LAST DAY OF 2012

Friday night it was cool again dropping down to 6C, but Saturday did warm up to a high of 24 getting cloudy in the afternoon.

We ended up just sitting around and talking with Ron and Janet all afternoon and later being joined by Tonya and Don. Our get together actually included the happy hour running up to dinner time. These guys are great!  We had a lot of good laughs and and covered a lot of topics. They are making little comments to Cathy and I, about how we should be staying longer and it will colder where we plan on going next, which is further north. It will be hard to leave this great bunch of friends and resort.

After dinner Cathy and I were just relaxing, watching tv when Don banged on the side of our coach saying He and Tonya, Ron and Janet were heading for the swimming pool/hot tub and for us to get our suits on. So, off we went and we returned at 9 o'clock. It was a great night with lots of stars. It seemed to help us sleep as well.

"Happy New Year" to all of you and we hope 2013 finds you well and safe. Each year just seems to fly by faster and faster. 

Til tomorrow...

WAITING FOR SOFT WATER

Friday night's low reached 6C and the wind blew stronger than we normally get through Saturday. Still cool with a high of 17, better than it is in Ontario however. I understand there was snow going through the area there yesterday.

There have been 4 people in the park that have installed this water softener on their RVs or homes and said they have felt the change in the water. So I decided to buy two of them. One for the coach and one to put on the house. I am hoping we will be able to do away with the salt softener we have at home.

It is a very simple installation, you just need a 4 inch section of pipe on the water line as it comes into your house/RV to wrap the wire onto and a near by receptacle to plug into. The complete package contains the power box, a cable to plug into the power source to the power box, a length of wire to wrap around the pipe, 4 nylon ties and mounting screws for the power box.

The instructions are to connect the middle of the wire with a tie on the pipe and wrap one half  around the pipe in one direction 18 times. Then use another tie to fasten at the end of the wrapping. Then go back to the other wire half and wrap it on the pipe in the other direction over the previous wire wrapped. Tie it to the pipe when there are 18 wraps around the pipe. Strip enough wire coating off the two wire ends and connect them into the individual wire clips on the power box which is mounted nearby. Plug one end of the power cable in the power box and the other into the receptacle. That's it, just wait for the soft water. It apparently will vary how long it will take to create the soft water due to the amount of mineral build up in the water system. Hopefully it will not take too long with our newer coach. The idea behind it is, it creates an electrically charged zone around the pipe which will bind the hard minerals running through the pipe in the water and they are flushed right through the system. 

                   Before installation set up.White hose is the water line coming into coach.            

After installation: I used a quick connection so it can be removed went travelling to eliminate stress on the connection. White power box in top left corner mounted on panel. The blue wire wrapping goes in behind the panel to the power box for neatness. The electrical outlet was nice and handy to get at. 

In the afternoon Cathy and I went grocery shopping and that was pretty much it for the day. It was too cool to sit out and have happy hour. Didn't even see any of the neighbours out. I think they were all doing their running around chores.

Til tomorrow... 

  

SHE'S GONE SHOPPING AGAIN!!

We are still having a cool spell here, last night's temp. went down to 6C and it was quite windy. Friday's high was 23C under partial clouds.

Yesterday, Cathy was invited to go shopping with Tonya at the discount mall again. You should have seen the smile on Cathy's face. She was ready and out the door in no time.

So I stayed with the coach and did some tasks on it. Started the generator to lubricate all of its' seals and make sure everything is operational and exercised. The manual says it needs to run every month. I checked the coach batteries to make sure they are not running down in water. If they get too far down in water they will not regain their charge.

Don, Tonya's husband came over and asked if I wanted to help him install his water softener on their home. He really didn't need it, but it gave me something else to do. It kept us busy until the girls came back with their several bags of items. Then Don and I took off in his truck to go to Lowes and Home Depot to get some parts to install my softener. The installation will take place tomorrow as it was too close to happy hour when we got back and we could not miss it.

                                                                    The evening sky

Happy hour was under the new awning Ron and Janet had installed on their home on Thursday. Towards the end of our social hour Don brought out his Christmas gift. A remote control truck. (Boy's and their toys.) He provided some entertainment with his truck and is even starting to be envied by Tom. Right now the truck will do 40 mph, it is set in "training mode" and will due 60 when he switches it to the standard setting. It was starting to get dark so Cathy went to our coach and grabbed our little lights we clip on the back of our bicycles when we are out at night and clipped them on his truck. Don thought that was cool and I am sure he will be out looking for some in the near future. Apparently, the resort is going to make a track for these toys to run on since there are about 12 people that own them already. Right now they get together over at the Golf Course parking lot.

