We’re Back!!!
After several months, I thought it was about time to catch up the last few months in a nutshell about where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. It’s been almost a year since our last Blog posting! Hard to believe, isn’t it?
It’s not that we haven’t been doing things because we have and can’t believe how quickly time flies when you’re not paying attention. We spent the past summer in Kingsland, TX at the Rio Vista RV Resort with Dee working in the office and Larry was the “Pool Boy”. Larry vacuumed the pool, cleaned the filters, adjusted the chemicals and kept the deck area cleaned and in order. On one occasion, he reached in to clean a filter trap and found a live “rat snake”. Luckily, he didn’t show it to me or we would have packed up and left the area immediately.
Most afternoons, Dee was at the Kingsland Sr. Center playing bridge. Everyone was so nice there and really tough bridge players. My duplicate partner is a ACBL Life Master, as were most of the other players, and I am not anywhere near that level of play. Charley and I managed to get second place most of the time, but first place was hard to come by. I really enjoyed playing though.
We also drove to San Antonio, New Braunfuls, Austin, Johnson City (home of Lyndon Baines Johnson) and Fredricksburg. Two of Larry’s nieces and their spouses met us in Fredricksburg so it was a great day shopping and visiting with them. We’ve been to Fredricksburg several times and really love this small community. The Alamo was kind of a disappointment to me as I was expecting to see the old fort and the surrounding territory. The area was probably 1 large city block and most of the space was the gift center with a miniature mock up of the original Fort. Only 1 building remains of the original compound. Johnson City is a really small town but has a lot of history there. My favorite part of this area was the Wild Safari Zoo where we spent a half day seeing the animals, including a baby buffalo that was born the morning we arrived. One of the animals we had never seen before was a Scottish bred steer with the long shaggy hair – Big Red weighed in at about 1 ton. The driver of the tour ride was very informative about all of the animals.
After a 5 weeks stay at our friends in Childress, TX, we headed for Mesa, AZ for the winter season. We are working in the gift shop here at Mesa Regal 12 hours a week. It’s nice to be back and see everyone. Jan. 17th our friend Cherokee flew into Mesa to attend a Family History EXPO (genealogy). Dee and Cherokee attended to 2-day EXPO and took 8 classes with the experts learning how to research past relatives. As genealogy beginners, it was kind of overwhelming because almost all of these program leaders have doctorate degrees in this field and have been researching archives for at least 30 years. I am very thankful that some of my cousins have done extensive family researches on both of our families so that saves me many hours of work. It is addictive though searching through historical records, census records, and vital records trying to find one person. The mind-boggling thing is that so many people have exactly the same names so a lot of filtering through the information is necessary.
Larry’s brother, John (age 81), passed away last April about a week after we left Mesa. He had been ill for many months before his death. We also lost three very good friends this past year: Jack Peryatel (Dee’s former boss at Raton Natural Gas Co.), Jim Yarbrough (NM Parks & Recreation Dept.) and Paul Babek (Roswell Ind. School Dist.). We had visited with each of them this past year.
Signing off for now, and promise to do more blogging in a much shorter time span in the future
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Saturday, May 19, 2012
An Antique Find
We went out browsing this morning and found the perfect ice cream scoop for Suzy & Bill. Suzy has been looking for a scoop larger than the ones you can find on the market. We spotted this one in the Southern Picker's Antique Store and made a deal on it. It is a Gilchrist No. 31 scoop made between 1900 - 1926 when the company was in business. It is about 11" long and the mechanism works beautifully on it. The scoop measures 3"s across so it's like getting a regular dip and a half with this baby.
Thursday we went over to Austin so we could go to Sam's Club. Ugh, traffic was awful and we encountered a lot of road construction. The store was fairly easy to find, but our Tom-Tom maps aren't quite up to date so we got turned around a little. It wasn't a big deal, just a little detour.
Larry is the "Pool Guy" this summer. He does all the maintenance, cleaning, etc. 5 days a week between 8 a.m. - 10 a.m to open the pool and then 2 nights a week he takes care of all the chemicals and closes the pool. He's pretty well got the hang of it. One morning he was removing the Shark that cleans the bottom of the pool and over-reached a little and fell into the water. That was a little jolt he wasn't expecting. Then another morning, he was going around the pool to clean out the filter traps and encountered a small snake. He showed it to the manager and she called it a rat snake. The are water moccasins in the lake here and also 3 other poisonous snakes in the area: rattlesnakes, coral snakes and copperheads. Aren't we lucky? Texas has them all. Fortunately, I didn't see the critter or I would have been packing my bags to leave.
