Settling in to #312

Our Dentist office in Progreso is in the orange building on
the right.  This is adjacent to the bridge over to Progreso.

82º and clear here in La Feria, TX at 4:45 pm Tuesday.  Wind came up last few days and lowered the temperature as well as dispersing the mosquitoes. 

This morning we drove to Progreso, Mexico for some dental work.  Ended up spending most of the morning.  Stopped by both Sam's Club and Costco over in Pharr, TX on the way back.

Young lady who takes care of things at the Dentist Office.

Christmas stuff out at Sam's Club in Pharr, TX

Got west window awning up.

Raised south window awning.

Got pickup unloaded except for the trikes

Got one wheel on!

Got both front wheels and seat installed.

First bike assembled; mirrors, lights, carrying rack all installed.

Spent much of Monday assembling the two trikes from the many small pieces and the frames that were under all the stuff packed in the back of the pickup.

I should add here that when driving to Progreso this morning I was startled to look at the inside rear-view mirror and see clear out the back!!  Had been almost a month since started packing the back of the pickup so full could not see out of it.

Last night we visited a bit with Lee and Helen Miles

Due to Lee's health problems, they stayed here in
Kenwood all summer, not returning to Illinois

Photo of Don & Doris Ferguson and family posted on Facebook yesterday.

Another recent Facebook photo - my niece
Jessica Miles, is the short lady at the xylophone. 

Got most of the things settled in here - still finding stuff in the shop/Texas room and figuring out where to put back all the insulation that we installed on the Texas Room west windows this March.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Two young men were out in the woods on a camping trip, when the came upon this great trout brook. They stayed there all day, enjoying the fishing, which was super.  At the end of the day, knowing that they would be graduating from college soon, they vowed that they would meet, in twenty years, at the same place and renew the experience.
Twenty years later, they met and traveled to a spot near where they had been years before. They walked into the woods and before long came upon a brook. One of the men said to the other, "This is the place!".  The other replied, "No, it's not!".  The first man said, "Yes, I do recognize the clover growing on the bank on the other side.
To which the other man replied, "Silly, you can't tell a brook by it's clover."
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Knock Knock
Who's there?
Alaska!
Alaska who?
"Alaska to open the door again."

More later, Lynn

Were home! -- our winter home

81º here in Kenwood RV Park at La Feria, Texas at 11:00 am Sunday.

Pulled in about 1:30 pm Saturday.  Parked with door of travel trailer across from
our mobile home so could unload.  After about 4 hours, with the humid 89º heat and
either a brigade or a full army of mosquitoes, had the trailer empty and about a 1/3 of pickup unloaded

Parked the travel trailer to back of the empty lot next to us.  Still have
to clean inside and wash/wax the outside, and cover tires for the winter.

Looks like our tall cactus had a lot of blooms during the summer, which fell off

Just keeps getting bigger

Along back fence - keeps growing

Large Bougainvillea 

Pin-cushion cacti keep growing - will trim them back

This tree I planted as 6" tall about 6 years
ago is really growing - will need to trim
lower limbs that are growing into the shop area

After our hard push to drive the 600+ miles on Friday we took time to sleep in, then dumped the tanks and left Victoria for the easy drive down Highway 77.

We stopped for gas at Refugio, TX which is north and west of  where one of the Hurricanes came in recently.

 This was the first gas station we came to

 We stopped across the street to gas up at $2.499.

Should have driven on into the little town.  Gas was $2.299 at rest of stations.  Sited gas as low as $2.199 on the way to Harlingen.  Gas in this area, near Harlingen is in the $2.199 range.

Just south of Refugio signs of the covers being blown
off harvested cotton at side of field.

Cotton was strewn along many miles of Highway 77

I am typing this at the clubhouse were there is free Tangonet WIFI.  Our Spectrum/Time Warner internet has been on Vacation.  Reached them a bit ago and will be turned on at 6:00 am tomorrow morning.  Also reached Dish and had the local TV channels turned on.  We are still carting our Dish black box back and forth - may look into having a second account set up and alleviating the bother of unhooking, packing, re-hooking (plus have to re-program the remotes to the TV's here)

Hope to get the pickup unpacked this afternoon and get the trikes back together.

