Week in Review: March 17 - 23

This week was real quiet on the home front. Many of the “Winter Texans” are heading home, hoping to get there before Easter. Folks from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Upstate New York, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin have either left, or will be leaving within the week. The park is looking rather empty. After looking at the national weather report, we’re happy we aren’t leaving quite yet! I spoke, yesterday, with friends Bea and Mike (we met them in Grand Portage, MN last summer) who were on their way back home to Missouri from Arizona and were caught in a snow storm in Oklahoma! The original forecast was for 11”, but may have been downgraded to only 7”. Yuck!

These are much more to our liking than snow in late March!

Temperatures have stayed pretty static through the week: lows in the 60s, and a day or two of highs in the mid-80s. The average for the week was a perfect 75, with light breezes. Hard to beat that!

Sunday was a typical day for us: church in the morning, followed by breakfast at Caroline’s Turtle Bay Café. As we walked in to Caroline’s we met Rusty and Bonnie, neighbors from the park, who had just placed their order and asked us to join them. They’re from Phillips, Wisconsin, located in the north central part of the state. Knowing they’d probably be heading into snow country, they were planning to leave Monday to make it home for Easter. Dick and Rusty talked fishing and RVing, while Bonnie and I talked recipes and cooking (she owned Bonnie’s Café in Phillips). Fun!

Fifi

As we returned to our site, we saw that other neighbors from near Victoria, Texas were getting ready to leave. What a lovely family. They had arrived Thursday, mom Annabelle and dad Adán, 2 teenaged daughters Victoria and Nadia, and their beloved Chihuahua named Fifi  (a Mexican dog with a French name…we laughed at that.)

Temperatures reached into the 80s on Sunday, so for the first time since we arrived here we turned on the air conditioning. Thankfully, the evening cooled off to the 60s so we were quite comfortable at night.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were uneventful, with temperatures in the high 70s during the day and 60s at night. Dick had somehow injured his left heel so he spent his walking time on his bicycle. I walked a bit around the park, but not the usual 3 miles we had been doing. I’m still getting my sea legs under me, on the bicycle—funny how you never really forget how to ride, but the confidence is lacking. (By the end of the week I was getting better, by just riding around the park, not on the main roads.)

Navy plane landing at Aransas County Airport,
located within 1 mile of our RV park.

Wednesday evening we had dinner at the clubhouse: happy hour at the pool, followed by corned beef and cabbage dinner—all for just $6. There were about 40 of us at happy hour, but only about 22 for dinner. Lots of food!

The pool and clubhouse

Thursday and Friday were uneventful, as well, with nothing really new to report. Dick did go to the doctor on Friday for his foot problem, but the diagnosis was inconclusive (no break or chip, no plantar fasciitis, perhaps just bruising), so he purchased a pair of orthotics hoping that will give him some relief. The doc said to continue riding the bike, not walking. We’ll see… Friday night we decided on pizza at Panjo’s, a local restaurant with really good pizza. Nice to not have to cook…J

Friday and Saturday mornings were very overcast, with a marine layer that wouldn’t skedaddle until mid-afternoon. The air was so humid, but not really warm. Weird. As I was sitting outside on Saturday, a pair of cardinals (male and female) flew within 20 feet of me, to hide in trees across the road. Such a beautiful site, but they didn’t cooperate to sit for a photo. Made banana bread and baked another batch of my grandmother’s “oatmeal crispies” cookies. (Dick says they’re really quite good, even though they don’t have any chocolate chips in them!)

Next week we’ll attempt to have a little more “fun” and provide more good stuff. Hopefully by then Dick’s foot will be healed enough where we can walk the Aransas Wildlife Preserve, the Maritime Museum, and whatever else comes our way.

We hope this finds you well. As we head into the Easter holiday, please remember that Easter isn’t about the little bunnies and chicks and candy baskets—it’s about Jesus and the unbelievable price He paid on Calvary, that we might be saved from an eternity in darkness to spend it with Him in heaven.

Blessings! We’ll see you down the road…

Dick and Gail