What are those Birds?

When we lifted the shades this morning, and I say that loosely because it was more like mid morning when we did, we saw our tenting buddies across the way standing around with their winter jackets on.  The temperature was about 4C and a foggy damp overcast sky, with the wind blowing about 25 mph.   Now I remember tenting in my day, and I could always handle the night in my sleeping bag no matter how cold it got, but it was the morning transition into my clothes and the chill that set in while waiting for the fire to warm my first cup of coffee that has made me decide to never ever tent camp again.

USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier Museum

One of the reasons we stopped in Corpus Christi/Padre Island was because I wanted to tour the aircraft carrier USS Lexington which is now a museum in the harbour there.  We headed in about 11 am and arrived just before noon.  Ed and Lessie joined us in our adventure.  Although it was overcast, it was actually a nice day to tour the carrier.

Running from the Cold

Well we finally got froze out of Magnolia Beach Texas.  Woke up to cold, windy and wet and decided we need to find some warmth somewhere.  It looks like farther south will be nice for Saturday and Sunday, but after that there is no where to hide.  Its going to be cold everywhere.

Big Buddy heater propane hookup

Today was the day to hook up my Buddy heater direct to the RV propane tank.  I will go through how I installed it for anyone looking to do the same.  You might ask why I didn't just run a hose direct to the high pressure propane tank and use the Buddy heater regulator that is there for the 1 pound bottles.  It is recommended that you should never run unregulated propane to any appliance inside an RV, in fact you may want to check if your insurance company would like it.  If you run an unregulated hose into your RV and something happens to the hose or a fitting,  you now have high pressure propane spewing everywhere.  Have you ever used a tiger torch?  This is what it would look like.

That is unregulated propane.  With a regulated hose it would just be a hiss of propane and if ignited would be like the flame in your BBQ.   Both are dangerous, but at least you stand a chance to get it under control when it is regulated.  The second reason is that you can't use a quick connect on unregulated propane so you would have to thread the hose fitting on an off each time you want to put it away.  Just not handy.

Santa got run over!!!

We were going to move today to try and escape the cold wet windy weather that is upon us, however the day was so drizzly and windy that I said the heck with it.  Lets just go to town and hang out in the mall.  So that's what we did.  Ed and Lessie came with us and we did some Christmas returns in Victoria.

Christmas story and a cemetery visit

Christmas Day

The wind blew fairly hard on Christmas Eve so I guess we didn't hear Santa come and go.  George of Our Awesome Travels gave me the idea to leave the roof vent open so Santa could get in and it seemed to work.  Thanks George.  Our stockings were full to the brim.

Merry Christmas

Christmas day has finally arrived and I can feel the stir of millions of children who have hopped out of bed and are staring in disbelief at the presents under the tree.  It is a magical time as their imaginations allow them to see the evidence that Santa has visited their house.

Christmas Eve with friends

It was a gorgeous morning on the beach to sit outside and have coffee.  Sue and I were there first and soon Ed and Lessie joined us.  It wasn't long and our friend Susan and her dog Champ showed up.  She has a really neat jeep painted up in John Deere colours.  We tried to buy it from her but she said we were about number 4 in line.

Stingray on the beach

Not much happening in our house today.  Charlie and I did a couple of walks and on one of them we spotted this neat trailer.  It is a Scamper 5th wheel.  Not a lot of them around.  Cynthia owns it and travels the country. She actually lives near one of our favourite Arizona Boondock spots in Cottonwood.

Christmas in the Park light show

Well the countdown to Christmas is on at our house.  Although we will not be with family again this Christmas, it looks like this year, we will be surrounded by good friends.  Ed and Lessie will be here and our friends Kevin and Ruth will be joining us on Christmas Eve.  This will make Sue feel so much better, because one of the things she didn't look forward to when we decided to take on this lifestyle, was being away from the kids and grandkids at Christmas.  We will make contact with all of them on Christmas morning via modern technology hopefully.

