Scooter racing

Scooter racing
After parking for the night, we'll still have time for a little racing

Monday 24 November 2014

There Goes The Neighbourhood


It took a couple of days to unpack, get groceries in and generally figure out where things are here in Mission.  By things, I mean Walmart.  I also found a great grocery store called H-E-B.  Those initials stand for the owner’s name – Horace E. Butts.  Poor guy must have gone through hell as a child. Imagine being called Horsey Butt all your life!  Still the laugh is on them since he started the largest grocery chain in Texas.  Good old Horace also had the foresight to install a really nice bakery….. you have to try these little (by Texas standards) puff pastry and sugar things.  I don’t know what they’re called, but yum!

Anyhow, the high school Spanish is coming in pretty handy down here.  Hardly anyone speaks English.  It often comes down to a combo of English, Spanish and Charades.

But I digress….. two weeks after I arrived, I was sitting by the pool and lo and behold, there was my sister and her friend Paul walking in.  They arrived a couple of days early and were able to park the brand new rig (still nameless) in the lot next to mine.  I had been concerned that she wouldn’t get it in there because a) it’s huge and b) there’s a tree right in the middle of the parking spot.  But Jackie is a pro and she got it in there no problem.  The Georgetown is GORGEOUS!   I have developed a severe case of “RV envy”.

We hit the ground running once they got here and did all the tourist hot spots in the area, including South Padre Island (beautiful!).  Of course, we also had to sample the local cuisine - you can't come to Texas without eating steak.  And then there's grapefruit pie!  Since the Rio Grande Valley is the centre of the universe for growing ruby red grapefruit, it's only natural that someone should have thought to make a pie out of it.  It sounds awful but it's very, very good!

So now we’re all set up and ready to start our lives as “Winter Texans”. 

Thursday 13 November 2014

I'm baaaaaack!


Apologies to my readers – I haven’t blogged for months and I’ve been told to get back to it.  So here goes.


After our trip to Texas in September, I headed home to Vancouver for a couple of highly uneventful months.  One exception was the birth of my second great-niece, Summer (who was born in the Fall).  She's a cute little thing!

I should mention that, when I left, it had been raining heavily for days and there was talk of flooding.  Yikes!  However, I had to head home so I sealed the Beast up as much as possible and off I went.  It was nice to catch up with family and friends and really nice to get back to dancing.  I hadn’t realized how much I would miss it!


It turns out, though, that I missed sunshine even more so in mid-November I returned to Texas to find the Beast high and dry (thank heavens!).  This park has turned out to be great – people are super friendly, the place is very clean and it’s bursting with activities and events.  More to follow.