Rio Grande Valley - Mission, Texas

We arrived early Wednesday afternoon at "Hidden Valley Ranch" in Mission, Texas. We decided to stop at King Ranch on our way out of Mission on December 29th since the tours don't start until noon. This is a very nice RV community...Reid & Debbie's lot is in the connecting park, "Leisure Valley Ranch". They are only 3/10 of a mile from us, or for them just a short golf cart ride. The weather has been great here...in the 80's with a light breeze most of the time. We are only about 4 miles from the Mexico border. We went out to dinner with Reid & Debbie for Thanksgiving and the 4 of us have been eating together most evenings. Reid grilled up some delicious steaks last night and tonight Bob is grilling pork chops. I must say, "THIS IS THE LIFE!" The guy from Michigan that we rented this lot from even gave us the combination to the shed so we can use his grill, patio set, etc. Our lot has an aluminum roof over most of it and is all concrete. Much different than what we are used to!

Aransas Wildlife Refuge & Port Lavaca Lighthouse

Yesterday we explored more of the Rockport area and went to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and then to Port Lavaca to see the Half Moon Reef Lighthouse. The Wildlife Refuge was a little disappointing. At the information center they indicated that we would see javalenas, coyotes, whooping cranes, alligators, etc. We did see 3 alligators and several deer and a couple of small armadillos, but that was all. Compared to the refuge we visited a few times last winter in Merritt Island, FL it was rather boring.

We then travelled to Port Lavaca to the lighthouse. It's the first lighthouse we've found that was "drydocked". It sits on land in the middle of town. It was moved there in 1979. It was still interesting to see and I've added to the pictures to my collection of lighthouses we've visited.

We have definitely explored this entire area. It's been a great week and we will try to return here in the future.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving Rockport and going south to Mission, TX to spend about a month with Reid & Debbie. On the way there we are planning to stop in Kingsville at King Ranch. Our truck is a King Ranch model and we've been wanting to visit there. This ranch is larger than the state of Rhode Island, so it should be something to see!

The Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi

We spent yesterday afternoon at the Aquarium in Corpus Christi. It was very interesting and entertaining. I loved the dolphin show! Since it was my birthday, Bob asked where I wanted to go last night. I mentioned that I would like to go somewhere expensive and he immediately pulled into a gas station! :-) Actually, we went to The Big Fisherman restaurant in Rockport for dinner. We are enjoying the nice weather and all the sights of this area.

Rockport, Texas - November 19 - 26

We are in Rockport, TX for a week before heading to Mission, TX for over a month. This is a very nice area and is close to Corpus Christi. Today we went on a tour of the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi and then drove to the Port Aransas area. We took the truck on the ferry to & from Mustang Island to see Port Aransas. That was a unique experience. We wanted to visit the Texas State Aquarium while we were in CC, but it was getting ready to close, so we plan to go there tomorrow. The weather has been in the high 70's. Have I mentioned that "This IS the life???" :-)

Tunica, Mississippi - November 13 -16

We spent the weekend at the Hollywood Casino RV Park in Tunica and it was a fantastic weekend! We not only had comps for a free show at Harrah's on Thursday night, $140 in free play at The Fitz and free dinner buffets for the 3 nights we were there, but we also WON over $650.00. We could have stayed at the hotel at The Fitz for free, too...but we like our own bed and bath so we stayed at the RV park. It was only $12.00/night and well worth it. Our friends, Larry & Barbara, came down from Memphis to join us for part of the weekend and we had a great time with them. When we were leaving on Sunday morning large slabs of ice fell off of our slide-out awnings and crashed to the ground. We knew for sure that we were headed in the right direction...time to get further south!

On The Road Again!!!

We left Waldenwoods at 7:00 a.m. yesterday and stopped for the night in Cave City, KY. We left there this morning and headed to Natchez Trace State Park in TN. We were fortunate enough to get the last lakefront campsite and it is a gorgeous site! . The view out our large back windows is fantastic! I've posted a couple of pictures of our campsite...the 1st shows the site before we backed into it and the 2nd shows the back corner of our trailer. We will be here for 8 days and then we are meeting some friends from Memphis in Tunica, MS for 3 days. After that we will begin to head for Mission, TX to meet up with Reid & Debbie for a month or so. We plan to arrive there the day before Thanksgiving. We will leave there on December 29th and go to Arizona and then California. Did I mention that THIS IS THE LIFE???

I had my last physical therapy appointment on Monday and got the clearance to leave town. :-) Thank goodness! I sure didn't want Bob to leave without me. My new knee is doing quite well. I still have to do my exercises every day, but that's OK.

September 2008

Connor "getting air" on his bike and Jillian deep in thought while painting her dolphin figurine. Both pictures were taken Labor Day weekend at Waldenwoods...

We have had a very nice summer here in Michigan. I need to get back in the habit of updating this blog more frequently! Jason and the kids have spent many weekends with us here at Waldenwoods and we had Connor & Jillian for a week while Jason was working in Illinois. Over Labor Day weekend Jason, Connor, Jillian, Andrea, Devin, Noah & Meaghan stayed at Waldenwoods with us. They stayed in his tent on our lot. The 5 kids were busy every day with all the activities they had going on here.

Our friends, Reid & Debbie, have been here most of the summer. They left today for Ohio and we will meet up with them in Texas sometime in December. We will miss them the next couple of months, but look forward to meeting up with them again. We went to The Henry Ford Museum with them this past week and everyone seemed to enjoy it. There is definitely something there for everyone to see. Afterwards, we stopped at Reid's favorite...Famous Dave's Barbecue for a late lunch. M-m-m-m GOOD!

I am having total knee replacment surgery on September 30th. I will have 4 weeks of physical therapy after that and (hopefully) we will be on the road the 1st week of November. We plan to go to Tennessee for a couple of weeks, then on to Texas for about 4-6 weeks and then on to Arizona for a few weeks. After AZ we are going to California in March. We plan to meet up with some of my cousins in CA that I haven't seen in many, many years and go camping with them. I'm also sending for tickets for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in hopes of seeing Jay before he leaves the show in May.

On a sad note, my Aunt Norma passed away on Labor Day. We took my parents to the funeral home on Thursday. Now my parents have outlived all of their siblings. My Dad is still having problems with his balance, but seems better than a few months ago. His speech is getting so slurred that it is often nearly impossible to understand him. Bob is really good about helping with him and they sure appreciate it. We're going tomorrow to take my Dad to get his state ID, he's giving up his driver's license because he hasn't driven in a couple of years. Their car is 2 1/2 years old and it doesn't have 6, 000 miles on it yet.

I will finish this for now...but I promise to update more often!