                                                                       The Toy           

                                               Don and his truck ( in centre left of picture)


All for now...

WATCHING OTHERS WORK

Yesterday had a lot of cloud, the low Wed. night dropped to 6C but it did get to 21C in the afternoon.


Cathy and I thought we would go over to the Rec. centre today for lunch. The menu has a selection of a soup of the day, hamburger, chicken and bbq beef sandwiches, club house and blt's. Cathy tried the blt with the home made beef barley soup. I went with the bbq. beef sandwich a with fries. Along with this we can help our selves to fresh rye and wheat bread, various veg. and fruit salads. All for $5.00 each.

After lunch we sat out, Ron and Janet came over and we watched as their contractor was installing their awning. Just two doors down from them our other friends from happy hour Don and Tonya (from South Dakota) were getting their yard dug up to expand their cement surface. Then, they too are going to have an awning installed. These contractors seem to be some where in the park doing a project for the property owners. Since there was already a few of us sitting out at our place the happy hour congregated here.

                                                                       New awning

                                                   Digging out for cement expansion

 The properties in our area are all for sale except the already purchased ones. On average they are 40 feet by 72 feet and have all the services at the site. They were selling for $26,000.00 but are now going for $19,900.00. You have to pay about $800.00 in taxes, your own hydro and $140.00 /month for maintenance - gas cutting and all the amenities in the park including two tickets with 20 rounds of golf for the year. Some sites are currently being sold by the current owners already and they have expanded the cement area and added a cacita. For more $ of  course.

As we sat out we saw some of the happy hour gang arriving back from their family Christmas visits. Doc and Nancy from Kansas and Tom and Bernie who were visiting family in northern Texas. We are told there will be others arriving soon whom we have not met coming from Ontario.

                                                                      Mocking bird
Til tomorrow...

ANSWERING THE CALL!

Yesterday it was cool and partly cloudy, the high was only 14C and Tuesday nights' low went down to 4C. 

Too cool for the pool so we took a bicycle ride around the resort and things were rather quiet. In the afternoon after sitting around for awhile Cathy heard the call of the Outlet Mall, so we took a ride over. It is an outside Mall about 3 miles away and was it busy! It must of had about 70 stores. It took awhile to find a parking space. They don't seem to celebrate Boxing Day here like in Ontario, but they do get into the shopping mood and go to the outlet stores apparently. Lots of people from Mexico. They bring the kids in their strollers then start carrying the kids and packing the stroller with all their purchases. When we arrived we took a look at the directory and there was close to 25 shoes stores alone. Cathy was in Heaven! We spent the rest of the day there and made it back in time for dinner, but missed happy hour (dam!). Cathy ended getting, yes, a pair of shoes, pants and an item she hadn't seen for a long time - an Angel Food Cake Cutter.

                                                                   Bumper Sticker

                                                                     Full parking lot

                                                                    Angel Food Cutter

After dinner we decided to go over to the rec. hall to check out the karaoke. There were about 12 people who participated  and they came all came with their own music. As you can guess some were pretty good and then there were the others (off key etc.) But they all had a good time. The person running the event was after a group of people to get more drinks into this one fellow so he would get up to sing - but he didn't do it.

 Coming home from the Mall the sunset was lovely. By the time I stopped, got off the bike, took the camera out of the pouch and focused it the sun dropped from showing half the sun to the little sliver you see in the middle. I'll have to be faster next time.   

Not sure if I will post for today as it looks like an uneventful day shaping up - still cool at 11 o'clock with 13C and a low last night of 6C. It is to reach about 23C. (Not complaining about the coolness - it is still better than Ontario). I know you just got some snow.

All for now...

A BUSY CHRISTMAS DAY

The weather was great yesterday, it went down to 17C for a low and the daytime high was 32C with no clouds.

We started the day off with a Christmas morning get together with the neighbours. Coffee and Bailey's was the beverage along with cinnamon rolls, various cakes, pastry, scones and cookies.

                                                                  All the goodies!

                                                 
After our great morning event we decided to cool off at the pool as we had about an hour to put in before getting ready for our lunch reservation the 12 of us had. Janet and Ron were nice enough to ask us to join them in their car to go over to South Padre Island to the Pearl Hotel located right on the beach and The Gulf of Mexico for a Christmas Buffet. Their buffet had a large selection of  food which included mussels, shrimp and snow crab along with the usual turkey and ham. They started off by providing champagne or champagne and orange juice. It was a great meal.

