Wednesday, March 8th - Bible Study Day

 This morning we drove back to Donna, TX, about 20 miles, for Bible Study at Victoria Palms. I think there were only 7 of us. More and more people are heading back north.

On the way back we stopped for lunch in La Fiera, TX.

Mine was good, Kathy didn't care for hers. Great portion sizes. I had already eaten one of my tacos when I took this photo.

We wandered around a little on our way back to the campground. We saw several fields of corn. In one field the corn was probably 8" tall. The corn in all the fields looked good. The farmers must be irrigating. Irrigation here is a lot different that what we have seen before. Farmers "plow" a dike, maybe a foot tall, around the perimeter of the field. They also cut a groove/furrow down between the rows of corn. When they want to irrigate they open a valve and flood the trenches between the rows.

At 5 PM we picked up the food Kathy had made and walked over to the Activity Center for a potluck supper. One couple at our table was from Canada, another from Minnesota and the third from Nebraska. They have all come here for multiple winters. We had a nice visit.

Today's high was 87, the overnight low was a very humid 67. When I got up our windows were all covered with condensation. During the day the humidity level dropped to the point that it was quite comfortable sitting outside in the breeze. At 9PM the temperature is 74 and the humidity is 89%.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Tuesday, March 7th - 96th Day Since Leaving Centertown

 Only got to 86 today. The humidity went down in the afternoon, only 10%, and it was nice being out.

We went over to the Activity Center in the morning. Kathy worked on a puzzle while I downloaded a couple of shows from Amazon & Netflix. We don't have WiFi at the campsites but there is a WiFi hotspot at the Activity Center. It is abysmally slow!

At 1PM there was a jam session at the Activity Center. There were a total of 20 musicians and/or singers. The vast majority of the music was country. I stayed for the entire 2 hours but Kathy had to leave after an hour 😀. Most of the singers were adequate, a couple were good. A guy who played a guitar and another guy who played the harmonica were very good musicians. The harmonica player was a very  good singer, the guitar player was just good.

Today was the last jam session of the season. Many people will soon be heading north. They already scheduled the next jam session for December 5th.

In the afternoon I did a few campground chores but really didn't get much accomplished today.

Below is a daytime photo of the tree that glimmers in the night.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Monday, March 6th - Lunch in Port Isabel

 Temps are heating up again. Last nights low was 69 and today's high was 84. Tomorrow is forecast to be warmer. I sat outside in the afternoon but even with the breeze it was almost to hot. 

We don't like the heat but several things are keeping us from heading north to where it is cooler. We love attending the Cowboy Church & Bible Study. We like the campground. With the Camper Pass we bought its free for us to stay here until the 15th. An Inspector is coming Thursday morning to inspect the coach for the new Service Contract we are trying to buy.

There is an 8:30 Bible Study at this campground on Mondays. We went and found out that it is a Women's Bible Study, I left and got in a mile walk around the campground. At 10:00 on Monday's there is an informational meeting. It lasted about an hour. We were pleasantly surprised when the meeting started off with the Pledge of Allegiance and then a prayer. 

After the meeting we drove over Port Isabel and had lunch at Pirates Landing. On the way over we drove by a wind farm. I counted 33 windmills, the blades on 14 of them weren't turning. Lunch was every bit as good as it was when we were there several weeks ago. We didn't bother crossing the bridge to South Padre Island, we were there several weeks ago and didn't want to deal with the Spring Break crowd this trip.

There is a "pirate ship" at the end of the pier.

We didn't walk out to look at it.

The restaurant.

Imagine our surprise when we had to stand in line for a table, because the restaurant was FULL of kids. They were in groups of about a dozen. Red shirts to the left, blue shirts to the right.

I think the groups down this way had green shirts and orange shirts.

Kathy heard someone say that H.E.B., a big grocery store chain, paid for the kids meals.

We both ordered the same entrée we did the last time. Kathy's was some type of shrimp salad and I had a Dirty Dave's roast beef sandwich, with grilled onions & peppers & cheese, its really good. It comes with "onion fries", which are also good.

As we were leaving I noticed a UFO in the sky above the corner of the restaurant.

Enlargement.

We hung around awhile waiting for an F22 to come by and shoot it down with a $400,000 missile, but it didn't happen.

Then it was back home. Kathy took a nap and I sat outside and read. She went for a dip in the pool when she got up. I've got a nasty quarter size sore on my left arm so I'm staying out of the pool. Later I went to the Fitness Center for awhile. 

On my way back to the coach I again noticed the flickering palm tree behind us. We noticed it last night. I forgot to look at the "leaves" during the day today. I think they must be shiny and reflect the light from the orange sodium vapor street light across the street from the tree. It looks like the leaves are smoldering, ready to burst into flame.

