Jan. 25: Geo Caching Class

Another typical week of working and eating and playing cards.

Thursday night, one of the ladies, Janice, brought her quilt blocks up to the club house. The embroidery part was done at home before they left. She's been doing the piece work since they got here - at least a month ago. She laid them out according to the picture she was working from. It really is beautiful. We're all anxious to see the finished product. She said she thought it would be a couple of days before she had something together enough to photograph.




One of the men who lives in the park, made this really neat picnic table. He designed it, built it and painted it. He's trying to market it to Home Depot or Lowes. Also is going to make a pink ribbon one for the local cancer society to raffle off.








We did have a designated game night Friday night and a couple of folks showed up who don't normally. We played Mexican Train with the newbies and another guy learned to play Queen of Spades.

Yesterday, I taught another Geo Caching class. Larry and I had hid three simple geo's in the RV park and located 3 great headstones over in the cemetery. After some basic instructions, we divided up and headed out to find the ones in the park. All were found and they all got good at playing with their GPS.

It was a little chilly that day (60's) so some elected to hunt in the cemetery on a warmer day. The rest of us headed out as a group to the cemetery but when we got there we broke out into three groups again. One was our last name, one was the relatives of this Hatch RV Park and one was a Pvt. that was killed on Okinawa during the war. They found them all so I think they're ready to hit the real world of Geo Caching. The couple with Larry on the left, Mary and Rick (from Topeka) didn't know our last name, so even when Larry placed the GPS on top of the headstone, they didn't have a clue. I had titled the GPS "Name of a good friend".

The whole team: me, Mary, Rick, Elise, Judy, Pete, Larry and Claire.

Larry and I will probably get up a group to go out after my job ends this next Friday. Larry and I have decided for me to give up working for our last two months of retirement. When we go back to Wichita to work full time will be soon enough to be getting up early and working 40 hours a week - yuk.

Last night was movie night and we saw a DVD of Jeff Dunham and his "friends". He's a ventriloquist and his friends are Walter, Peanut and Jose Jalapeno on a Stick. Quite a funny evening. If you want to find some free videos, Google "Walter the dummy" and see what you come up with. Achmed the Terrorist is pretty funny too.

Larry helping Claire and Lawrence get down some more delicious grapefruits.








Tonight the park got together a group and we all headed to Fudruckers. Great burgers and malts.

Tomorrow, my cousin, Connie, and her husband, Dave, will be here for a couple of days. We're excited to have relatives coming to see us. It means more exploring the area and more great food to eat not to mention getting caught up on all their news. They are on their way to the Valley to lead a caravan on into Mexico.

Finally, just for those of you who think it's always great here in Corpus, here's a photo that was taken in 2004 (I think) of a snow that lasted about 20 minutes before it was all gone.

Jan. 20: Anniversary & My Mom, The Gambler

34 Years Later.....

We were told that the Canadians get together each year for a quiet dinner; we were invited and felt honored to be included. We brought baked beans (Bush's) which I doctored up. Hamburgers were the main meal - my favorite - and the men BBQ them (except Larry who was in the kitchen with the women folk). We laid out our plates and all the food dishes on the table in the kitchen, took the picture and filled our plates.

Just as we were about to chow down, Elise came behind Larry and me and told us this was a party to celebrate our anniversary. We all had small glasses of white wine and all raised our glasses in a "congratulations" toast. For dessert, we had Oreo blizzard ice cream cake. Do these folks know me or not.






It sure is nice to come into this RV park, so far away from home, with friends from last year who are so special to Larry and me.

As many of you know, my mother (who will be 81 in February) loves to play the machines at the local casino. She calls it "contributing to the Indian children". Around Christmas, she was sitting at a machine and heard her name called out. She was asked to pull a bag out of a box. Well, all those years of playing the machines paid off. She won a 2009 red Mustang with stick shift. In deference to her age, they gave her a white automatic. She thinks it's nice so she's keeping it. I'm sure her and Mac will look real sharp pulling up to the senior center for the afternoon dances.

Tuesday, we inaugurated a new president. We have lots of expectations for this one lone man and it's really to all of our benefit if he does well. I didn't vote for him, but I'm sure going to cheer him on. I was at work and was thinking "I can tell my grandchildren I was around when this great part of our American history happened". However, now my grandchildren are around too. I'm thinking the point here is they can tell their grandchildren where they were when President Obama was administered the oath of office - sorta.

