Our First Week as Winter Texans

 I wrote this at the end of the first week of December and forgot to post it so here it is a bit late.  I’ve included some pics of the Wilderness Oaks RV Park where we are staying from their website so you can see how nice the place is.  We have been here a week now and had several days of clouds and rain with a few sunny days interspersed.  Hoping to see more sun in the coming days and very happy that we are here and not having to deal with the freezing temps and winter weather up north. 

On Tuesday we had a glorious sunny, warm day so we took the opportunity to check out the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.  It’s about a half hour drive and well worth the trip.  We used this trip to get oriented to the refuge for future visits.  While there we did see alligators and I must say it was a bit unnerving.  Having only seen alligators in captivity, it gave me pause to know that while out on a trail we could encounter them, but it hasn’t put me off on return visits.  They also have several types of snakes with three of the species being venomous.  There is a great display in the visitor center on each of the types of snakes and where they could be found.  This is probably not a place to take our girls for trail walks.  Between the alligators and the venomous snakes they could encounter, their safety is more important.  The refuge has an auto tour that is about 20 miles long which we will want to drive but what I really want to see are the whooping cranes that winter there.  Our next visit will include our good camera and telephoto lens as well as binoculars.  There are some nice observation towers to view from.

We have had to deal with the problem of our barking dogs when we are away from the RV.  After returning from the refuge I visited with a neighbor and found out that April apparently barked much of the time we were gone.  They girls are not used to all the people, traffic and dogs that come by our place and have found them to be a smorgasbord of things to bark at.  When we left, we would seclude them to the back of the RV with a doggie gate where they couldn’t see out the windows and turn on the TV but apparently, that didn’t keep them from hearing things and barking.  We tested putting them in dog crates on top of the bed, turning on the TV and the AC fan and shutting the door.  I drove the Jeep out to run errands but John remained behind in a chair outside and silent so the girls wouldn’t hear his voice and it seemed we were successful.  They didn’t make a peep.  We hope that method continues to work. 

The arctic blast that has blown over the country also hit us and we have had temps down to 40, rain and high winds but nothing like our friends and family are dealing with.  This is only supposed to last until this weekend here.  I used the time during the nasty weather to bake cookies and made some oatmeal raisin, shortbread and chocolate brownie cookies and all turned out very well. John says the brownie cookie is the best cookie he has ever eaten.

Last night was the weekly friendship dinner in the park.  I had to chuckle.  It was to start at 5:30 pm so we arrived about 5:25 and the place was full, all were seated and it seemed they were getting ready to start.  Hmmm – did I get the wrong time?  Nope – apparently, these retirees like to arrive early to visit, get a seat and above all get the dessert they want!  What a hoot.  The tables were set up in a U shape and everybody put the dish they brought on the table in front of where they sat.  Then, after having prayer, everybody stands up and walks around the tables filling their plates.  There was no lack of conversation with the people around you but as soon as they finished eating they all packed up their stuff and headed home.  The lifestyle is a bit different from what we are used to but we’ll get the hang of it.  We’ve been encouraged to come for the various games – Texas Holdum, Pass the Trash, Bingo and so on.  There is also a small movie theater in town that John tried out.  He said it is old but clean and we only pay $5.  On Tuesday nights, if you bring your own container, you can get free popcorn so you know that several folks head that way on Tuesday nights! 

I hope everybody is staying warm and looking forward to the holidays.

Getting settled

Our first few days at our winter location have been busy.  As I noted in my last blog, we had the brakes fixed in our Jeep the day after our arrival and John spent six hours at the repair shop.  He had his IPAD with him and the shop had free WIFI so John entertained himself for the day by doing his Bible study, watching TV shows on the IPAD and playing games.  He ate lunch at a small restaurant across the street from the auto shop and said they had the best chicken fry he had ever eaten.  One of the main ways he judges chicken fry is whether you can find the meat!  So many places pound it out so thin it can be hard to find!

While John was gone for the day, I put up Christmas in the motorhome and gave the girls baths.  Now the motorhome has a more festive feeling and the girls smell fresh and clean.  I’m trying to find a dog groomer for at least one professional groom while we are here and that has been a challenge.  The reviews for most of them in the area aren’t great.  I think I may have found one in Corpus Christi whose reviews are all very good.  A bad haircut grows out so I’m more concerned about how they treat the dogs and if the place is clean.  I’ve heard horror stories about groomers.

On Saturday morning we checked out the breakfast that the park serves for $3/person.  The food was excellent.  They served bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy and pancakes as well as coffee and juice.  When we had our food a couple we had briefly met in the park waved us over to their table which was so nice.  They were a nice couple out of Illinois.  Both had been short haul truck drivers.

