At last, In Kenwood RV Park in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas

 41 degrees with rain at 6 pm here in La Feria, TX on Wednesday evening.  Haven't written for several days.  In rural Mississippi we had very limited phone service, sometimes getting texts through, receiving emails but couldn't send.

Phyllis' cousin Stan's wife passed earlier this year and he wanted Phyllis to take whatever sewing supplies his late wife left in the back room.  We had loaded a lot of material in Florida and added an even greater amount of fabric, sewing machines, tools of all kinds, patterns, etc., etc.  I had the underneath storage in the trailer packed as well as the under-bed storage and the back seat of the pickup and the back of the pickup packed and packed.  And, we had the shower stall full and several items that were on the floor of the trailer when we overnighted, and on the bed and floor when we travelled.

Saturday evening Phyllis' 2nd cousin Dean with wife Kim Runyan took us to the local Fish House were we had whole fried catfish along with copious amounts of Turnip Greens, Hush Puppies, French fries, and Cole slaw.

Their son Brandon was with us

for a while at the meal.

Eating some soup with Cousin Stan.  He is blind, lives alone with two small dogs, and was getting antibiotics twice a day (after just recently being released from the hospital) administered by his daughter-in-law or grandkids, all who live close by.  He grew up near Bloomfield, Nebraska and met his first wife while in the Army and when both got out of the Army they went back where she grew up.

Dean, Phyllis' 2nd cousin, sings in the group Eastern Sky Southern Gospel and they did their Christmas Story program for the Pearl Valley Baptist Church in rural Wesson, MS on Sunday.

The very small congregation had a very good meal afterwards in their building behind the church.

Phyllis & myself with

Stan Runyan, her cousin.

While son Dean lives only a quarter mile from Stan, his oldest son, Lloyd lives in New Orleans and is currently working with a roofing company in Florida in the area where Hurricane Ian came through a month or so.  He flew home, to be at his daughter's wedding next weekend, and drove up to his Dad's place for visit on Sunday.

We had driven, without the trailer, from Wesson, MS to Leesburg, FL -- 12 hour days both down and back.  This Monday we got a late start on the 490 mile drive from Wesson to Bay City, TX where we had a spot at a Passport America RV Park so ended up driving in rain much of the afternoon and being in Houston in the dark and rain on stop-and-go traffic in 4 to 6 lane interstate highway.  Interesting.

We got to our home in Kenwood RV Park about 2:30 Tuesday afternoon and spent the rest of the day unloading the trailer and some of the pickup.

Finished this morning and moved the pickup under the carport as it has been raining much of the day and finally finished unloading it tonight.

The Texas Sunroom is crowded, but at least everything is under a roof.  Got the hot tub filled with water and hoping it will be warm enough to use after bit--probably not until morning.

It is about 1,235 miles from our house in Clarinda, IA to our house here in La Feria, TX, and I suppose most people would drive that in two days.  We drove 3,184 miles and took three weeks to get here.  Did get to see a lot of friends and relatives on the way, though.

Will sign off, LC -- SlowThinker