San Antonio-RGV

Our last days in San Antonio were pretty cool.  The eclipse 

 day was pretty cloudy, but we got a picture of it peaking through.

We Played some disc golf after with Dicks sister Barb and Son Jonathan. This was an ankle twister course.  Rock everywhere!!  

Why or Y??

Barbs neighbor gave her a bunch of crafty stuff and lucky for me Barb is not a crafty person, so my stock got replenished with all kinds of thing I didn't have.  I painted the inside of these ornaments and left them for her as a thank you.  It was a fun project that I never attempted, and they turned out pretty cool.  I didn't' want them to be all Christmas colory so she could leave them out in a basket all year,

We arrived in Harlengen and headed straight for pizza a beer.  This place had some interesting art for sale and the Pizza was dang good!!  It wasn't a brewery but it had a bunch of microbrews on tab so we were happy campers!!

The resort was pretty empty when we arrived so walking around was a bit boring, but we have been faithfully walking every day.  I may never be skinny again, but it feels good to be more active.  We got in super lazy mode for the last year.  It's easy to do and not easy to undo.

The pool area is right across from our camper.  Totally cool!  We went hot tubbing for the full moon.  They don't howl at the moon like they do in Arizonia, so we had to find something to do!  It was a pretty night, and the moon looks pretty awesome with the palms.  We got in before the clouds rolled in and got out right before they covered the moon.  Awesome way to spend an evening. With cocktails of course!

Y

We have lived some places that have definitely had some beautiful sunsets and were not sure if Texas was going to be awesome or not.  It has not disappointed us yet!

Close to the Mexican border again this year so.....Here we come Tequila!!  Brought back only one bottle but I am sure we will go back numerous times to eat drink and be merry!!!

Living by some pretty awesome looking vegetation again so you will certainly see some of that in my posts while here. 

Here we are living the dream!!!  Not to exciting of a camp site but we are happy and that is all that matters.  There are a variety of homes in this park.  RV's, Park models, & Mobile homes.  We totally feel like we are in Wisconsin here because there are so many packer backers here.  Not just fans of the Pack but past and present Wisconsin residents.  Kind of cool to talk to people from your home town or places you have been or visited.

HARLINGEN is the town we are living.  The Rio Grand Valley (RGV) has many towns and hundreds of resorts for Winter Texans.  DO NOT call them snowbirds.  You will certainly get yelled at!!

We went on a walk in an awesome park with lots of trails, pond and birding blinds. Plenty of places to get lost. We were almost viciously attacked by this wild boar.  So cool to see one alive finally.  We have seen them dead on the side of the road but never alive.  It really could have given two shits that we were there taking way to may pictures and it was in no way scary but I could have almost died!!!!

Swamp in the park with lots of turtles! They had so much slime on them that we almost didn't see them. 

Somehow, I got involved in a beading class at the park, Every Wednesday at 12:30 I show up and they force me to make another piece of jewelry!! I DONT EVEN WEAR THAT MUCH SO WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING!!???  Well like everything else I make; I will find someone to give it to!!  

I got a smart watch and I for sure thought this was going to be smarter than me and guess what.......

IT IS!  I am having fun playing with my new toy, but it must not work properly because it has not counted enough steps for me to get in shape!!!!

This is my exciting work area where I get to talk to people and sell tickets to the dances, dinners, special events and we get to run 50/50s for park meeting and happy hour.  The activity department is a hopping place and here are very active 55 plus people here.  I think thus far it is more 70 plus but most people have not arrived yet.  Most will come after Thanksgiving and Christmas so they can spend it with family.  

Not a big Poker group yet but Dick is back in the swing of cards again.  We have also played more pool than we ever have.  I think there are 10 tables here as well as a shuffleboard table we playing as well.

Hole in the wall place with amazing fish fry!!!

These do not look like biscuits, but they are amazing.  Look up butter swim biscuits on Google for the recipe.  I used 1/2 cup less buttermilk.  Try them!! So easy and so good!

Dick played in a disc golf glow tournament, and I guess this guy decked out his cart in glow stuff and he thought it was cool.  I didn't ask him but he sent me the picture so that is what it must be.  Maybe I should talk to him!!😂

We are heading to South Padre Island this weekend for a beer & wing fest.  There is also a space X launch scheduled and we are got free tickets to a shrimp boil from our boss lady.  We rented a hotel for a couple days to explore the island.  Should be a good time.

 

Trippin to Texas

Left Virginia but these last couple pictures are of the fun we had our last few days!  We finally ventured to Roanoke and visited a couple breweries.  We had a good day there and were advised to check out an awesome beer store!!   Stocked up for when we travel and can not find good beer.  Of course we spent way to much but had fun and will have fun sharing it if anyone wants to come visit us before it gone.

Made some travel food that didn't make it to the truck for travel.  Ruby, friend in Kentucky introduced us to this combination and we will forever be grateful.  Who would have thunk!!

