Truck repair, German Dinner, and 2014-15 Winter Destination Thoughts

February 24 - 28, 2014 

We sort of slowed down the past few days.  The weather got cold again for a couple of days and again spoiled the bike trip to the fishing port on the Gulf.  The temperatures got in the low 40s to highs in the upper 50s.  It’s just not very good for doing much outside.  So we mainly stayed inside  for a couple of days.

Monday the 24th we had the FITS awards.  I was on the winning team for 3 for the events; Wii bowling, corn hole, and darts.  It was pretty cool as my team awards were given out in the beginning of the ceremony so it looked like I was on everything for a bit of time. Patty and I also won the "Best Effort" Award!

My winning team certificates suitable for framing - maybe not!  The #4 is our site number.

Tuesday the 25th we took the truck in to Hacienda Ford in Edinburg to check out the left front tire wear issue.  In the past 2-3 weeks I noticed that the left front tire was wearing on the outside edge.  At first I thought it was just my imagination.  Last week I determined it wasn't my imagination. The front tires are just now 2 years old and I don’t want to replace them this year; probably next year though.

Hacienda Ford was the closest Ford service place to us so we took it in see what was going on.  We got it in and we headed off to breakfast at IHOP a 15 minute walk from Hacienda.  After we got back and a couple of hours later we were told that the left front was out of alignment and that we needed a new steering gear box.  The alignment was the actual cause of the tire wear and we got that done.  The steering gearbox is what causes play in the steering wheel. We have had the loose steering for a while and were living with it.  Anyway, we decided to have that replaced under warranty.  It will be a few days until they get the gearbox so we will need to go back another day.

Wednesday the 26th it got cold again.  We got up at 7 am and it was 71 outside.  That was the highest temperature for the day.  By evening it was 45! We stayed inside most of the day.  I managed to get our taxes done which were real easy this year.  This was the simplest taxes I have ever done. They were pretty easy before owning a house when I was 20 years old but I had to do state taxes then.  Now I just do the federal simple form and no state.  Really, really easy and simple.

We now make our own fajita seasoning.  We have either chicken, beef, or shrimp fajitas at least 2 time a week.  We need to keep a lot of fresh peppers and onions around at all times!

Another very tasty creation, bacon wrapped cheddar meat loaf.  Very good!

I also spent some of the day burning pictures on to CDs.  I keep pictures on an SD card in my phone and on the hard drive of my computer.  This way the pictures are backed up by being in 2 places.  Now my phone is not working well when I try to copy or move pictures from it due to the large size of memory I am using on the SD card.  I have just under 3,000 pictures on the phone!  These pictures are from just the past 7 months.  The only way I could get the pictures off the phone was to take the SD card out and put it in an adapter and then into my computer.  I was doing this with just a cable between the two.

Wednesday evenings the resort has a happy hour usually at an outdoor site called Sandy’s Bar here in the resort.  Well not today, we had happy hour inside the clubhouse.   It was way too cold and very windy.

Patty had a ganglion cyst drained.  It's that raised skin above the band-aid.  I could see it hurt like hell when the Doc drained it.  It also hasn't gone away!

Thursday the 27th we were going to have the bike ride into Port Mansfield that was canceled a couple of weeks ago due to the cold weather.  Well, here we go again, it was cancelled again due to the cold weather.  We are inland about 50 miles from the Gulf so we are warmer here.  Still, the temperature was only 55 at 9 am when we were going to leave for the Gulf.  The high was only going to be 55 in Port Mansfield, too cold for biking especially with the wind.

Our poor new flag!  The wind here is so strong it has already frayed the bottom corner.  Patty sewed it back up so we shall see how long that lasts.

Friday the 28th was a back to normal good weather with a blue sky and 88 degrees.  Friday was a walking day for us. Our routine is we walk together for the first 1-2 miles at Patty’s pace and then I walk another mile at a faster pace.  I challenge myself to walk the mile faster each time. I use a GPS app on my phone to record my pace and distance.  So far my fastest mile walk is 14 minutes and 51 seconds.

Water volleyball is at 2pm so I went over to the pool and played 2 games.  Then Patty had another appointment with her ENT Dr. about removing her uvula.  She had a sleep study done a week ago and now the Dr. was to go over the results.  Well now she needs to do yet another sleep study using a CPAP face sucking machine.  The Dr. said that the insurance company requires this.  The Doc said that no matter how minor the surgery, the insurance company wants to keep you from getting surgery by any means possible.  Patty will have this scheduled in the next few days.  What I am afraid of is she maybe told she has to use the CPAP machine instead of ever getting the surgery.

After the Dr. appointment we went out to dinner at a German restaurant, Schneider’s in McAllen.   According to our GPS, this is the only German restaurant within 250 miles of here. We rate the place a C+.  Fridays they have schnitzels as a special.  I ordered the onion schnitzel with spatzle and red cabbage and Patty had the mushroom schnitzel with german potato salad and red cabbage.   My schnitzel was great and Patty’s was very tough and no taste.  The german potato salad was the worst we had ever had.  The red cabbage was OK.  The spatzle was just OK but was tasteless.  They had live music which was good and the outdoor surroundings were very comfortable.  We would probably not go back though.

Schneider's Beer Garden with a Texas twist, note the cowboy boots just behind the entrance.

View of the beer garden.  It was a very nice evening to sit out side and have a beer and dinner with my honey Patty.

Saturday the 1st of March was a nice warm day of 80 but with no sun.  Patty went to the clubhouse to rehearse her songs for the talent show on Sunday.  I went for my 3 mile walk while she rehearsed.  I did the 3 miles in 45 minutes and 50 seconds which was a real good workout for me. 

After my workout and Patty’s rehearsal we went to a Pad party just after noon.  Two couples that are new friends here have new concrete pads poured and now are having a short party to celebrate.  Then once again, Saturday night is darts night from 7 – 10 pm.

We have learned that South Texas does in fact have snow, black snow.  It is actually burning sugar cane ashes.  The cane ranchers around here burn the left over cane material and black particles float down everywhere.

After our walk the sun was blotted out of the sky by the clouds of burnt cane ash.

A bit of scheduling news for us.  We are starting to believe that we will return here to Natures Resort next year.  We were going to go to Sandpipers just up the road instead.  We visited there again this past week to check out a site but we remained undecided.  We feel that since we made so many friends here and we have been to Sandpipers already, we should come here in the winter until we feel like doing something else.  It will depend on if we can get a good site for next year here.  We don't really like the site we are on.  It was very difficult to get into and the ground is filled with sink holes.  Also this site floods if there is a lot of rain.  We will see what can be done in the office on Monday the 3rd. 

That does it for this installment post in our blog.  Next week I hope to have truck steering fixed. Also, we are hosting a Mardi Gras party here in the resort Tuesday night.  Patty is singing 2 song at the talent show here on Sunday night.

Patty got her nails polished in a Mardi Gras theme by a girl here at the resort for $15!

Stay Tuned!