                                
                                                  The bridge over to South Padre Isand

                                                                    The full gang.

Afterwards we walked out of the restaurant to the beach and checked out the area. The red flag indicator was up warning of some pretty high waves created by the winds. The water felt pretty cold but there were a few kids in the water, of course the temperature didn't bother them. The hot tub at the hotel was occupied by the older people.

                                                   Looking north from the hotel beach area.

When we went back to the car, Ron took us for a tour up the island along the road which runs parallel to the beach. The houses and commercial building gradually reduced in number as we headed north until there was just vacant sandy dune lands on both sides of the road with "for sale" signs posted on them. The road then just stops, with a couple of barriers at the end. This is were everyone gets out and checks out the sandy area and then turns around and heads back to town. The winds created sand drifts across the ocean side lane of road which are cleared by a truck with a snow plow on it. The road wasn't that long about 12-15 miles.

                                                                         Drifting sand

                                                                    End of the road.

By the time we got home it was time to skype my brother and family in Brampton where all my siblings were spending Christmas. We had a great session with them and watched as they were opening their Secret Santa gifts.

They really haven't had any snow to mention there.

It was a very nice Christmas Day.         

THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

It was a good thing it was mainly cloudy today with a high of 29C or it would have been very hot. But it remained comfortable. Last night it reached 16C.


We did a few things around the coach today and did some relaxing as well. Cathy shortened the shorts I recently bought and took them to the rec. centre to sew them. They have a room with several sewing machines available for use. We just bought the thread.

While Cathy was sewing I stayed outside and watched the shuffleboard games that were going on. There was 22 people enjoying themselves on the courts.

I decided to rearrange the plumbing hook up to get ready for the water softener we ordered. After finishing up Cathy went for the mail and the softeners were here. I bought one for the house as well. I am hoping we can get away from the salt softener. Time will tell. This will be a small future job but will be against my union rules to install on Christmas day or Boxing day. Boxing Day isn't as big a deal down here as it is in Canada, but I have a feeling Cathy will be interested in checking out the deals and perhaps boosting the Texas economy.

The neighbours' building or as they call it here "casita" - pronouned "ca see ta" is coming along nicely. They are installing a metal roof which is coated with an asphalt looking product that makes it looks like tile. There are some plumbing and light fixtures to be added yet.

                                                            Back door for the golf cart.
                                            

                                                             Sceen room at the front.

Tonight, instead of happy hour we were invited to the neighbours from New Brunswick (Gil and Ann) for a Christmas Eve Open House. It was a great evening and the usual happy hour friends were there.

This evening Cathy called her brother and sister in law Ian and Gail in Mississauga to wish them and their family a Merry Christmas. They are opening their Christmas presents this evening with their family.

"Merry Christmas"

ANOTHER QUIET DAY

It was mainly sunny today with a high of 27C and last night's low was 10.

Cathy decided to do some laundry today and I checked out where some bugs inside were getting inside the coach. It seems they are following the water, and cable lines in. The neighbours say we need to get some 7 Mule Team Borax and put it around the coach tires and where the cables touch the ground to prevent the visitors.

Since it was quite warm, we decided to cool off at the pool but kept an eye on the time to be sure not to miss happy hour. Our bicycles have been getting a lot of use going here and there around the resort giving us some needed exercise.

 We are starting to notice some younger people around who are here to visit their grandparents for the holidays.

I just can't get in the full Christmas spirit went it is 27 degrees C and no snow - but some how I will manage.

 
Til tomorrow...

BUSY YESTERDAY

We had a low of 13C Friday night and a high of 25 with a partly cloudy sky.

Cathy was going into withdrawal from not being able to shop for awhile so she wanted to go to the Flea Market again and TJ Max to check things out.

At the Flea Market I noticed a Barber Shop so had my first Texan hair cut - I think he was a sheep shearer in his previous profession. I was done in less than 8 minutes. But hey, what do you expect for $8.00.  In the Barber shop there were items such as a TV, radio, toaster oven, reading glasses all with a price tag on them. (extra income!!)

                                                                        Twins!


We headed to TJ Max and Cathy was only able to find one top she wanted. Not sure how long that will satisfy Cathy's shopping urge but she was content for the time being.

We had lunch at the Olive Garden. A medium pizza with 4 toppings, all you can eat salad and all you can eat bread sticks for $10.50. Wow! We couldn't eat all the pizza, so we brought it home with the left over bread and salad.