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Facebook for Seniors...
For those of my generation who simply do not, and cannot, comprehend why Facebook exists:
I am trying to make friends outside of Facebook while applying the same principles.  Therefore, every day I walk down the street and tell passersby what I have eaten, how I feel at the moment, what I have done the night before, what I'm doing now, what I will be doing later and with whom, and where I'm going next. and ask them to follow me along and watch me be important.
Then I give them pictures of my family, my dog, and of me gardening, taking things apart in the garage, watering the lawn, standing in front of landmarks, washing the car, driving around town, eating lunch, getting a haircut, and doing what anybody and everybody does every day.  I also listen to their conversations, give them the "thumbs up" and tell them I like them and will be friends with them. It all works just like Facebook.. only I do it face to face not on a little glass screen.  I already have four people following me - two police officers, a private investigator and a psychiatrist.

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I rear-ended a car a few days ago.  The driver got out of the other car, and he was a Dwarf.  He looked up at me and said "I am NOT happy!"
So I said, "well, which one are you then?"

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Knock Knock
Who's there?
Butcher!
Butcher who?
Butcher money where your mouth is!

Hope to catch up on some of our trip down when have internet at the house.
Later, Lynn

16th day since leaving Clarinda - almost there!

77º here in Victoria, Texas at 9:00 pm.

Well, today I did everything against my unwritten laws   1) never drive over 300 miles with the trailer --- today drove 657;  2) stop by 3 or 4 pm at an RV Park -- got here at 8:15 pm;  3) don't drive after dark -- drove the last hour in the dark; 4) stop for lunch out of the pickup -- stopped a few times for potty break and on one of them fixed some sandwiches in the trailer and drove while we ate them.  Drove for almost 12 1/2 hours!

But, we covered enough ground that we can get to our home in La Feria by mid-afternoon tomorrow and open the house and get somewhat settled in before dark!

We are in Lazy Longhorn RV Park in Victoria - have stayed here before and since we were so late they just gave us a spot to stop in over the phone and we will check in and out in the morning.

Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason for the varying gas prices.  Got this this morning - $2.10, had paid $2.42 in Pensacola, FL and about that in Leesburg.  On the road today saw two places, across the highway from each other pricing gas at $2.199 for cash and $2.299 credit -- about a mile down the highway a station didn't have two prices -- just $2.499.  Drove by several $2.599 prices and on the east side of Houston at Baytown spotted $2.159 so filled up.

In Houston we were just about 4:45 pm -- rush hour -- I 10 was stop and go, mostly stop, so we took the Tollway around the south part of Houston which moved pretty freely; worth the $11 in tolls.

Exhausted tonight - will post some pictures of Pensacola some other time.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Before performing a baptism, the priest approached the young father and said solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?" "I think so," the man replied. "My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests." "I don't mean that," the priest responded. "I mean, are you prepared spiritually?"   "Oh, sure," came the reply. "I've got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey."

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- “Why did the referee get fired? Because he was a whistle blower!”

- If you see someone writing with their finger, you should offer them a pen for their thoughts.

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Knock Knock
Who's there?
Butter!
Butter who?
Butter bring an umbrella, it looks like it might rain!

Later, Lynn

Leaving Pensacola

70º here at Pensacola, FL at 7:00 am.
Spent yesterday touring Pensacola

This will be abbreviated post as we are going to hook up the trailer and head west.  We did enjoy touring Pensacola and I have over 1,000 photos since the first of October to sort through and post.

Later, Lynn

Pensacola Beach

76º here at Pensacola RV Park on northwest side of Pensacola, IA

Spent several hours yesterday driving around the area.  Spent some time clear to the south at Pensacola Beach Click Here for website


Lots of open public beaches with houses facing both the Gulf side and the Bay side.

Phyllis picked up a lot of sea shells and also a sample of the white sand for her collection of beach sands from all our travels

This house is a vacation house with sign out front and not
occupied so we parked in the driveway.  All the streets had
abundant signs of NO PARKING THIS SIDE

Birds running around, pecking at something, not sure
what they were picking up to eat.

Look careful and you can see the crab either coming or going
out of the hole.

Public entryway between these two houses

Lots of tire tracks - looked to be narrow - four-wheelers.

Returned to seafood place near our RV Park -  so good a food
we returned to eat supper there just before they closed at 7 pm

With the intense sun here have the awning out when we are here.
High humidity and the AC runs much of the time .

We are leaving now for a hop-on-hop-off Pensacola City tour.

Later, Lynn

Back in Pensacola, FL

78º and foggy here in Pensacola, FL at 8:15 am Wednesday; predicted high of 90º

Taken a few minutes ago here in Pensacola RV Park

We ate breakfast yesterday morning with brother Darrell & his wife Lin at Breakfast Station in Leesburg, FL.