Rocks on the beach

It was a beautiful day today on the beach.  These are the kind of days that make us glad we are here.  A couple of oyster boats doing the dance today and some ships going in and out of the bay.

And the little tug that could was steaming back and forth going about his daily chores.  He makes me want to go out there with a new air filter and some fuel filters and fix his problem.

Friends on the Beach

The weather has certainly turned around for a few days.  With highs of 26C and lows in the high teens, it is back to shorts weather and calls for a lot of sitting on the beach soaking up the sun. Magnolia Beach is certainly a nice place to do that.

Nothing can be this much fun

On days when not much happens, it creates a special situation for a blogger.  It presents an opportunity to just give in and let your readers know you have nothing for them and post a couple boring pictures, or you can get a little creative and write a story about a couple of the real trivial things that happened during the day.  These stories can be factual or a little bit of fiction.  I opt today to do the story option.  You decide if it is fact or fiction. Enjoy!

Today was one of those do nothing days for us.  We got up late, again, and sat outside and drank coffee for most of the morning.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, because there are a lot of people we know who still have to head off to work on a cold morning and they would all love to be doing what we are doing.  And we would like to say thanks to them for continuing to pay into the pension funds so that we can still receive our monthly cheques. Your efforts are certainly appreciated.

After we got done doing nothing we headed into Victoria to do some more, shopping that is.  The Mall was our first stop and you could shoot a cannon down the isle and not hit anyone.  I don't know where everyone was tonight.

Everyone needs a Buddy

Last night was a perfect sleeping night.  The reason I know that is because it was almost 9 am before I even opened an eye.  The ocean air does wonders for a persons sleeping.  When I awoke I could hear a dull roar outside interspersed with some clanging, and some latin music.  The oyster boats were back and they were close to the Ponderosa.  There were about 20 of them doing the oyster dance, going in circles raking the sea bottom.

Have you ever seen a Roseate Spoonbill?

It is still raining this morning so we had to find something interesting to do today.  What could be more interesting than going out for lunch?   We have heard that Skillets in Port Lavaca is a good place to eat, so off we went to find out if that's true.

Rainy chore day

It rained most of the night last night and was still raining this morning.  Not a heavy rain but just enough to make it miserable to go outside.  The temperatures were around 12C so not freezing but the grey clouds are not making us very smiley people.  We can always look forward to tomorrow so we just got on with our day.  It was that favourite day for all RVers...laundry day.

Moved again!

Today was really windy and cool.  High today is about 12C which is 53F.  With the wind coming off the water it really chills you to the bone.  So we decided that we should do an indoor project.  Sue was wanting to do something with the front of her kitchen counter because it was just white.  While shopping yesterday she bought some old board type wall paper so she got ready to put it on to see what it will look like.

Shopping and off to the beach

We spent all morning and a bunch of the afternoon Christmas shopping.  Victoria Mall is a nice mall with lots of stuff to look at, but not without walking a lot.  My fitbit said about 12000 steps.  I was glad when we finally fired up and headed for Magnolia Beach.

Moving back north

We have explored enough around the valley for now.  Sue wants to go back to Magnolia Beach for Christmas again this year so today we are heading there.  We will go to Victoria Texas first and do some Christmas shopping tomorrow before hitting the beach. 

Awning fixed

Today we had nothing to do except wait on our Awning specialists (Top Hat Awning) to come.  Three guys arrived around 12:30 and in 15 minutes they had the awning rewound.  They tried to talk me into changing a couple of the support arms, but I knew I could fix them at no cost rather than the $100.00 they quoted me.  So I gave them $65.00 cash and off they went.  Great job for a cheap price.   At some point I will get my slide toppers redone and the price they quoted for that was $325.00 total installed for both toppers.  I doubt I can buy the material for that cheap.  If you are around Weslaco or Donna Texas and need awning work, look up Top Hat at the Wes-Don flea market.