My bad knee (torn meniscus and Baker's cyst) continues to give me problems daily. Some days I can barely walk it seems. This fall when we get back to Mesa I will probably see about getting it fixed. Last winter I was dealing with too much to even have it looked at again. It's always something.
Until next time, enjoy your summer and stay healthy.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Johnson City, TX Day Trip
Wednesday we traveled over to Johnson City, TX, sub-title home of Lyndon Baines Johnson, former President of the USA. It is a very small town, but draws lots of travelers that visit his former home and the LBJ Visitor's Center and Museum. We did not do the tour but saw both.
We did visit a couple antique shops, one of which was an old lumber yard building. After doing some browsing, we ate at a small establishment called the Silver K Cafe. What a delightful little cafe with excellent food and service. Best part was absolutely wonderful key lime pie - it was absolutely delicious. Worth another trip over just to have the pie!!!
On our way back to Kingsland we stopped at the Exotic Zoo between Johnson City and Marble Falls. It is set on 137 acres with over 500 animals, most of which were exotic breeds of deer, gazelles and lots of emus and ostrich. It is a guided tour while you ride in a large wagon pulled behind a tractor. We learned so much information about the animals, such as most deer family members only have upper teeth so they really cannot bite you. Did anyone know that? Also springtime is when lots of new babies are being born. We were impressed that so many of the animals have recently had new little ones. There is one species of India deer that produces 1 set of twins every year, one female and one male. Now what are the odds of that happening - very interesting fact, I think. We wanted to share a few photos we took during the tour.
This is a baby buffalo born Wednesday morning a 7 a.m. She is a bit shy and momma didn't let her move around too much.
This is Humphrey. He is only 9 months old and he whined loudly every time the owner came into view. He is fed a bottle twice a day and they are trying to wean him. He's not buying it though.
We did visit a couple antique shops, one of which was an old lumber yard building. After doing some browsing, we ate at a small establishment called the Silver K Cafe. What a delightful little cafe with excellent food and service. Best part was absolutely wonderful key lime pie - it was absolutely delicious. Worth another trip over just to have the pie!!!
On our way back to Kingsland we stopped at the Exotic Zoo between Johnson City and Marble Falls. It is set on 137 acres with over 500 animals, most of which were exotic breeds of deer, gazelles and lots of emus and ostrich. It is a guided tour while you ride in a large wagon pulled behind a tractor. We learned so much information about the animals, such as most deer family members only have upper teeth so they really cannot bite you. Did anyone know that? Also springtime is when lots of new babies are being born. We were impressed that so many of the animals have recently had new little ones. There is one species of India deer that produces 1 set of twins every year, one female and one male. Now what are the odds of that happening - very interesting fact, I think. We wanted to share a few photos we took during the tour.
This is a baby buffalo born Wednesday morning a 7 a.m. She is a bit shy and momma didn't let her move around too much.
This is Humphrey. He is only 9 months old and he whined loudly every time the owner came into view. He is fed a bottle twice a day and they are trying to wean him. He's not buying it though.
Isn't this little lady the cutest? She is only 2 weeks old. Each zebra
had individual markings, no two exactly alike.
It was such a fun day. We were back home by about 5 p.m. so we could attend a pot luck. One of the guests here at the Resort cooked up some homemade gumbo and cornbread for everyone. Really was delicious. After everybody ate, a few of us played penny ante poker. I think Dee was the only loser as she did not win 1 hand all evening. She was glad we didn't play past 9 o'clock.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Spring Is in Bloom!
We arrived in Kingsland, TX last Monday, later than we expected, after spending the night in Snyder, TX. About 5.5 miles north of Eden, TX we had a tire blowout on the driver's side of the motor home. Totally unexpected, of course, as the tire was only about 2 years old and had less then 10,000 miles on it. Emergency roadside service came out from San Angelo, TX bringing a new tire with them to change out the blowout. We were along side the road for about 2 hours. A local sheriff, Richard Doan, stopped by (he was off-duty at the time) to see if we needed any assistance. Really a nice man.
We're all settled in on our site now and have begun our Workkamping assignments. Larry is taking care of the swimming pool & pool area every morning and I am working in the office learning the routine. We will be working every morning 5 days a week. Really nice managers and owners.
