SO WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted anything, but I don't want to bore you to death with things that no one cares about.  We have had a few moments worth sharing and I am going to try to repost Tom's singing (by popular demand) do that you can enjoy it ...or maybe not so much.....

Anyway, here are a few of our favorite things:

Tom and I visited Erin Troxell from Clearfield in San Antonio over the weekend.  Erin is an amazing young woman who has recently enlisted as an officer in the US Army and is stationed at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio.  She has completed her initial training and will be leaving Texas in a week for further training in South Carolina.  She is earning her doctorate and has done an amazing job over the last 20 years working her way through school while working full time raising her beautiful daughter, Hannah, who is currently serving in Afghanistan and happens to be my granddaughter!  I am so proud of them both.  We had a great visit in San Antonio, a beautiful city.  I wish all of the very, very best to both Erin and Hannah....they are both shining stars to me.

Sign at border patrol checkpoint on the way to San Antonio.

Texas oil refineries

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, was I ever in seventh heaven when I discovered a beautful, new Barnes and Noble just a few miles from where we live......a shiny new bookstore for me to wander around in.  I plan to visit it often.  

Tommorow night we attend a Halloween party and Murder Mystery Dinner here at the Resort...should be fun.  We may send you pictures, depending upon how ridiculous we look.

I am going to try to get Tom's performance for you next.  Until the next post, have a great day!

REALITY SETS IN

This is what happens when:
a.  You have been waiting forever for your karoake debut
b.  You have been trapped in a camper with your wife too long

Yesterday Tom was feverishly pulling out all the stops while practicing for Karaoke Night at Victoria Palms Resort.  Time is of the essence...it is only an hour until the big event.
Tom's songs of choice were Bobby Bare's (I am SURE that you remember him) "The Day That the Sawmill Burned Down" and "Don't Let Them Tear That Little Old Brown Building Down".  I am sure that you remember them, too   :-)...well, he should need no practice since he sang them both for the entire 2,000 mile trip from South Carolina to Southern Texas.  He had Barklee with him in the truck while he sang the whole time.  Tom did tell me that at one point he turned around to look at the dog and he had both paws over his ears.  I think that Barklee could probably sing the song...poor thing.
Well, rather than just tell you about it, I thought you would like to see the rehearsal.  Enjoy......

See you in a few days!
Jackie

OUR FIRST WEEK IN VICTORIA PALMS

Well, we are beginning to settle in.  We even ALMOST have all of our stuff out of our vehicles, but not quite.  Tonight we had a severe storm which is very unsettling when you are in an RV.  The temperature today was 102 which was 4 degrees over the record high and set off some pretty awful storms.......we rode it out and only got some heavy rain and gusty wind...it could have been much worse.
Some fellow workcampers are beginning to move in and we are making new friends.  It seems like campers are such nice people......whether rich or poor we are sort of all on an equal playing field when we are camping!  We are getting a lot of pointers from them.
We started our jobs this week and worked hard since we are getting the building ready for the season and it has been closed up since the end of last season.  As I said in an earlier post, we are required to work 25 hours a week, 12.5 hours each.  We are responsible for cleaning and keeping up the building housing the large laundromat and showers.  We are really making things look nice.  I have some pictures for you below.  Right outside the door is a grove of grapefruit trees that are just LOADED with grapefruit and they are ripening now.  We can take as many as we can eat.  They aren't as big and juicy as they would have been if there wasn't a drought.  But they are still good.  The Rio Grande Valley is a huge source of citrus.  I am going to love that!
I am also attaching a picture that I took of my TV showing Tom in the Workshop.  There are live camera feeds from all of the activity rooms here and you can check any room at any time.  Tom had gone to cut some wood for shelves and he was taking a little longer than it should take.  I thought I would check to see if he was working or yakking..and lo and behold, he was yakking!  Actually it is good to see him make some new friends....the man he was talking to also worked in a power plant for many years......I am sure he is going to have a good five months here.
Hope to check in with you again in a few days!

