned to Grandview. When we got hitched up to leave yesterday, it was too wet for the truck to pull the trailer out so we had to call our emergency road service to send a tow truck to pull us out. When we got to Grandview it was getting very cold so we maybe should have gone south. We will probably stay here for a few days and then go somewhere south for a while.

We got quite a lot more jobs done in Huntsville. We repaired the rotten boards on the back porch roof, patched the roof leaks on the house, built a porch on the "new motel room", replaced the front brakes on Floye's car and Marshall's truck, and fixed the pressure washer that belongs to the water arobics instructer. Time now to sit and rest and read. I really do miss my high-speed internet when we are on the road. We went up to El Chico in Huntsville the other night and sat in their parking lot to pick up their wireless signal.

Here are a few pictures of some of the Huntsville projects.

Back In Grandview

We are back in grandview for a few days after spending the last 5 or 6 weeks with Marshall and Floye in Huntsville. I could have been posting from there, but was really too tired every night to do it. We had a good visit. Rebecca and family went down to Huntsville with us after Christmas. They stayed about a week and then had to return to school and work.

We got several projects completed while there. We added a bathroom to the bedroom in the add-on to the shed. Since it would take much longer than it's worth to explain all of this I will not attempt it here. Drew came back for and few days and helped with the sheetrock work. Next we fixed Marshall's air compressor. Then we repaired some water damage on the back porch. In between the projects, we put a water pump on Janet and Micheal's Explorer.

Bruce and Cheryl Foss from North Dakota called to tell us that they were in Houston. We invited them to come to Huntsville which they did. They stayed two days and we had a good visit. They were the first guests in the new "Motel Room". Greg and Dawn and girls came on two different occations while we were there and we enjoyed visiting with them.

Caitlyn, Carly, Miranda and Dominick all had basketball and soccer games this weekend so we left the trailer in Huntsville and came home for the weekend. We will probably go back tomorrow or Monday and do a couple of little jobs and then pull the trailer back to Grandview for a few more days visit. After that, we want to go somewhere farther south and just relax for a while. Hopefully we will be where there is good internet service and we can keep up to date on our posting.

Midnight

Hello! Emily, new pictures of Midnight are on the PTIP blog. We are loving him. I met your friend Coylene Emory at church last week. She was visiting her sister, our longtime friend, Louann Mormon. Coylene was very nice. After I asked where she was from, and told her my aunt and uncle lived in Grandview, she told me that I did remind her of someone -- Rebecca!

Coylene helped at my table in kindergarten and we played games with the five-year-olds, including one little boy who wouldn't leave my side. He lost his 43-year-old father to a heart attack the week just prior to Christmas. He told me last week that his mom "just won't quit crying." Please pray for little Will and his mom.

I hope all is well with both of you, and that you are having some fun and relaxation (?) in between building a bathroom.

Love, Sheryl

Travis and Midnight

I think I'm in the blog!

I'm finally on but don't know what to do now. I went to the posting tab and this space popped up for me to write in. Let me know if I did this correctly? I have had a wonderful time reading the other posts.

Greg and I, along with our girls had a great time visiting with you all in Huntsville. I'm so pleased we could be there at the same time that you were. I look forward to seeing you all more often.

Love,
Dawn

HOME AGAIN

While we realize that "Home Is Where We Are Parked", it's always nice to be parked at our Grandview home. We got here about 3:00 Friday afternoon. Our trip from Gladewater was uneventful. We came "through the country" down Highway 31 through Athens and Corsicana and across to Hillsborough. Rebecca and girls were here when we got in and helped us get the trailer set up. Rebecca and family have gone to Denton today to have Christmas with Drew's Mother and Dad. Rachel is feeling bad so we haven't seen them yet. They called a little while ago and said they would be up after a while.

It is nice to have my reliable internet back. It seems really fast compared to some that I have had recently. I will try to get a little something on the Blog ocasionally while we are here. We will be here until after Christmas and will probably go somewhere after that.

Gladewater Texas

Got a picture of the Mississippi River Bridge in the rain. Emily said that the first time Rachel crossed the old bridge, she said that she wanted her daddy.


As predicted, it did rain all day yesterday. We left Vicksburg at about 10:00 this morning and got to Gladewater at about 4:30. We found a nice RV park here and it has Wi-Fi. It was a nice day for travelling, but we get tired pretty easily. We are only about 150 miles from home so it won't be too hard a trip when we head out.

Two pictures of our camp at Shallow Creek RV Park.

Vicksburg Mississippi

These pictures are at the Williamson Cemetary and our camp at Lake Lurleen

We finally left Tuscaloosa Tuesday morning. They had to put Emily's Aunt Viva in the hospital with heart and breathing problems. We stayed for an extra three or four days and decided to go on since she was in stable condition. We made it to Vicksburg, Mississippi by about 5:30 Tuesday afternoon. When we woke up this morning it was raining and looks like it will continue all day. We will probably just stay in and rest; Emily is tired from sitting in the hospital for three days. Also, she is coming down with the cold that I am finally getting over.

Happy Anniversary & Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Anniversary to you both. For those of you who don't know, Mother Always said she got married on Dad's birthday so he would never be able to forget it. Well, it's been 42 years, Mom...............Has it worked out for you!