Festival of Lights

We spent a lot of the day today doing what retired snowbirds do....nothing.  The weather is warm and the chairs are comfy.  The only bad thing is the continuous sound of traffic and sirens and loud motors.  Otherwise it is a nice park but because of the noise we could not last long here.  We are looking forward to going back to the beach where only the sound of the waves is heard.

Exploring the beaches of South Padre Island

One of the reasons we came down to this part of the country was to scout out some boondocking spots for future reference.   A lot of people have said it is tough to boondock down around South Padre Island so we headed out on the beach to have a look.  We drove over to Port Isabella and from there headed out onto the beach at beach access #5.

Look who we found!!

This morning on my walk I went by the pool house and noticed a couple bikes sitting out front.  Now when we checked in, the lady said that at every park owned club house or pool house there will be bikes parked.  These are for the use of the park residents.  They just ask that you park them at a park building when you are done.  It doesn't have to be put back at the same building so you can ride it over to the sister park and leave it.   I thought that is a nice touch for transportation.

SNOW!!!!

Last week when we looked at the temperatures around Brownsville they were in the 30's Celcius and we thought it was too hot.  Well this morning the unthinkable happened.  It SNOWED!!!  Yes siree when we woke this morning the ground was white.  It almost felt good because it reminded us of home and what we drove 2000 miles to escape.

A day at the mall

Have you ever had to do this?   I think we all have one of those RV parking experiences that we are not proud of.  I just saw this sign on Facebook and thought that it fit the bill for me a lot of times.  We all have to learn to relax and take our time when parking or we get into big trouble.

Hunkered down and Hooked up

After spending the night at Walmart we took our time getting mobile this morning because we had to wait a bit to check into VIP - La Feria RV Park. We headed over there about 10 am and in no time we ere there.  It was only 7.3 miles.

Moving farther south to ride out the cold front.

We decided it was time to venture farther south to explore some of the area where we are going to meet Pat and Harold in January.  So we decided to head for Harlingen Texas which is just outside Brownsville.  As a point of interest, Harlingen has a population of 65000 people and boasts the lowest cost of living in the United States!!!   It's in an area they call "The Valley" but I haven't witnessed a valley of any kind around here.  We were at sea level when we left Magnolia Beach and we are at sea level here so there wasn't a lot of up and down going on in our travels.

Our trip today

Turn at the Moose!!

A friend of mine saw this on a blustery morning and thought it was truly a Canadian sign.  Now I'm not sure how many of my readers can identify where this sign is, but if you know or want to guess, leave a comment.  By the way I would know exactly where to find this Tim Hortons!!!!  Just turn right at the Moose!!!

Not Again!!

Yup, thats right, just when I thought I was over it I got hit like a ton of bricks.  This is one nasty little bug.  Don't know what it is but it is in my stomach and won't get out.  Wrong terminology, it got out all right!!!!

Rare money

We are so fortunate that almost everywhere we go we meet such nice and unique people.  We met Angela and Chuck through a boondocking page on facebook when Angie asked if anyone knew what Magnolia Beach was like.  I responded that it was a great place to be and they came here.  We didn't have much to do with them for the first couple weeks except the odd chat and wave when I was out walking.  Well in the last week or so we have got to know them and I think there is a friendship spawning.  I think we should try not to scare them off. Ha Ha.  Their travels will likely be such that our paths will cross again this winter we hope.  Like I said in yesterdays post, they came to the football game with us and today they came over for a bonfire with us.

Chuck spent time in the Marines stationed in Hawaii and travelled all over the world.  In his travels he collected beer labels, cigarette packages, and money from various countries.  He obtained more after his stint in the marines and has quite a collection.  He said I could share some with everyone so here are the coins etc that interested me.

Beer labels and Cigarette packages

A new experience for us

Was up early today and I'm feeling quite a bit better today.  I must have caught a little bug somewhere and it really upset my stomach.  Today was housekeeping day and the Ponderosa got a sweep and vacuum from top to bottom.  One of the disadvantages of living on the beach is the sand everywhere.  Especially when the humidity is high, it tracks in real bad.  It even gets in the bed.