Valentines, Radio/TV, Vols Basketball, and the Weather

Happy Valentines! For our Valentines, we traveled a half hour west to McAllen (pronounced here MaCallen) and went to Saltgrass Restaurant, had a great steak and admired the desserts that we will return for some time.  Nick and the Norris’ were all sent hearts and kisses and except for Holden (who “puked all day”) seemed to be doing well.  Friends at home needed some extra love—Doug and Becky Hellerson dealing with Doug’s bacteria invasion that caused him blindness and minor strokes.  Cheryl Petty lost her mother (99 years old!). It is so hard to lose your mother.  Then 2 weeks later she lost her sister.
  We like to listen to local radio for the weather and the community events/businesses but here there are very few English spoken channels—a disappointment but we have been listening more to our cd’s and that is good music.  On TV, basketball season is in full swing and the men Vols are far outpacing expectations.  They have been in the top 20 almost all season and all the starters are stars headed up by Grant Williams and my favorite Admiral Scofield.  The Ladies on the other hand are doing pretty well but it seems that every time we watch them they lose to somebody they are supposed to beat.  Maybe we jinx them.  Also we watched our new favorite—Better Late than Never- codgers Terry Bradshaw, William Shatner, Henry Winkler and George Forman along with young sidekick Jeff Dye traveled to Europe and Africa—made us laugh a lot.  I hope they do more of this show. NASCAR starts this weekend with the Daytona 500 which brings back fond memories of our venture there last year with Steve Gilliam.  Space-X launched the "Heavy" rocket successfully with a tricked out Tesla aboard for advertisement for owner Elon Musk--last year we saw the light version from Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral--again memories.

We sit here in south Texas and watch in wonderment the weather.  There are literally 30 degree swings in temp in a 2 hour period—it happened last week.  If it is 40 degrees here it is so cold you can’t go out and businesses close.  70 degrees is pleasant if the sun is out but it is foggy or overcast a lot and then it can have a chill in the air and at night it is sweater weather.  All this week we will be in the 80’s but have wind gusts up to 40 mph.  Weird—we are hoping for the warm to continue the rest of the winter (the cold sucks). 

Closing out January--our 2nd month in South Texas

Abbie and Walter took us to lunch with other Tennessean RV'ers (Winter Texans) and it proved to be very enjoyable.  It was like going to a UT tailgate-lots of talk of home.  Soothing.

Jim and Terry liked the cars

Reminded us of our Cadillac/Camino from back in the '80's

See the '55 Nomad in the back we had one in red

Then came a car show in McAllen with our neighbors, Roberta and Jim (Minnesotan's).  The guys loved it--for the girls it was also good people watching and a good lunch at Cheddars. 

Very windy conditions kept the kites flying -we heard they canceled the flying the next day because of no wind

These people had 4 kites doing a dance

The kite festival in South Padre Island (SPI) was cool but very cold and windy, lunch at Dirty Al's afterward was good and warmed us up.

Dirty Al's had this phone--think the kids today would know they existed?

  But absolutely the best thing about ending up January was our sweet Katie turned 39.  This was pretty rough on her momma--I remember being 39! How lucky were we to have had this generous and loving daughter in our life? 



Pickle ball

This is a game that is sorta modified tennis played on a shorter court, with short, wooden or graphite paddles and a softball size wiffleball.  Terry played in Florida last year and I decided to give it a try.  Diane and Bob Fritel are enthusiasts of pickle ball and live here in LaFeria RV.  Bob and Terry hit it off –they both have endless energy, Diane is really nice and fun to talk to—they have 13 grandchilden –ages from 1-13!  Farmers from northern North Dakota, they have been coming to LaFeria for the winter for many years.  Bob’s brother and sister and their spouses live here as well and they all live on the same road here.  They are great sources of information and they are very patient with us novice pickleballers.  I came out of the session sore in muscles that I had forgotten  I had but hooked on a new sport. We played in Brownsville which is about a half hour south of LaFeria and at the very tip of Texas.  The border of south Texas is defined by the Rio Grande River (it is not the longest river in the US (4^th or 5^th) but starts in Colorado and continues down to the Texas tip (the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville).  We played 2 days later in Harlingen and will continue to play there while we are here--good exercise. 

Melody and husband Bill have been coming to LaFeria after they retired--he was a surgeon
they live in Colorado

Indoor pickle ball is harder (I think) than outdoor