Dee has traveled to Marble Falls twice with Joy and Janis to play duplicate bridge already. She is really out of practice at duplicate but imagine she will catch up shortly. The Club usually has 6 tables of duplicate bridge with a good percentage of ACBL Life Masters playing in the group.
That's it for now, but will keep you posted on our where-abouts as we check out more of the area. This is the busy, busy season for summer guests here at the Resort - most of them are from the Austin area.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Tis Time to Travel
No, this is not an April Fool's day post! On Tuesday we leave sunny Mesa, traveling east toward Albuquerque, NM and then Amarillo, TX. It's been a tough winter season but we're on to better things now and both of us are feeling good and anxious to be on our way to the summer season.
Our motor home ceiling has been repaired - ozite upholstery replaced and what a change it makes. No more ugly dark brown water-stains. We rented a park model here at Mesa Regal for the 3 weeks the unit was in the shop. Camping World did a wonderful job. Of course we had to remove all items from the upper cabinets, refrigerator and freezer. Then we had to put everything back when we got the unit back. What a job, don't want to do that again in our lifetime as we're getting too old for that kind of manual labor.
Enough for now. Hope you all are doing okay and looking forward to spring. Sure hope the Texas blue bonnets are still in bloom when we get to the hill country.
Our motor home ceiling has been repaired - ozite upholstery replaced and what a change it makes. No more ugly dark brown water-stains. We rented a park model here at Mesa Regal for the 3 weeks the unit was in the shop. Camping World did a wonderful job. Of course we had to remove all items from the upper cabinets, refrigerator and freezer. Then we had to put everything back when we got the unit back. What a job, don't want to do that again in our lifetime as we're getting too old for that kind of manual labor.
Enough for now. Hope you all are doing okay and looking forward to spring. Sure hope the Texas blue bonnets are still in bloom when we get to the hill country.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
New Year, New Beginnings 2012
After a very trying New Year beginning, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Many of you probably know that in October a malignant lump was discovered on my left breast after being cancer-free for almost 23 years. Talk about a whammy diagnosis! After much discussion and contingencies, we decided to travel on to Mesa, AZ for lumpectomy and followup treatment. All of my previous mammograms, sonograms, MRI's and biopsy had to be repeated before surgery. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center wanted to make sure what they were dealing with and then chart out best course of action. Finally had surgery in December with a favorable result, non-invasive ductal cancer, commonly known as DCIS. All of the tumor was removed with good margins and no lymph nodes were affected. Followup treatment has been radiation 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Below is a photo of my radiation team along with me ringing the bell signaling my end of treatment. A certificate was also presented to me for completion that said I completed my full dose, tolerating cold hands, a hard table and holding still. Patients then ring the large bell 3 times well. It's toll to clearly say, my treatment's done, this course is run, and I'm on my way.
As you can see a lot of people were involved in this process. I really liked the techs but can't say as I'm not glad to see them anymore. One of the techs, Caleb, was asent when the photo was taken.
That's enough for now. Will try and keep post more frequent from now on. Just trying to get back to normal time now.
As you can see a lot of people were involved in this process. I really liked the techs but can't say as I'm not glad to see them anymore. One of the techs, Caleb, was asent when the photo was taken.
That's enough for now. Will try and keep post more frequent from now on. Just trying to get back to normal time now.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Year End 2011
This has been a year to get finally closed and on to the next 12 months. Our year has had some big "bumps" and "lumps" which we still haven't quite recovered from. In May, while working the summer season at Timber Lake Resort at Mount Carrol, IL our motorhome was damaged by a falling tree limb crashing through the roof and rain leaking in our unit causing water damage to the ceiling upholstery in our kitchen/dining room area. Still haven't had the repairs completed as we are awaiting the RV repair men to come to our unit and replace the upholstery and complete the fiberglass repair on our roof. We will have to vacate the motorhome for about a week while the work is being done.
In October we spent a few extra days in OK City having a tire replaced. We did have a bit of a break while in Childress, TX catching up with friends. Sure enjoyed seeing everyone. When we were all packed up and ready to leave our unit wouldn't start. Problem was the house battery needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, we have had the same problem here in Mesa. Larry purchased a new battery to replace the new battery we had just replaced. Sounds like a circle problem, doesn't it? So far this battery seems to stay charged.
Our RV tech man made about 3 calls to get our air conditioning/heat unit up and running again. We did not have electric heat or air in the motorhome from August until a couple of weeks ago. The thermostat was replaced first and the problem still existed so then a new electrical circuit board was replaced and that seems to have done the trick as the ac/heat unit is working just fine now. With the cooler weather in Mesa this winter we need the heat up and running smoothly.