It was a nice day. Thank you Lord.

A passage from my New Testament reading has held my attention for a couple of days. 2 Peter 1:3 (NLT) As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! [4] And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature. [5] So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. [6] Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. [7] Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. [8] The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.

The first time I read it I thought, "I'm not sure how far along the list I am but I am sure that I've haven't mastered even the loving all Christians yet, let along loving all non-Christians." Hopefully I am making progress towards "developing" these virtues.

Sunday morning when the Pastor Chris asked if anyone wanted to share a blessing a booming voice from somewhere behind us shouted out his blessing, "I'm a blood bought, born again, spirit filled child of the living God." Chris's response was, "If anyone here doesn't know what he is talking about come see me after the service." It is comforting to know that even though I fall far short of the goal set for me in the above Scripture I can also lay claim to being a growing blood bought, born again, spirit filled child of the living God, a patient God who loves me more than I  can comprehend.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Sunday, March 5th - Cowboy Church Day

 We had another great worship service at the Cowboy Church that meets at Victoria Palms. Its a 25 minute drive from where we are, but well worth it. We are so going to miss that church when we leave here. One more Wednesday morning Bible Study and one more Sunday morning service before we move to a point to far away to come back for church.

At 11:30 we went and ate patty melts here at the campground. I think the patty melt, fries, cole slaw and a drink was $7. We had a good time visiting with others here at the campground.

At 4:00 we went back over to the Dance Hall for an ice cream social. The first dip was free, additional dips were $1. Once again we had a good time visiting with other campers. 

Kathy watched a lot of the Nascar race, I watched a little of it. 

The majority of people here have permanent mobile homes. They come for 3-5 months every year. Most of the RV'ers are here for at least a month. Only a few of us are here for less than a month. The people who live in the states where winters are less severe have started to trickle back north. We keep watching the temperature forecasts for Centertown. The 10 day forecast shows 4 nights at or below freezing, still to cold for us to go back.

It was a reasonably full day.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Saturday, March 4th - Shopping

 Weather is back to being great. Last nights low was 53, today's high was a mostly sunny, only slightly breezy, 80. 

We spent a fair amount of time sitting outside and enjoying the day. We did get some things accomplished during the morning. While Kathy did some cleaning I regened the water softener.

Around lunch time we went to Taco Palenque for lunch. I don't know what we ordered, it was a plate for two. There was plenty of food. Kathy thought it was good, I thought it was a little bland. The beef wasn't nearly as tasty as the roast she made for supper last night. There were plenty of condiments that are supposed to add flavor, but, for me, the only thing they did was make the food hotter, not tastier. It is possible that my taster is out of adjustment 😀.

After lunch we went across the street to Walmart where I bought a small sprayer and some bug killer. Two days ago I put an apple core on the table beside my lawn chair. The wind blew it off the table and onto the concrete slab. Maybe 15 minutes later I looked down and there must have been 100 small ants around it. Yesterday afternoon we both ate Klondike bars while sitting out. We wadded up the foil wrappers and put them on the table between our chairs. They blew off and within minutes they were covered with small ants. Once we were back home I mixed up a batch of spray and sprayed around the  perimeter of the coach. I don't want them crawling into the coach, hopefully they haven't already done so.

After Walmart we went two blocks to H.E.B. for some grocery shopping. There is a Sam's within a few blocks of H.E.B. Lots of stores with a couple of miles of the campground. Costco is almost 30 miles from here. The closest Aldi's is over 200 miles away, much to Kathy's dismay.

Our "auto" insurance on the coach will soon be up for renewal. We were using the MT agent we had used for the coach we had 10 years ago. He was a broker and seemed like he always got us a reasonable deal. A few months ago we received a notice that he had sold his business to a company in Iowa. We received a policy renewal notice and Kathy called them. After a maddening several bouts of "punch this number" she finally  got to an actual human being. She asked the lady to provide us with quotes from a couple of insurers. Some time later the lady called back and said our coaches VIN # is not valid. (When new the coach was first titled in FL. The 2nd owner also lived in FL and titled it there. Last year when our LLC bought it it was titled in MT, and insured with Safeco. I paid for a Carfax before we bought it and had no problems getting it. I've bought parts directly from Tiffin several times, using the VIN # and never had a problem, because of the VIN#.) We ended up taking photos of the title, the registration and the VIN plate on the dash, and emailing them to the lady. Kathy called her again Friday afternoon and was told that the lady didn't know what else to do, the VIN would not work in their system. We found the names of a couple of highly recommended RV insurers on some RV websites. Kathy will be calling them Monday.