 It has a theme around railroad.  Some of their breakfast items were train oriented - I had a "Trainwreck" which was a plate full of sausage gravy over fried potatoes, a biscuit, topped with scrambled eggs.........absolutely delicious.

This was our parting after being at their place for 4 nights - parts of 5 days - and we took formal photos.

Enjoyed our visit and seeing their new house and area of Florida they now live in (They moved from Miami just last April).

1

Some unusual named towns.

This was at a Florida rest stop --- don't see this often!

Lots of clouds!

Endless miles of seeing only trees.

Drove some 430 miles yesterday.  Looking at GPS figures and found we are 838 miles from our home in Kenwood -- was 1,246 from Clarinda to Kenwood so guess we are making some progress.  Of course, have driven some 2,700 miles since we left home, but will get to Kenwood in La Feria, TX sometime.  We are going to do some sightseeing around here at Pensacola today.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  It was graduation night at Cox High School and they were about halfway through the ceremony when the principal said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem, Bubba is a few credits short and won't be able to graduate tonight."   Well now, Bubba was the starting right guard for Cox's football team, and when the student body heard that he wasn't going to graduate, they all jumped up and started to chant, "Give Bubba another chance, give Bubba another chance!"  Pat Dye and the principal had a quick conference and afterward, the principal announced that they have decided to give Bubba another chance. Bubba is told that he will be given a "One Question" math test and if he passes, he can graduate.  The question is, "What is 2 plus 3?" Bubba thinks for about 20 minutes and finally says, "I have it! The answer is 5!"  There is complete silence in the auditorium for a couple of seconds and then the entire Cox High School football team jumps up and begins to chant, "Give Bubba one more chance. Give Bubba one more Chance!"
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A doctor examining a woman who had been rushed to the Emergency Room, took the husband aside, and said, "I don't like the looks of your wife at all.”  "Me neither doc," said the husband. "But she's a great cook and really good with the kids."
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Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
A herd.
A herd who?
A herd you were home, so I came over!

Later, Lynn

Day 11 on way to Texas - Hudson, Tarpon Springs, and Leesburg, FL

82º with a "feel like" of 88º here in Leesburg, FL at 8:00 pm Monday night.

This was on our tire the other morning--is it a frog eating
a young frog????????????

1

Took this off Facebook - our
GGrandaughter feeding herself
with a spoon.  A bit messy.

This and the following pictures are for the benefit of our Clarinda, IA neighbors Bob & Carol. Phyllis & I spent the day, after having breakfast with my brother & sister-in-law, driving the 70-some miles to Hudson, FL and looked over their winter home.  Nice place and on a canal where they can boat right out to the Gulf.

One bloom on the bottle-brush tree

After Hudson we drove on out on the Gulf at Tarpon Springs and walked around the area

Ate Grouper fish for lunch at Mama's

At Mama's

Phyllis got an air-plant and a real sponge to let it grow in.

Tarpon Springs was settled by the Greek people who did the diving for sponges in the 20th Century and many of the restaurants were Greek themed with lots of sea-food.  Tarpons are large air-breathing fish of the genus Megalops; one species is native to the Atlantic, and the other to the Indo-Pacific Seas. They are the only members of the family Megalopidae. CLICK HERE for info on Tarpon Springs

Sponges for sale

Rained on us a bit on way back north to Leesburg

On return to Leesburg we ate supper at the Ramshackle Cafe

At the Ramshackle Cafe

This and photos below are of some of the signs I saw on t-shirts and stuff at the touristy area in Tarpon Springs.

On the way back to Leesburg this afternoon I programmed the GPS to our winter home in Kenwood RV Park in Texas and found we are about as many miles from there now as we were when we left Clarinda -- about 1,260 miles.   We will head back to Pensacola tomorrow.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  A new bride was a bit embarrassed to be known as a honeymooner. So when she and her husband pulled up to the hotel, she asked him if there was any way that they could make it appear that they had been married a long time.  He responded, "Sure. You carry the suitcases!"
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Two red heads were flying to Miami from Cleveland. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the captain announced "One of the engines has failed and the flight will be an hour longer. But don't worry we have three engines left".  Thirty minutes later, the captain announced "One more engine has failed and the flight will be two hours longer. But don't worry we have two engines left".  An hour later the captain announced "One more engine has failed and the flight will be three hours longer. But don't worry we have one engine left". One red head looked at the other the other red head and said "If we lose one more engine, we'll be up here all day"
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Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Avenue.
Avenue who?
Avenue knocked on this door before?

Later, Lynn