Many of you already know that in October Dee was diagnosed with breast cancer again after 22 years of being cancer-free. All of this came to light during her annual mammogram. A malignant tumor was identified with an MRI and biopsy in Amarillo, TX. We elected to come to Mesa to schedule lumpectomy and followup care. On Dec. 14th the lumpectomy was done and pathology confirmed non-invasive ductal cancer in SITU (DCIS). None of the lymph nodes were affected. There will 6 weeks of radiation beginning the middle of January and then oral chemotherapy for 3-5 years. We're hoping that this course of action will be as successful as last time and it will be another 22 years before cancer rears it's ugly head again!!
Everyone has been so supportive and caring through all of our medical process and we are ever so grateful for the thoughts and prayers sent our way. It means the world to us.
Now on to the "good stuff". Our daughter Suzy visited with us in November for about 11 days and we had the best time. What fun to have here with us for a while. She seemed to really enjoy the beautiful weather here and am told she even lost about 5 lbs. while she was here. She especially loved being able to pick fresh oranges off the trees next door to us.
We are located at Mesa Regal RV Resort in Mesa, Az until middle of March (on a different site this year though)so neighbors are different. January 1st the resort will fill up as 90 units will be coming in that day. Sure glad I'm not on escort that day as traffic will be heavy getting everyone to their sites and parked.
OH . . . forgot to mention that in late September the hard drive on my computer crashed. Luckily we were in Childress so Dee's former computer guru got everything back up and runing for her - VISTA is gone and Windows 7 is now her operating system. The only hitch was her computer back up flash drive was wiped out the last time her computer was in the shop so she lost 2 years of updates and work. She is still trying to recover the missing 2 years of data.
It's gotta get better in the New Year. All of you take care and have a Happy Holiday.
In October we spent a few extra days in OK City having a tire replaced. We did have a bit of a break while in Childress, TX catching up with friends. Sure enjoyed seeing everyone. When we were all packed up and ready to leave our unit wouldn't start. Problem was the house battery needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, we have had the same problem here in Mesa. Larry purchased a new battery to replace the new battery we had just replaced. Sounds like a circle problem, doesn't it? So far this battery seems to stay charged.
Our RV tech man made about 3 calls to get our air conditioning/heat unit up and running again. We did not have electric heat or air in the motorhome from August until a couple of weeks ago. The thermostat was replaced first and the problem still existed so then a new electrical circuit board was replaced and that seems to have done the trick as the ac/heat unit is working just fine now. With the cooler weather in Mesa this winter we need the heat up and running smoothly.
Many of you already know that in October Dee was diagnosed with breast cancer again after 22 years of being cancer-free. All of this came to light during her annual mammogram. A malignant tumor was identified with an MRI and biopsy in Amarillo, TX. We elected to come to Mesa to schedule lumpectomy and followup care. On Dec. 14th the lumpectomy was done and pathology confirmed non-invasive ductal cancer in SITU (DCIS). None of the lymph nodes were affected. There will 6 weeks of radiation beginning the middle of January and then oral chemotherapy for 3-5 years. We're hoping that this course of action will be as successful as last time and it will be another 22 years before cancer rears it's ugly head again!!
Everyone has been so supportive and caring through all of our medical process and we are ever so grateful for the thoughts and prayers sent our way. It means the world to us.
Now on to the "good stuff". Our daughter Suzy visited with us in November for about 11 days and we had the best time. What fun to have here with us for a while. She seemed to really enjoy the beautiful weather here and am told she even lost about 5 lbs. while she was here. She especially loved being able to pick fresh oranges off the trees next door to us.
We are located at Mesa Regal RV Resort in Mesa, Az until middle of March (on a different site this year though)so neighbors are different. January 1st the resort will fill up as 90 units will be coming in that day. Sure glad I'm not on escort that day as traffic will be heavy getting everyone to their sites and parked.
OH . . . forgot to mention that in late September the hard drive on my computer crashed. Luckily we were in Childress so Dee's former computer guru got everything back up and runing for her - VISTA is gone and Windows 7 is now her operating system. The only hitch was her computer back up flash drive was wiped out the last time her computer was in the shop so she lost 2 years of updates and work. She is still trying to recover the missing 2 years of data.
It's gotta get better in the New Year. All of you take care and have a Happy Holiday.
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