Fun In The Sun Time!

February 09 - 15, 2014 

OK, we are on a warm weather roll now!!  The weather warmed up starting Wednesday the 12th.  The forecast called for low-80s daytime and mid-60s at night for the next week and as far as they can forecast now!! Rosey, our pet plant even bloomed last night.  Yeah and the AC is running in the late afternoon now.

Rosey with her first bloom this year!

We found a new warranty issue with the RV shower this past week.  The shower stall has a 3 inch crack in the plastic floor.  This to me looks like a lot of work to fix.  Looks like the entire shower stall will need to be removed to replace the floor piece.  Our RV is under warranty for 2 years which comes up this coming August.  We have a small list of things we need to have addressed under warranty including the shower.  We are not sure when we will have the work done but it will be after we leave the resort we are now in.  We need to plan on at least 2 weeks to get the work done; couple of days to diagnose and do the actual work and 10-12 days to get the parts.  Anyway, I temporarily fixed the crack with duct tape.

The crack is on the radius at the top of the drain.

My temporary duct tape fix.

We had a couple of cold days early in the week, Monday and Tuesday that we used to do some shopping.  Patty also got to see a Doctor about removing her uvula.   For those who don’t know, that's the piece of shin that hangs down in the back of your throat.   If the uvula gets too big or the skin behind it gets too relaxed then it interrupts your sleep.  It also causes you to snore, ask me how I know!  

Anyway, the doc said her uvula was OK but she had relaxed skin that needed to be trimmed after the uvula was removed.  The procedure could be done in about 5 minutes by the doc.  However, the insurance company will need a sleep study to confirm the need.   So Patty got scheduled for and had the study done Thursday night.  

I took her in at 7:45 pm to the sleep study place in Edinburg about 25 minutes from here.  Then I picked her up at 6 am the next morning.  Patty had loads of wires attached to her head and several more over her body and was videotaped while she slept.  What is amazing is that the insurance pays for all of this!  If it is determined that Patty needs the surgery then the insurance will pay for a sleep study and the removal procedure.  If it is determined that she doesn't need the procedure then the insurance will pay for the sleep study that is probably as costly as the procedure.

Before the sleep study on Thursday it warmed up to 80 degrees for the first time in a little over a week!  Thursdays are biking events here at the resort.  A lot of the Thursday bike events have been canceled due to the weather just being too cold.  Well, not this week!  Patty and I went on this bike ride to Benson State Park near Mission TX.  The bike ride was a 15 mile ride through a very nice birding area.  We left the resort at 9 am for the 40 minute ride to the entrance and trail head for Benson State Park.  Then we biked 5 miles into the park and stopped to get our wrist bands compliments of our bike master host from the resort.  Then we rode 5 miles in the park stopping at several bird blinds. We had our bag lunch in the park and then we biked 5 miles back to our vehicles.  It was another great trip and we got Patty a little tired for the sleep study!

All of us going on the bike ride in a line waiting to leave the resort at 9 am.

Map of Benson State park.  It's in the middle of big time birding country.

Riding the trail.  Patty in yellow juts ahead.

Group stopping to get our arm bands to go into the park.

The gardens around the park entrance use captured rain water for irrigation.

This is a retama tree that is native to Texas and Mexico.  It has green bark that it uses for photosynthesis.

This is a typical bird watching location in the park.

These are Green Jays, which are really a bright green.

Forgot what this bird is called but it makes a lot of noise.  They look somewhat like a pheasant and have a home behind our RV.

This is a high end RV resort we passed while biking to the state park.  Some of these places have houses with stone and brick buildings for their RV attached to the house.  Very nice!  Not in our budget though.

Friday was another gorgeous weather day again!  Low 80s and not a cloud in the deep blue sky!  After picking Patty up we were going to go out for breakfast and do some shopping in the bigger town of Edinburg.  However, after picking Patty up we both decided that we were just too tired to do any of that.  We went back to the RV and took a 2 hour nap!  The nap may have been longer but we needed go back to Edinburg for an appointment with Patty’s new diabetes doctor.  Patty’s doctor in Indiana told her she should have a doctor here after she had the DKA and fainting spell last week.  This doctor is affiliated with Joslin Diabetes Center and Patty is pleased to have a "Winter Texan" specialist she can also see when we return to the area next year. Since retiring we both go to each other’s doctors’ appointments so we each know what is going on with each other’s health.  

Friday night we had a resort sponsored Valentine’s Day dance at the club house starting at 7 pm.  The dance was very well attended but was a little too much older music for us.  The music was mostly the top 50 from 1955 – 1960. Also, it was a good portion of older country music that we are not hot on either.  Anyway, we stayed for the entire event as we struck up good conversations with a couple of other couples.  Overall, it was a good and fun night, just not our musical taste.

Saturday the 15th the resort had their monthly board meeting.  All of the members are invited to attend.  The resort has 6 board members serving 3 years.  The board is made up of elected members of the resort.  Since this was the meeting where a new couple of board members were elected we decided to attend.  I won’t go into details but it was entertaining to say the least.  It is amazing to watch a democracy in action, it can be messy! 

Saturday the resort started the “Fun In The Sun” or FITS games.  These are basically championship versions of the games we have been playing all along here.  Patty and I also got involved in the raft race in the pool.  We had 4 couples who got involved to play this.  Each race is held with 2 couples making 2 laps in the pool.   The first lap is with a small inner tube.  You and then your partner, in my case Patty, each in turn have to get in the tube, take a lap sitting in the tube.  After each of us have made the lap, we both get on a netted raft and make another lap.  We were the losers in this race.  The race really took a lot out of us, very strenuous. 

Saturday night we had the FITS darts tournament which my team won!  We had seven teams of 5 players each in a double elimination tournament.  My dart was the winning dart!!  We started the tournament at 7 pm and we were done around 11 pm.  It was a lot of fun!  

Tomorrow we have the FITS water volleyball at 1 pm.  I understand that there are 24 players signed up for that.  In the days ahead we have the following FITS we are competing in: Euchre, Corn hole; Ladder Golf, Wii Bowling, and a Pool Noodle race at the end of the games next week.

A new friend here at the resort has this vehicle to tow their 5th wheel.  Patty and I believe we may go this route in the future.  We would put a smart car behind he cab to use while we are parked at a campground.

This is what I use to do resistance workouts when not walking/biking/water volleyball.

Stay tuned!