When we bought the coach the last year of a Service Contract was transferred to us. We have USED it. I think that in the one year we have owned this coach the repairs have cost more than we spent on the other coach in the 6 years we owned it. The Service Contract has been a blessing because it covered the majority of the cost of the repairs. We aren't pleased with National RV Care so I've been shopping for another provider. I've been working with Wholesale Warranties to make sure I understand all the fine print in their contract. An inspector is supposed to contact us early next week to make arrangements to come inspect the coach prior to the contract being finalized. 

We driving back to Victoria Palms to go to Cowboy Church tomorrow. We can't get enough of it.

God is good. I  pray that He blesses you and yours.

Thursday & Friday, March 2nd & 3rd

Just a thought. I've previously commented about how pleasant the workers are down here. They actually seem to enjoy doing their jobs, no matter what the jobs are. The other thing that just struck us is the lack of Help Wanted signs here. Most of the places we have traveled during the summer and now the winter have had Help Wanted signs plastered everywhere. We have seen a few, but not many.

Thursday - It was a scorcher, high of 94. We didn't do much except praise the Lord for AC. We did go to the afternoon Meet and Greet, only to find out that it had been cancelled. Fortunately for us 5 other people showed up because they hadn't heard that it was cancelled. All 5 of them have been spending the winters in this area for years. I think all of them have mobile homes parked here permanently. 

One couple, he is a retired Air Canada 747 pilot, have been coming to this area for 14 years, 7 years at another area campground and then the last 7 years to this one. They have a mobile home. They are from Montreal.

Two other couples were from Minnesota. I can't remember where the lady said she was from.

We had a great time learning about one another. Of course they already knew a lot about each other. It was interesting that they all think this in one of the best campgrounds in the area.

Friday - For about an hour during the night the wind blew something fierce. When I went out this morning I was surprised to find that our lawn chairs were still in the park. Kathy got up during the night and pulled in the kitchen and living room slides because of the coach rocking. 

By around 7AM the temperature was down to a wonderful 57 degrees. Today's high was a mostly sunny, breezy 82. Those are close to average temperatures for here.

We mostly just enjoyed the day. Kathy went to the pool for a short time but said the sun was so bright that even in the water with a hat on she was concerned about getting burned.

I went over after lunch and watched some guys race radio controlled cars.

One of the cars with the body removed. They are 4WD electric cars. The rechargeable batteries are good for 20-25 minutes before having to be swapped out. Swapping batteries takes a couple of minutes.

The track. They wet the clay track, similar to sprint cars. They have sprinklers on tripods to wet the curved sections of the track. The guy in the middle used a spray nozzle on a hose to wet down the straightaways. The "drivers" are all in the stand on the right.

The guy in the center also sets the cars back on their wheels after crashes. I was told that these cars can hit 45 mph on the straightaways. In the collision below one of the cars had spun and was facing the wrong way. The drivers just hit the gas and spin them back around. In this instance as he hit the gas another car was coming full speed and they hit head on. It bent the drive shaft in one of the cars and the guy was retired for the day. He left and was off to the hobby shop to buy another driveshaft since neither he nor the other guys could find one when they searched their spare parts bins.

The old saying, "The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys." seems applicable.

As we were sitting outside in the afternoon I noticed movement under the pickup at the next campsite. The little rabbit had been standing on its hind legs inspection the bottom of the truck frame. It would move a foot and do the same thing again. By the time I got my phone and took the photo it was just having some grass for lunch.

I will try to embed a short video.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Wednesday, March 1st - Moving Day

Today was a busy day. First we got the coach ready to move to a different campground, then it was over to Walgreens to pick up a prescription. On the way back to the campground we stopped at the Flea Market fruit and vegetable stand to buy a bag of grapefruit. We got back to the campground a few minutes early for Cowboy Church Bible Study. 

After Bible Study we finished packing up and headed out. We moved 20 miles west, from Victoria Palms in Donna, TX to Encore Lakewood in Harlingen, TX. 

Parked at Encore Lakewood.

 

I walked a loop around the perimeter of the campground, 0.72 miles. This campground is MUCH smaller than Victoria Palms, only about one-fifth the size. Someone spent a lot of time shaping these shrubs(?).

Kathy never once used the pool at Victoria Palms, mostly because it was so far away from our site, and she didn't want to drive back from the pool wearing a wet bathing suit. She has already been in the pool here.

It was another windy, sunny, 90 degree day here. Tonights low is forecast to be 70 and tomorrows high 94. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be the last over 90 degree day for awhile. It should be an interesting day. Tomorrows overnight low is forecast to be 59, a 35 degree temperature swing.

I checked out the fitness center here. It isn't as nice as the one at Victoria Palms but once I learn how to use the different type machines, it should be fine. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.