We haven’t updated our blog for a while, so I thought we’d
hit the highlights of the last couple of weeks. We’ve participated in the usual
activities here in the park, but these events were special.
Monday, January 16 Dick and I celebrated our 35th
wedding anniversary. My, how time has flown by! We celebrated at a local
Italian restaurant, Bellino’s, with a few of our closest friends. Good food,
good friends, good times!
Later that week, on Friday the 20th, we participated in the
annual chili cook-off, but unfortunately, I didn’t win this year with my white
chicken chili. First place went to Bob and Sharon, 2nd to Pam and, 3rd
to Mitch and Cindy.
The next day, Saturday, the park’s owner had a thank you
party for the park’s work campers. There were almost 50 people there, noshing
on barbeque brisket, chicken, sausage, potato salad and coleslaw, baked beans, chips,
cookies and cake. There was also soda, beer and wine available. Again…good food
and, good times. Unfortunately, we forgot to take photos.
The following Tuesday, January 24, we enjoyed an evening of
music with Cody Dooley, a Branson, Missouri performer, to
entertain us for the evening. Cody is known for his singing impressions of some
of country music’s greatest artists including Conway Twitty, John Conlee, Merle
Haggard, Ernest Tubb, Marty Robins, Jim Reeves, George Jones, and many more.
His show in Branson, the Country Legend’s Tribute Show continues to draw folks
from all over the country, and features music from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s
and, it’s always in the original key. We always look forward to having Cody
back; he’s quite the entertainer!
We’re always up for a celebration, so Saturday, January 28,
we attended a birthday celebration for Krista, the daughter of good friends
David and Marihelen. Krista lives in Red River, New Mexico, but comes a few
times a year to spend time with her parents. This time her husband Justin flew
in for the celebration, and two other friends, Ginger and Gina, also joined us. Again, we
celebrated at Bellino’s Italian Restaurant. I had the grilled salmon salad and
their minestrone; Dick had shrimp over bowtie pasta with a heavenly gorgonzola
sauce. Yum-Yum! We all had variations on these themes, and enjoyed every bite!
Oh, and for dessert we shared a fabulous tiramisu. Oh, so good…
The next day, Sunday, was move day for us, as we moved to
another larger site here in the park. We back up to another pond that at
times has blue herons, egrets and ducks. Later in the spring there will be a
cacophony of “music” from little tree toads. We’ll post photos of our site and
our new “home” in upcoming blogs. We noticed a praying mantis welcoming us as we laid out one of our mats!
We got moved by about 2:30 that afternoon (the new site is
only about a block from our previous one), and then friends started arriving
for an impromptu happy hour. There were probably 20 people or more coming to
welcome us to the new site. They stayed ‘til almost 5:30. Then, a few of us
decided to head to Moondog's, a local harbor-side restaurant, for dinner. Such
good times with special friends.
Wednesday, February 1, we enjoyed another evening of music. Bo
Rivers entertained us for over 3 hours. Bo first entertained us last year and
he’ll be with us twice this year. He’s a singer, songwriter, accomplished
guitar player and performer. We love his music—and what a sense of humor! He’s known
as a tribute artist for Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson, but his performances
also include country and pop tunes dating back to the ‘50s. We sang along,
danced, and laughed for 3 hours.
Thursday, February 2, the girls—7 of
us—went to nearby Sinton to visit a moonshine distillery. (Oh my gosh, I do not
understand how folks can drink that stuff!) The Justice Distillery (named for
Jason Justice, owner), the distillery opened in September 2016, and is a “legal”
family owned business. Jason learned his craft from his grandfather back in the
hills of West Virginia and today Jason uses that old family recipe for his corn
liquor. The first thing he needed to do was to cultivate a strain of yeast that
could stand up to the heat here in south Texas. He designed a prototype and he
custom-built the company’s two 100-pound gallon stills. They can produce up to
1,800 gallons of raw alcohol in a month—depending on the weather—or about 200
cases of finished product. The finished product is sold in good old Mason jars.
Today there are four flavors including blueberry, peach, lemonade and apple
pie, plus the “charred” flavor which he
says is more like a traditional whiskey.
 |
| The leftover mash from the distillery is used as bait for wild boars. This one (bottom right) weighed 300 lbs. |
Saturday morning was busy. It
started with the craft and bake sale held in the park’s family clubhouse. It
was scheduled to start at 9 a.m., but folks were lined up by about 8:15 to get
a preview and to buy the hot from the oven cinnamon rolls being sold from the
kitchen. There were tables of jewelry, quilted items, intarsia wood products,
and veteran-made table-top boxes, in addition to flashlights, sandals and yoga “happy”
pants.
That evening we had dinner with
friends Marvin and Shirley and Randy and Jeri at Redfish Willie’s restaurant in
Aransas Pass. We noshed on crab cakes, shrimp Louis salad, shrimp and fish
baskets. Good stuff! We love “fresh from the Gulf” seafood!
As we have almost every Sunday
since we arrived in October, we attended Rockport First Baptist Church for
their contemporary worship service. This week Pastor Scott spoke on our
responsibility as believers to study God’s Word, so that the Holy Spirit can
work through our changed lives as witness of his love, grace and mercy. If our
lives have been changed, they will
speak. Scripture was taken from Luke 21:12-19 and Romans 10:16-18, as well as
other references in Mark 13, Matthew 7 and Revelation 7. Here’s a link to his
message(s): fbcrockport.net/sermons
After breakfast at home we headed
to the clubhouse for a few games of Pegs & Jokers before the Super Bowl
Party. About 50 folks showed up for the party, and there were games of Mexican Train Dominoes going on, too. What a good football game, although we were disappointed that the Falcons lost in
overtime. We participated in the football pool and won the only quarter that
didn’t pay out—the 4th—due to overtime. Dang!
We will continue to post our blog
as events occur, but probably not every week. Thanks for sticking with us. There
will be more fun ahead!
Hugs,
RJ and Gail
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