We’ve met several folks but trying to remember their names has been a challenge.  We know that will come as we spend more time with them.  There have been lots of dog walks and it seems like everybody has a dog or dogs.  Some have some very large cats.  One lady takes here cat out for a walk in a wagon and her fur baby must weight 30+ pounds.  Everybody seems to like to the dogs and engages with them wherever we go, which is nice.  On Saturday, we took time to finish up a few outside decorations and lights, drove around the area a bit, figured out where the church we hope to attend was located, refilled a script, bought groceries and relaxed a bit.

Now it’s time for us to get into a routine that hopefully includes exercise!

We Arrived at our Winter Destination

On the morning of November 30^th, we said good-bye to Cedar Blue and headed south for the winter.  It was a sunny and very cool morning and great driving weather.  We stopped in Ardmore for gas (about 40 miles from Cedar Blue) and John smelled hot brakes on the Jeep.  In checking the braking system, we had in it, it seemed that he had set the system a bit too far forward and it had been pressing on the brake the entire way!  Yikes.  It hadn’t registered on the readout in the motorhome so we knew it was all about where he had the system located since it wasn’t engaging the brake.  Oh well, not much we could do at that point but get the system setup right and keep going. 

The drive on I-35 and I-35W was stress-free until we got to Ft. Worth and the highway construction was beyond crazy.  I had hoped to take a bypass around the city but all the construction chaos started well before that exit.  By the time we reached the exit for that bypass it wasn’t even worth the time as we were almost through all of it.  Traffic moved slowly through all of it so it wasn’t that stressful driving our rig.  We just had to make sure we stayed on the right road, which we did. 

Once we were south of the construction we wanted to stop for lunch and change drivers.  John found a Loves Truck Stop on his phone so we got off the highway and headed that way.   We cannot back the motorhome since we are towing a vehicle so we always must find a pull-through parking space.  Now you would think that wouldn’t be a problem in a truck stop but not this place.  Every parking space for trucks was back in!  Amazing.  So back onto the highway to find someplace else.  A short distance down the road we saw signs for several eating places and decided to try again so off we went in search of parking and found a shopping center with lots of open space. 

We spent our first night at the South Forty RV Park just south of Giddings, TX on Hwy 77.  This was a nice small park in a wooded area.  As we were driving along the exterior of the park to our space we saw a herd of Texas Longhorns on the other side of the fence.  They had the longest horns I’ve ever seen.  There was one very large longhorn standing so still and with such long horns that I thought it was fake but then I saw it move slightly! How do they hold their heads up?  Those horns must be very heavy.  While there for the night we met a nice couple next to us that were full-timers from South Dakota heading to Houston for a visit and then onto Arizona for the winter.  They had a friendly, large spaniel-looking dog.  As dog owners, we have found that dogs are what bring so many people we meet together.

On December 1^st we arrived at our destination in Rockport, TX.  We are staying at the Wilderness Oaks RV Park and we were greeted with lots of smiles and helping hands.  This is a large park with some permanent residents and lots of winter Texans.  It didn’t take long at check-in to be informed that ‘snowbirds’ are in Florida and we are ‘winter Texans’.  After showering me with lots of information about the park we headed into the park to get our rig parked.  I always park the rig and John directs me which seems to work well but when I got to the space we were assigned and looked at the narrowness of the street I was very thankful for the two guys that came to help us park.  These guys are awesome because they know exactly how to move the rigs around to get them into place.  I think they had me backed in in about 5 minutes. 

When John got the Jeep unhooked before parking the RV it was a nice surprise to realize that we did still have brakes.  After getting the RV setup we took the girls and headed to a local auto repair shop we found online with high ratings to see if they could look at the brakes the next day.  John said they were extremely helpful and gave us an appointment with no problem.  In talking to the young lady helping him, John found out that she used to live in Ardmore, OK – just 35 miles from our place in Cedar Blue.  Small world.

Today I’m planning to work on some Christmas decorations while John is having the brakes checked out in the Jeep.  It looks like there could be at least 3” of rain headed this way over the next four days so we will need to be looking at indoor activities.  This will be a time to check out the workout center.  We were expecting an outdoor pool with a dome over it but since we were here two years ago they have changed the outdoor pool to a saltwater pool and it’s now heated and no dome.  Apparently, the dome was a liability of some sort.  I hope to try out the pool later in the week when the rain is gone.  More to come about swimming in an outdoor, saltwater pool in the winter!

So, it’s time to sign-off and go bathe the girls before starting on Christmas.