Sorry I wasn't able to call, we went directly from school to Jump Rope to Basketball to Choir concert. The kids had to be at the school for choir at 6:30, the concert started at 7:30 and we finally got out of there about 9:15. We then had 2 hours of homework. I think Junior High is going to do me in! Pray for us, it's semester exam week this week. Miranda is really worried about having to take test over "every thing I've has learned all year. That's alot of stuff." I know she'll do fine. But she worries about it none the less.

I hope your Birthday/Anniversary was greatand know that we were thinking about you even if we didn't call! We'll have a party when you get back home!

I love you both!
Rachel

Violin Concert

Here are a couple of pictures from the Dominick's and Carly's violin concert. After the concert we went to Charlie and Lilly's to help Charlie put up his Big Christmas tree. You can't really tell from the picture, but it is 34 feet tall.

Love you lots!
Rach

Lake Lurleen State Park - Alabama

We made it to Lake Lurleen State Park at Tuscaloosa, Alabama at about 3:00 Wednesday afternoon. We had a good trip from Memphis down to Alabama. Diesel fuel keeps getting cheaper and that is nice. We got it as low(?) as $2.27. We came straight to the park and got set up and then went to visit with Ruby for awhile. The State Park is full of FEMA trailers and we got the only site with full hookups that was available. The trailers all look like they are set up for the long term complete with pvc sewer connections and 250 gallon propane tanks. They put all the trailers on concrete blocks and strapped them down. Leave it to the government to waste money every chance they get. There are probably 50 or more of the trailers here.

Thursday we went back over to Ruby's house and then we all rode over to see Jack and Viva. They had already eaten lunch so we took Ruby out to eat. It started raining so we took Ruby home and went back to the trailer. At least the weather is not too bad. The sun came out this morning and the temperature is about 40. It didn't get below freezing last night.

Memphis Tennessee

We got away from Branson at about 10:00 this morning. The temperature last night was about 16° and it was about 20° while we were hooking up. It was very cold so we were glad to be on our way south. We came down US 65 to Conway, Arkansas and then west on Interstate 40 to Memphis. It took a long time from Branson to Conway because the road was up and down and winding constantly. We stopped at a McDonalds just north of Conway and ate lunch.

We have stopped at an RV park in West Memphis that we found in the Trailer Life book. It seems to be pretty nice although we got in after dark and haven't seen much. It does have Wi-Fi so that's good. We just hooked up electricity and didn't unhitch from the truck so it will be fairly easy to leave early in the morning. We only put out the bed slide. We have come 300 miles and only have about 250 left to get to Tuscaloosa. Hopefully it will be a little easier day tomorrow.

You can check out our direction of travel Here

Branson Day 49

It got to down to 18° last night and was cold all day today. They are also forecasting snow in the next few days. Therefore we will probably hitch up in the morning and go south. We are planning on going to Alabama to visit Emily's relatives. It is about 550 miles from here to Tuscaloosa so it will be two moderately long driving days. We will try to make it to Memphis by way of Little Rock tomorrow. That is about 300 miles which is farther than we normally drive in a day, but we don't want to get caught in bad weather. It will all depend on how early we can get hitched and leave. It won't be too easy at 16° in the morning, but I did get the holding tanks drained this afternoon.

Emily went shopping around Branson this afternoon. I stayed in since I am coming down with another cold. Tonight we went to eat at Clockers Cafe in Old Downtown Branson. Emily went Here so we had dessert tonight and will have some for breakfast in the morning.

Branson Day 48

We went out to eat at The College of the Ozarks dining room at noon today with Jim and Kris Todd. Jim and Kris are camp hosts here at Turkey Creek and are leaving in the morning to go serve as hosts in another Escapees park in New Mexico. After we ate we went for a drive to a resort south of Branson on Table Rock Lake. Tonight the park has it's regular Sunday night ice cream social. We don't always go, but will probably go tonight since it will be Jim and Kris' last night. It was pretty today but stayed fairly cool and windy.

Note that I have learned how to put links to websites of interest in the blog posts. Maybe that will add a little insight into places and things. Just click on the underlined text to go to the link.

Branson Day 46

We went to the Bart Rockett show tonight and had a really good time. This guy is just getting started in Branson and is very talented and down-to-earth. He does magic and comedy and has singers and dancers. There were not many people in the theater; probably only 150 or so. He made jokes about the small crowd and said that if he knew this was all that was coming, he would have just had us over to his house. See more about Bart Rockett Here.

Branson Day 45

We just got back from the Dixie Stampede Show. We enjoyed the show and the food. This is probably a Christmas version of the regular show. All of the horseback riding and wagons and buggies was done to a Christmas theme and costumes. There were races (both horseback and buggies), ice skating, singing, ostrich racing, pig races, a Manger scene complete with camels and an angel coming down from the ceiling, and a comedian. The meal consisted of a whole roasted chicken, smoked pork, corn-on-the-cob, potato, soup, and an apple turnover. All of this was eaten with no silverware just fingers. I suppose that this is similar to Medieval Times in Dallas.

There was a preliminary show in a smaller theater that was a comedian/juggler. He was good and the show lasted about 45 minutes.