Wow, almost Christmas! We are in our final week before we head back up north from our winter place in South Texas. This will the first year we leave the RV up and running on the same site (rather than in storage) while we are gone. We will be up north for 20 days this time, one of the shortest times of our trips north. This time we will be spending the holiday with Chas and his girlfriend Lisa (Patty’s son).
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| Patty's cardinal that visits here most mornings. This her view from her computer window in the RV. |
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| Just a random picture from down here in south Texas. Sort of a normal picture of a truck towing a pony, a horse, and a donkey. |
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| Diesel prices have really come down! $1.92/gal here. When we started out full time RVing it was as high as $4.90/gal |
I look forward to going North over the holidays, but I hate flying in the small plane from here to the connecting planes in either Dallas or Houston. I am claustrophobic and my ultimate worst place to be is a 3 seater Regional Jet. Probably the second worst is a crowded elevator. I can mostly handle the small space once we get in the air and while the plane is moving. It’s the whole unknown part of just how long we will be trapped in the aluminum tube that gets to me. Fears of the reported airplanes stuck on the tarmac for 5-12 hours just unnerve me! Anyway, I get myself as close to comatose as I can with tranquilizers before I get on and hope for the best. I also pay to get the farthest seat up front as I can. So far I have been pretty lucky and have gotten the first seat in the plane. It’s weird that while seated in the first seat and I get to feeling good, all I have to do is turn around and look at the people seated behind me and the panic returns. My hands are sweating just writing this!
The weather has been mostly good this season here in the south. So far we have had 5 days below 70 degrees; 3 in the 60s and 2 in the 50s as highs. Right now we are back into a long string of days in the 70s and 80s just as we are preparing to head north, figures. It has been wet too, but not so much as to hamper any of our activities but enough to keep everything very green. That is unusual here, everything being so green at this time of year. The golf courses look like the ones up north in the summer time.
So, in the past month we bought a stationary gas grille to use while we are here for the winter. Now that we have a shed we have a place to store it while we tour during the summer. We also bought and installed an ornamental backlit sun for the top of the shed. We got the sun decoration on one of our many trips to Mexico. We also filled in the space between our lot and our neighbors lot with rocks. That space was mainly just weeds and mud. We filled it in so we wouldn't have weeds to mow down and to make the area look nice. We have been to Mexico several times this year too, probably as many times as all of last year. But mainly we have just settled into our winter life here in south Texas.
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| Our new grille. It is an infrared type. I just love this thing! Not sure what I am going to do when we start traveling again in the spring. I will need a new portable grille for sure. This one sears meat like nothing I have ever had before. |
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| Our new sun decoration. |
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| Crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande and border on our way into Mexico one day. |
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| This was that Mexican border the other day so we got our picture taken. |
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| One of our many lunches in Mexico. This was a real cool looking margarita. |
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| We got lunch from this street vendor. |
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| He is making huge baked potatoes filled with cheese and grilled meat. |
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| The potato is served with fresh corn chips (just fried with lard). The potato guts had been turned into sort of mashed potatoes with cheese and grilled meat. It was very good and only $4! Then wash it down with a dollar beer. |
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| Just a funny sign advertising a bar. It says "have you found out panties?" I believe it should say our panties, but whatever! |
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| Patty getting a haircut in Mexico this week. |
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| The Mexican Bud Lite girls. Note that the beer is imported. |
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| Beer girls strutting down the street in Nuevo Progreso. |
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| Cool car in Mexico. |
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| This horse got loose in the street and was really spooked! I was a little worried it was going to run me over! |
We learned on our most recent Mexico trip that it was "Welcome Winter Texans" Day. It was surprisingly light with Americans.
We can now report that we are starting to be in a good place with Patty’s health. This has occurred mainly since we seem to have her diabetic symptoms under control. We still have a few things to do but her extreme low blood sugar swings are much less common now. She still has lows, but just like yesterday on the golf course, just a little food and she was back to normal after just a couple of holes. Before we would have had to end the round. We have learned that most of her severe symptoms started to happen after her diabetes doctor here tried to dramatically lower her Hemoglobin A1C blood readings. That was when we first arrived here 2 years ago. Her doctor has now started over in trying to find a happy normal for her blood sugar levels. This has greatly reduced her very low blood sugars (30s) and her very low blood pressures that caused her to pass out. In the past couple of months she has had some low blood pressures but they have not caused her to pass out. Consequently, her mood and outlook have greatly improved. Whew!
There was an incident, however, when she went out for lunch with a group from our resort and passed out due to a low blood sugar. The Paramedics got her under control and all was well. Our friends were a little frightened, but called me for assurance that a hospital transport was not necessary. Another Whew!
Our schedule here while wintering consists of the following:
Mondays: Golfing for me. Patty goes to choir practice at night (she is auditioning for the Sweet Adelines female barber shoppers here in the area)
Tuesdays: Wii Bowling and out for wings and beer
Wednesdays: Golf for Both of us and then Happy Hour in the park
Thursdays: Bridge for Patty.
Fridays: Laze around
Saturdays: Darts
Sundays: Lazy again
Most all days, weather permitting, I play water volley ball in the afternoons.
There also is usually some sort of large event each week in the park like music, dance, BBQ, craft sales, and the like.
The next time I post will be after we get back from our trip up north and most probably just after New Year’s Day 2016.
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| Full moon over our site last month. |
Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays with love and peace.
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| Our RV decorated for Christmas along with Patty's craft work |