Blessings, Tom and Jackie

LIKE A RHINESTONE COWBOY-WITHOUT THE RHINESTONES

OK, folks.  Had a great Texas morning.  I had been wondering what we were going to do for a church while we are in Texas.  It is so hard to find a church when you love the one you belong to so much.  On the positive side, we can attend church at Seacoast every Sunday, online, which is almost like being there.  We have done that and it is great.  However someone told us about this great little church service that they have right here in the park every Sunday morning.  The "Cowboy Preacher"...and he really is a cowboy.  We loved him.  I knew he was the real thing when I noticed the ridge in his hair where his cowboy hat usually sits.  And he wears well-worn blue jeans, a well worn pair of cowboy boots and carries an even more well-worn leather Bible that is frayed along the edges---of the leather.  He looks to be in his thirties and was just great.  We started out with an old time gospel song called 'I'll Fly Away" only we sang...'I'll RIDE Away"....what fun!  I was told that in the winter there are so many people coming to the service that they hold it in the big ballroom.  I am really going to enjoy these services.....and just have to walk to the end of the street.
In the afternoon we thought we would check out South Padre Island which is only one hour from here.  Wow, is it ever nice...so much nicer than I expected.  The beaches are really nice and the red flags were up today for rough surf.  It is very clean and modern and there is a lot to do.  I want to check out the World Birding Center later on this fall.  It is so nice to have the beach so near, it does not take much longer than it does to get to the beach back home!
I am attaching some photos of Padre Island.
This week we learn our new jobs,  We actually don't officially start until the season starts November 1st, but they are allowing us to do some work for the next two weeks to earn our keep until then.  We have met some of the other workkampers that are moving in and they are really nice.  We have met so many people that could not be any nicer...they all offer to help us learn our way around and to help us get to know the area.  We really appreciare that.
Catch you later!

Love, Jackie, Tom and Barklee

SETTLING IN

Well, it is day 2 here, and we are beginning to learn our way around.  We are in the VERY southern tip of Texas in what is called the Rio Grande Valley.  It is one of the fastest growing parts of Texas due to the mild winters.  Hundreds of thousands of people come here for the winter and are called "Winter Texans" and many of them come in RVs......They begin arriving around the beginning of November and keep on coming up until the first of the year, and then begin leaving around the end of March.  We are workkampers here until March 30th.  We have a tough schedule of 12 1/2 hours each a week in order to earn a free space, free Wi-Fi, free electric, free water and sewage and free cable....not bad.  The valley has every store and restaurant you could want, the shopping is great, although my shopping days are pretty much over other than the necessities.  We are beginning to meet other workkampers from all over the country and they are really nice people. The cost of living is quite low here, which is a plus for us retirees.....I got a razor cut today at the hair salon with a blow dry and style and it was $12!  I couldn't believe it!  Gotta love these prices!  Being in Texas, gas is reasonable too.  Tomorrow night we go to a bring your own dessert/Bingo night...sounds like we are really turning into old people, huh?  But having fun.  There is even an on site restaurant here which is supposed to be really good.  And I will be sending Tom to the woodworking shop tomorrow to make me some new shelves for storage in the RV.  The one thing that will take some getting used to is that it is quite windy here, but it helps on the hot days.
Wishing my son Todd a very Happy Birthday today!  
Some pics of our park below for you to enjoy...catch you in a few days....
Jackie and Tom
The first picture is of the
"skinning" of the trees where
they remove all of the old growth on the trunks.  Hot and hard and tedious work!

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY

I am not sure if I should call this post "The Agony and the Ecstacy" or "From Anticipation to Delaflation"...for months we have been so excited to arrive in Mission, Texas, in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley.  I did so much research and looked and so many pictures and talked to numerous people.  Well, when we finally arrived yesterday after 18 days and 2,000 miles we were sorely disappointed to say the least.  The green grass is now dirt (no rain since March), the location not in the best part of town, and the spaces too small for our big camper.  I was fighting back tears, and losing the fight.  Despite all of the kind reviews online, it did not live up to our expectations at all.....the owners, however, were amazing.  After I agonized about how to tell them that we did not care for the park and how I was going to tell them that we did not want to say, they did it for us.  They said that they could tell that we were disappointed and would understand if we did not want to follow through with the job.....they were SO kind and understanding.  We all agreed that it would not be the best place for us and they helped us to set up our camper for a few nights until we made up our minds what we were going to do.  I know that they had to be let down, but they handled it with such grace.