Jan. 18: Our Anniversary

Our week was pretty uneventful. With me working, there's not much time to go play.

However, Larry did go with several people from the park to a small local community, San Patricio. It was named after Saint Patrick of Ireland and settled by 200 Irish families in 1829. Their only obstacle was drought and Indians. The Mexican government welcomed them because they wanted the area colonized in the hopes of holding onto Texas (first town in Texas to hang a woman). Fast forward and the railroad bypassed San Patricio, the county seat, buy went thru Sinton, which became the new county seat (Mr. Sinton had lots of money). It was pretty much a ghost town until 1971 when it was revitalized and many of the homes in the area were restored.

Now, St. Patrick's day in San Patricio has turned into a multi-festival day with the Rattle Snake Races in the spotlight - which we hope to attend in March. AND, for $20 I hope to be in the race. But with a couple thousand other people hoping for the same thing (well, maybe not all of them), I might be in a long line. I'm thinking this sound like lots of fun and hope that Larry will be really fast with the camera.


They toured the small museum and.....















the courthouse with a jail which apparently some of our folks ended up in - but it doesn't really surprise me--these older people tend to be kind of rowdy when they're out and about.





The photos are all from Tom Offer and Guy Cote (both Canadians soaking up our American history) - thanks men for allowing me to use your pix for my blog.

The group ended up eating at the "Butter Churn" buffet in Sinton which they all said was great (but most of us know how much Larry loves buffets). I'm anticipating a return to San Patricio with much of the same group just for the dinner. The beautiful painted mural was on the outside wall of the restaurant.





For our anniversary, we skipped the pot luck dinner here at the park and went to Texas Roadhouse and then a movie, Mall Cop. We got to the movie an hour early, so we walked the parking lot for about 20 minutes trying to digest that big dinner. The longest line at the theater was to "My Bloody Valentine" and found out that it was in 3D - still didn't sound like my kind of movie.

Today we defrosted the refrigerator and in general, cleaned house.

Elise took this video when Henry & Anna were here. This is a typical happy hour--except we don't usually have this many Kansan's. This year there are 3 couples of us Kansan's here for at least a month. Last year, Larry and I were an oddity - most people come from further north. We also have a couple from Oklahoma this year.


I want to get this posted so there will be a special edition this week on our surprise anniversary party last night. Also, my computer is acting up and I may have to take it in to see what the problem is.

Jan. 11: A Week With Good Friends

My new job with Susser (same company I worked for last week - different department) is checking up on the 160+ new Town and Country convenient stores that Susser purchased. We're making sure they are posting all of their invoices. We get the invoices and compare them to a list of invoices posted for that day. Any discrepancies go to accounting; all daily postings that are OK, go to the scanning team. Not the most challenging job I've had but it'll pass the time until another one comes along. This one is suppose to last about a month.

Our good friends from Wichita, Henry and Anna, were here all week. They kept themselves busy with local attractions during the day and we spent the evenings with them. We went to Niko's Steakhouse the first night; Place To Be the second night; KFC Wednesday night and I fixed a vegetable soup Thursday night.

I took off Friday because that is a light day for the mail and we all went sight seeing. We headed for Port Aransas. Crossed on the ferry, did some sourvenir shopping and ate lunch at Moby Dick's Restraurant. Then drove on south to Padre Island National Park. Did some beach combing and found shells, jelly fish, and other interesting things. Larry got in the water but none of the rest of us were interested in getting into 62 deg. water.


The ferry ride.

Henry taking a picture of Anna.

Larry enjoying the "warm" water of the gulf.

They told us that you could find really unique items washed up on the Padre Island shores.

Anna, beach combing.






That evening we ate at Kiko's. A local Mexican restaurant that has been around for many years.

Saturday, we headed north again but went to the Rockport/Fulton area to Goose Island. We spacifically went there to see "The Big Tree". This tree is thought to be one of the largest in the nation (not sure where the red woods of California fall in this estimation). It is estimated to be over 1000 years old and has a circumference of 35 feet. At 44 feet in height, it's branches streach out about 90 feet. It was pretty impressive.