While I was mindelessly surfing the internet I discovered a beer fest in a corn field in Indiania!!  Your can bet your bottom dollar we are going next year.  We have a wedding in September in Wisconsin and will head this direction before next years fest in October.  I bet we can talk the organizers of this fest to let us stay for free and help set up, pour and then take down and clean up.  This is a huge fest and I really hope we can  make it.

Well here is a guy that has another skill to ad to his resume.  Zero turn!!  He only hit a few things and didn't kill any small rabbits or yappy dogs mostly because he didn't go fast enough to catch them!!  I think he had fun riding this bad boy!!

Our last fires in VA were doozies.  We collected so much left behind wood from other campers that we never had to buy any.  I think this hunk of wood took 2 days to burn.  We did however burn it all and it was perfect fall weather for fires.

Good buy Smith Mountain Lake (Lager not lake but I can call it whatever I want).  We took a cruise on the lake with the most excellent campground owners we have had the pleasure to meet thus far and had a blast.  Stopped at a marina/restaurant for some food and beer and enjoyed the ride back for a sunset cruise.  We will miss these guys with out a doubt.

Road trip began with a stop in Tennessee!  We have been in this state numerous times but never stayed over night and had any adventures!  Checked off another state!!  Yippy!  My map is getting filled in! We stayed at a beautiful little park called Cherokee Dam Campground.  There was a fishing tournament just ending so there were tons of boats coming in with all their fishies.  It was fun to watch and listen to the prizes these people get for just fishing.  CRAZY!!  We stayed two days and walked around the park and of course went disc golfing and beer drinking. Our site was right on the water so we had entertainment all day.  Campground was close to Knoxville, TN so there was much to do but not enough time to do it all.  So many other adventures awaited

We opened a card we found in our camper that said DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU HAVE LEFT THE CAMP!!  It was from our wonderful boss lady Angelee and there was an awesome bonus in there with instruction to use it for BEER!  We have put a dent in it but I am certain it will not run out before we plant ourselves for the winter.

WHY OH WHY DO WE WALK IN THE WOODS!!

We were just about done with our beer adventures in TN when I was almost attacked by an enormous killer spider in the brewery!!  The brewery workers were looking pretty scary too.

Back on the road.  We Blew through Georgia and Alabama and headed for Mississippi.  Another state we have been through but never stayed.  

We spent two days at a Corp of Engineers Park called Twiltley Branch Campground.  Another campsite on the lake.  We went disc golfing and saw this really ugly duck a whole in a tree and a giant leaf!!  YES, this is exciting stuff!!! Don't question my enjoyment!!

 

BARK not yappy BARK!!!

We were befuddled by these tree penis' growing out of the ground all over in the state park.  What the heck are these things.  I have no other way to describe these!!

Moving on & Louisiana bound.  We joined Harvest hosts and stayed at Abita Brewery north of New Orleans.  We parked for free in the parking lot for one night and had big fun.  We once again spent time with my cousin Anna and here wife Pam.  It was great to catch up some more.  Her mother and mine never talked through their adult life so we never knew our cousins. Time to change that!!

We left the brewery in the morning and ventured a whopping 2 hours to our next stop.  Wildcat Distillery at Gator Cove.  This was an old sea food restaurant turned into a distillery.  Once again we parked for free and went into the distillery for an awesome tasting of all their rum.  Some of this stuff you would never guess was rum from the taste of it.  There was barrel aged Rum in different barrels and some that was rectified with things for flavor.  We purchased 2 bottles in the end and went to sit our back where we parked to watch Deer and peacocks wander about. The bottle Dick picked out tasted more like bourbon.  It was aged in a Buffalo Trace Barrel so......  Mine was flavored with all the good stuff that is in a bloody mary!  It is amazing and needs no tomato juice.  I will however mix it since I do not wish for premature liver damage.  I will also try to save some for my friend Ann in Wisconsin who is also a bloody mary fan.  If she is not longer a fan, I guess I can drink it all.  We will definately be back to this place if ever we are passing through. 

On to Texas!!! I don't want to alarm you or deter you from ever coming to Texas but you should be aware that there are Tree Alligators everywhere.  This guy was right our front of our camper and dam near scared the shit out of me!  He had an exceptionally long body and part of his lower jaw was missing.  Most likely from another scared camper who bashed him in the head.  BEWARE of all the scarry things in Texas.  We also had an armadillo almost attack us as we sat outside reading our books

Luck us.   We got to watch the Packer game with John Wayne. Packers sucked and lost but fun was had!

Tiny Rose of Texas (that is what I am calling it) It was only about 1/2 inch tall!!

WHO IS SCARIER!!//

It's a jungle out there in Texas so BEWARE if you ever visit!!!

We are planted for  a week in San Antonio visiting Dicks sister Barb!  If there is any excitement here you will have to wait until the next blog.

THE END