Last night I went to bed feeling so low, not knowing just what we were going to do.  Head for home?  Look for another spot...oh, what to do?  But I prayed that God would provide us with something, as He always does. 

Tom talked to his friend on the phone who is also a workkamper and he recommended that we go online and see if there were any other jobs in the area.  So we did.  And there was one advertised just 20 miles down the road at an incredibly beautiful resort.  But it was SO beautiful that it was too good to be true.  So I emailed and asked them if their positions had been filled and to please call me in the morning.

Well, they did.  So we put our happy faces on and took the drive.  When we drove up our mouths were hanging open.  It was spectacular.  It was an RV resort like none other.  In fact in was voted the number one resort in Texas last year.  We met a wonderful woman who gave us an hour long tour and described the positions that she had available.  I am not going to spend a lot of time describing it to you, I am just giving you the website so that you can see for yourself.

Tom and I are going to split a 25 hour work week, 12 1/2 hours each.  Our only responsibility is to clean the laundry and shower room building 3 days a week.  We start at 6 and will be done at 9, which is even less that 25 hours.  And we have 4 days off a week and 7 days from 9:00 AM on to do our exploring and visiting and a trip home around Christmas.  We are so elated we cannot tell you.  There is an awesome woodworking shop, pool room, banquet room, onsite restaurant, weekly dances, book clubs and so much more it is just amazing.  I am flying high.  Oh, there is even a swimming pool in the shape of the state of Texas!

We move into the park on Thursday and start our jobs next week.  We finish on March 31.  Also, we not only get free lot rent, but electric, water, sewage, satellite TV and access to most of the activities.

Here is the website:  www.VICTORIAPALMS.com    Be sure to click on the video...

And we are 20 miles closer to South Padre Island.

Well, I have gone on long enough.  I will provide pictures on Thursday night.

For now......all I can say is God is good, He closed one door and opened a better one!  So like God!

SOME PICS FROM ROCKPORT TEXAS

 HAVE TO AGREE WITH THE SIGN!

FROM GALVESTON TO ROCKPORT......

Today we drove the next to the last leg of our six leg journey to Mission Texas.  It was a really nice drive around the Houston Beltway south to Rockport which is on the Gulf of Mexico just north of Corpus Christi. It is absolutely beautiful here.  There are many RV parks and there is a Seafest going on in Rockport this weekend that we will definitely check out.  We can walk to the Gulf from here.
We did not get to see a lot of Galveston since we were about thirty miles away from the city.  I was impressed with the number of young families that lived in the KOA campground as the men worked following the pipeline and oil rigs to work.  Each night we would see them come home from work dirty and tired after a hard day's labor.  I realized that they live in campers while they follow the work.  They really work hard and I respect them for that.  I would imagine that it might be a boring day for the moms and kids as they wait for Dad  to come home.
We stopped by Joe's Smokehouse for a Bar-B-Que sandwich for lunch which was so good...it was smoked pork and delicious.  I took a few pic of the place for you.
The picture of the camper is from the campground at Galveston Bay.....if you look hard you can see Barklee!
We will be here until Monday morning at which time we will leave for the last leg of the journey.  We have stayed in Charleston, Jacksonville, Destin Florida, Lake Charles Louisiana, Galveston, and Rockport on our journey and have covered over 1600 miles.  It has been fun to take in the sights along the way.
While here we hope to take in Corpus Christi and the surroundings including the military base and commissary since we will probably be using them while staying in South Texas.  The "Winter Texans" are beginning to move south!
Greetings to my friends and family!  We miss you!
Blessings,
Jackie

Our truck and camper and a picture of Galveston Bay.