We also found a vine hanging from a tree. Larry didn't know whether to try smoking it as he did in his youth of swing from it. Needless to say, at his current age, he did neither.






Located close to this tree was another one that we could actually get close to. Notice the nice people helping to hold up the branches. They won't be there 1000 years from now. Guess that's when the steel posts come in handy.





For lunch we ate at a Whataburger and had Dairy Queen for afternoon treat.


The Fulton Mansion was completed in 1877. The house featured ornate trim work and furnishings and the latest technological conveniences including modern plumbing, central heating and a gas lighting system. The house was lived in by the family until 1895. In the early 1980's it was restored and opened for visitors. We didn't take the inside tour but I'm sure it would have been very interesting.

The view of Aransas Bay from the front porch.

Of course, you get two old geo cachers together and there will be geo caching. I had pulled four down off the computer for the day but only found two. The two we found were big enough to have goodies in them--which are the kind we like. They were located at historical markers and gave a short history of the area or the person the area was named after. Anna found the one on the right. Used a stick to pull it out so we could access it. The men were deeper in the woods bushwacking because that's where the GPS took them.


The other two were a micro (size of a magnetic key holder) and a nano (size of a bullet). We didn't find them but they led us to a beautiful memorial along the coast and a great place to see birds. The other black ones I haven't identified yet but I think they must be some kind of heron.

Of course, Larry brought bread to feed the gulls.

Notice the Roseate Spoonbills.







For supper, we met at our home and had a great hot dog meal.

Sunday was a kick back day. Henry and Anna rested in their hotel while Larry and I ran some errands.

We all met up again for supper at Jason's Deli tonight - already trying to light. Back to work tomorrow and a week of eating lighter. Might even get in a walk or two.

Jan. 4: A New Year

My new job that started last Monday, is with the Stripes organization. They are a convenient store associated with several service stations - mostly Valero. There's a little more to the company but that's the basics. I learned to work the computers, taking service calls and dispatching those calls to techs. A whole new process for me. The reason I was learning this (and folks from Berry Tractor will appreciate this) the current dispatchers were going to continue training all week on a new system. So I had to learn the obsolete system and by tomorrow it will no longer be used. But, by tomorrow I will be working in the accounting department of the same company. They have a month long job there so I'll be occupied for quite a while. This company has free fountain drinks, fresh ground coffee and a full kitchen with tables and a ping pong table. There's also an exercise room and a "romper" room for children of the workers to stay. They seem to be a real employee oriented company.

Our New Year was celebrated at the club house with about 40 or 45 people - just finger foods this time. The Texans down here like to celebrate the new year with guns. One of our friends was going to go outside to look at the fireworks display when a semi-automatic machine gun BAR or some such weapon went off and he made an immediate about turn, slammed the door shut and sat back down at the card table. We all decided we were better off inside than return to our campers. Larry stayed to play more cards but I headed for home. I walked all the way back (less than a block) with a plate on my head to protect me from falling bullets. The celebration went on late into the next morning. In fact, they were still celebrating last night but at least they're down to fireworks now. Guess they ran out of bullets or shells or whatever they were shooting.

This is the group watching the TV as the ball in New York City drops down.






Of course, the men had to all go swimming on New Year's day. Us girls just sat around and watched. One of our men, Laurence, newly arrived from Canada, wasn't quite up to getting in just yet. They've all been swimming every day since then too. Temps have been the the upper 60's, middle 70's this week. The water temperature is still too cold for me.(appx 75 deg)




Last night was another pot luck dinner so we were full again. Larry stayed and played cards afterwards but I came back to the camper to watch the Indianapolis Colts get beat.

Today, Larry and I went bike riding over on the sea wall sidewalk again. There was a sea fog in the area and it was much cooler than here in the RV park. This picture is of the Corpus Christi downtown skyline in the fog. We rode about 5 miles. After we were thru riding, we sat along the sea wall and drank our Pepsi and Gatorade and watched the pelicans diving into the bay for fish. Either it was real entertaining - or it just doesn't take much to thrill us anymore.


Our good friends, Henry and Anna, will be here tomorrow so we'll have lots of visiting to catch up on and more site seeing. They'll be here a week and then head to San Antonio for another week and then back home. This is their first step to becoming RVr's by next year.