February 16- 28, 2010

Tuesday the 16th I took Sadie to the vet. She was having her stitches removed from her chest. Stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up some much needed cough drops and nite-time coughing, sneezing wanna let me sleep medicine for Rhonda. She has been fighting a cough almost three weeks and now the last couple of days I’m fighting a sore throat. We will prevail.

Wednesday is not normally a work day for Rhonda but she was up getting ready for work this Wednesday. I worked on computer trying to setup our trip to the valley (southern Texas) and to Brenham, Texas. I also had the privilege of doing the laundry, making chili for supper, cleaning up the dishes (I’m not always a kept man I can do things too). We didn’t do much the rest of the evening. We just watched a little TV and listened to Rhonda’s cough the rest of the evening

Thursday morning I finally was awake at 6:45 am, turned on TV to HLN to find out what’s happening in the world. Rhonda slept in until almost 9 am. She took some of that nite-time coughing, sneezing wanna let me sleep medicine and a couple of Tylenol PM’s and slept really well. Something she really needed. Around 11 am we both went into town to fulfill or civic duty and voted. At the poll, we saw Guy & Linda the owners of the RV Park. They suggested we go into town and have a cup of coffee. We drove in had our cup of “cola” since Rhonda doesn’t do coffee and we had a nice conversation with them. After arriving home we had a little supper, cleaned up and then went to the clubhouse to watch a TV show that I’ve become addicted to and have watched every season since it started, Survivor.

On Friday, Rhonda received a phone call from Danny, her boss asking her to come in and work. The other lady who works at the tanning salon, her husband had a heart-attack during the night. He’s just in his 30’s, it just shows you how precious life really is and how quickly it can be over. We later found out that he was okay after being transferred down to a hospital in Beaumont, Texas. So Rhonda went to work and I stayed home working on the computer all day. This day was nothing special just another day at Paradise – Paradise RV Park that is. And we are still alive and healthy.

I used to love the weekends, now everyday is a weekend. Today is Saturday and I’m up at 8:15 am talk about being lazy. Once up I went outside to get the newspaper, made a pot of coffee, ate some chocolate donuts, fed Sadie our little dog and let her outside to do her business. Rhonda received a phone call early this morning around 8:30 am informing her there had been a major fire at Adventureland, the amusement park we worked at last summer. Just a little later I received an email from a friend I’d worked with last year at Adventureland alerting me that there was a 3-alarm fire on the main street destroying quite a few buildings at the amusement park. A link was provided to see pictures of the fire, so if you’re interested you can see pictures of the fire at this link:

http://www.kcci.com/news/22621911/detail.html

I emailed as many people that I knew who worked at Adventureland. Time will tell how it affects operations. Later today we are going with Guy & Linda (owners of the park we stay in) for a dinner in Livingston, Texas. While there we’ll picked up our mail at the Escapee’s Park.

Sunday, late afternoon Kevin our new neighbor doctor came over and asked me if I wanted to play a few holes golf? It was getting late and the sun was starting to set, but we took off anyway. After playing only 3 holes it was just too dark to see anything, so we called it quits and came home. Rhonda made her slow cooker meal consisting of potatoes, pork chops, cheese and mushroom soup; it’s one of my favorites. I took a plate of it over to Kevin, he really appreciated it. For whatever reason I had a hard time going to sleep and was up until 2:35 am. When I finally went to bed, I crashed and slept like a zombie.

After a short night of sleep I was up Monday morning at 8:15 am. Rhonda was up shortly after me. She was getting ready for her day at work, having her chocolate mini-donuts for breakfast; while mine consisted of cereal and toast. Rhonda arrived home from work a little after 6 pm. We had a quick supper and some Rocky-Road ice cream for dessert. We watched TV the rest of the evening making it a relaxing way to finish the day.

The next few days consisted of Rhonda going to work and me working on the computer again. It almost seems as if we are getting into a rut. I do not like that at all. I did receive some good news from my youngest daughter, Katie. She and her hubby, Kevin will be closing on their first house on Friday the 26th. It will make them first-time home buyers.

The last Saturday of February was very busy. I worked outside until around 3 in the afternoon getting things ready for tomorrow’s trip. I put up the awning, ran the motor home engine for about one hour, put in 10 gallons of gas in the motor home, disconnected our small LP tank, went to Wal-Mart picked up some bread and extra cash, put chairs on ladder, put shepherds hook on ladder, put table in car along with pull golf-cart, folding chairs in car, put water hose in basement, put on dolly hitch, went down and pulled dolly up to motor home, and that was just my short list of my blue item things to do. Rhonda cleaned up inside doing all her pink things. She also did the laundry so that would be done before we left. I took a nap for couple hours after completing my chores, something I never used to do. Rhonda called in for a pizza and I went into town to pick it up. We had our pizza dinner and now we are just waiting until tomorrow morning to head south.

I was up early around 6:30 am this last Sunday of February, finally out of bed at 6:50 am. I didn’t sleep very well last night. That seems to be a normal routine for me just before a travel day. We said our goodbyes to Guy and Linda (the park owners); Bobby and Annette (our friends); and our new neighbor Kevin the doctor just before leaving. Pulling out of Paradise at 9:55 am we traveled down to Houston to see Rhonda’s sister, Barbara. After a short visit with her and lunch we left the Houston area close to 1:30 pm pointing the motor home down highway 59 southbound toward the “Valley.”


This is a picture of the entrance to the Encino Grande RV Park.
I drove 211 miles and then handed off the last 47 miles to Rhonda. Our stop for the night was a nice little RV park in Goliad, TX. An extremely nice lady by the name of Betty who owns and runs the Encino Grande RV Park greeted us as we pulled in. We parked beside a travel trailer with a nice couple, Charlie and Mary Jane Martin. We had a nice talk with the Martin’s who were from around the Galesburg, Illinois area. I took a picture of them with their little doggie named “Pumpkin.” Charlie and I went to the fence line to meet a jackass (no not each other) and feed him a carrot. We should pull into the Casa de Valle Resort where we will be spending the next thirty-one days. Can you pick out the real Jackass - hint one of them is in disguise :-)






This is Charlie & Mary Jane with their little doggie, Pumpkin.