 The stores where getting busy too. We had to park away at the back of Wal-mart when we stopped for milk. Cathy noticed went she was coming out of Wal-mart the Mexican shoppers once outside the doors were removing their purchases and throwing away the boxes and packing. This we found out was for them to prepare for their trip back over the border with nothing to declare.

We then headed home in time for Happy Hour. Right after Happy Hour we headed for the Rec. Hall as we had tickets for tonight's dance with the "Cruisers". The group made up of 6 guys all in their 60's  were very good as they played 50 and 60's music. We hardly sat down. The head singer was at one time Freddy Fender's drummer who was born not far from here.

After the dance, while heading home we could still hear music but it was Mexican. It apparently was coming from Progressso (where we crossed the border, about 30 mins. away).  It seamed so close due to the wind carrying it across the flat land.  

All for now...

OFF TO THE MUSEUM

Last night it was cold 5C, we actually had to put the furnace on. Today was sunny with a high of 20C.

After lunch we took a drive over to Edinburg to check out the Museum of South Texas. It was about a 45 min. drive from the resort. It had a lot of great displays showing the history of the area.

                                                                        Inside lobby

This giant mammoth was the first display - we were not able to use the flash, about 14ft. high.

This Spanish chest had a very interesting locking mechanism which was opened by a key. (all of those little arms would have to move to release/close the pins)

Cathy put on weight! The Spanish helmet must have weighted about 10 Ibs. and the chest armour about the same.

Wow! Tinkertoy, I used to have a whole lot of these a way back when. The record player and 45's were also part of our history as well. But I don't seem to recall having a pet mammoth though.(Too young to remember perhaps!)

This was a great bronze statue.

Til tomorrow...

TRIP TO MEXICO

Yesterday had a low of 18C and a high of 20C.

We were invited by our neighbours (Ron and Janet from Burlington Ont.) to go across the border with them to experience Progresso Mexico. So why not, it is done by many people in the area. The town and parking lot weren't that busy yesterday according to Ron. But there were quite a few people checking out the area.  You park on the U.S. side for $2.00 and pay 50 cents to walk across a bridge over to Mexico. Coming back, you pay 25 cents to walk back on the other side of the bridge and go through Customs.

This is the wall/fence on the U.S. side to prevent illegals. They monitor the openings in it. 

This is the Rio Grande River separating the two Countries. I would have thought it was wider and harder to cross. The fence is just off to the right side of the river.

A lot of people go across the border to get dental work done at a fraction of the cost here in the U.S. or Canada.There are lots of Dentist offices, all have been trained in the U.S. and they only deal in cash. You can make an appointment or many have a walk in service. There are many vendors on the side walk selling current movies, cd's, food and trinkets. The store employee's are at the entrances holding posters with the prescription drugs they have available and asking you to come in and look. You need to shop around for the best price.

Other stores sell clothing, leather products, sterling silver (not sure of the quality?) ceramic pots and pewter products and the usual Mexican stuff.

                                                                      Pewter

The liquor is a really cheap here but you need to shop around. I bought two, 1 litre bottles of Crown Royal for $38.00 and a bottle of Baileys for $18.00. A bottle of Sheridan goes for $22.00.

We had lunch at one of the restaurants on the main road and ordered a Chicken Fajita which we split. They first came with a bowl of  Taco chips and 3 different dips, one of which burnt all the way down. Then came a bowl of fish soup and it was pretty good.  Then came a small dish of onion rings for us to share. Finally, the plate of chicken and toppings and some warm tortillas showed up and it was more than enough for the two of us. All of this plus a Margarita for Cathy and a Lemonade for me for $10.00.

Crossing back into the U.S. we needed to show our passports and had to pay duty on the liquor which was $3.75 per bottle. Cathy bought some prescription creams and was not even asked about them. They were only interested in the booze.


 It was an experience!!

  

Grocery Shopping

Last night it was warm, very windy and humid enough for us to turn on the a/c.The day was partly cloudy but hot with a high of 32C.

We needed to replenish the cupboards so we left early to go to H-E-B to beat the hot noon temperature. The prices are quite a bit cheaper here.

                                                       A great buy at 59 cents a Ib.

                                           Check out the prices of Butter Ball Turkeys

                                                                Regular turkeys

                                                              Fresh sugar cane

When we arrived back at the Resort we ran into Harley and his chauffeur. Not sure, but I think he wanted to check out if any new poodles arrived today.

 Things are getting a little quieter around here as a lot of people are returning home or visiting relatives for the holidays. We are told it will fill up completely after the holidays.

In the pm. we went to the - you guessed it, the pool then happy hour.

Till tomorrow...