Come Go With Us...

Come Go With Me US

Greetings to family and friends from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, USA. Daisy and I are 6 months into our 2nd year of marriage and travel adventures. She re-upped our marriage contract for another 6 months and the prospects of us making it to the two-year mark is looking very good. You might notice that I have changed the title of this blog from Come Go with Me to Come Go with Us. This is to reflect our renewed focus on us as we have travel adventures together on the highways and byways. I will include URL links at the end of this new blog so that you can access the previous journals that I have authored.

We started the new year by celebrating with friends at our resort's club house.


We are truly blessed to have each other.

We are looking at our calendar and possibilities for adventures to undertake in the year to come. They include truck camper rallies, Alaskan travel, Virginia Tech football games, fly fishing treks, and visits to friends and family. But while we are here in southern Texas for the winter, we plan to take some short visits to other parts of this state to see what it has to offer. We have put out invitations to have many of you come and see us here in the valley and we look forward to your visits.

Even though we are in southern Texas, the winter weather here is much different than it has been in the past few years. It seems that winter started earlier and it has been lasting longer. We have had prolonged periods of cold, rainy, and sunless days. It's normally windy here, but the bite of that wind with temps in the 30s and 40s has not been pleasant. We have not been enjoying the outdoor activities as we would like, but what the weather has encouraged us to do is get the know our fellow resort members better.

In particular, I have been wondering what folks do when the weather is crummy. What are their hobbies? With their permission, I plan to share a few of our friends and their unique talents with you here in the next several blogs.

As a kid I loved the little green army men and would set up my 2 dozen or so on the floor with supporting trucks, tanks, and jeeps and conduct make-believe battles. Well I grew out of it, but my friend Jack has not. He has taken it to a historic art form.

Jack hand crafts and paints tiny figurines as authentic recreations.

Jack has 1,000s of pieces that he has crafted or traded for with other toy soldier enthusiasts all over the world.

Each of these scenes represents a specific event in time.

Every Christmas holiday season, Jack recreates, in several rooms of his modular home here in the park, specific events in colonial occupied India and invites visitors in to view and hear their stories.

Uniform colors and accoutrements ID the units.

Elephants, royal guards, bearers, and lancers

Now I have to admit I spent most of my time with Jack and his toys and not with his equally talented wife Jane, who is very talented in quilting and other textile crafts. Of course, Daisy had to check those out.

Jane has several craft areas in other rooms in their unit.

One of the visits we had this January was from our friends and neighbors from Arkansas. They are spending part of the winter in San Antonio and wanted to enjoy a few days at the beach. We shared a condo for a few nights with them during some of the best sunny and warm weather we have seen and felt this winter.

Skip, Darlene, Rick, Mary, Daisy, and I enjoyed breakfast cooked in the condo on the beachfront.

Yep, this is winter at South Padre Island, Texas.

Somebody has to do it....

Gulf view from the 9th floor of the condo

Bay view from condo

South of the border down Mexico way

The ladies elected to go shopping across the border and I got drafted to be their guide and chauffeur. The other two guys decided to go play golf on the windy island course. They reasoned that since my new clubs had not yet arrived, it was only fitting that I, as local host, should accompany the ladies over and back. I enjoyed myself.

Darlene, Daisy, and Mary

We were gone for about 6 hours, including a 1-hour driving time each way. We hit pharmacies and shops for clothing, nicknacks, and booze.

Luncheon at Angel's

Deep fried mushrooms in a cornmeal batter

Avocado stuffed with gulf brown shrimp

After lunch we did more shopping and dancing to live Mexican cantina bands.

I got to two step with Darlene and Mary.....

Meanwhile back at the condo, nothing was happening. The guys were still stuck with slow play at the course. At least that is what they told their wives!

View of condo from the beach

Main open living area

Daisy and I prepared broccoli-spinach quiche for one breakfast meal.

It takes two baby...

Sliced tomatoes, grapes, and mimosas rounded out the fare.

In the evening, after having a seafood meal in an island restaurant, we relaxed for the next day by telling stories and putting together an epic 1,000 piece puzzle we found in the unit. We stayed up late into our last night to finish it. Rick helped out a lot with his frequent-hovering-finger-pointing-coaching advice like.."it should be easy for you to find a piece to fit there." He did not get hurt.

Did I mention we were at the beach in January?

Another beachy morning we enjoyed.

Surf fishers

Mary was responsible for this pancake, sausage, and scrambled egg wake up.

Our time together was short, but Daisy and I are planning to spend a few days with them in San Antonio before they return to Arkansas in March. We will follow them one month later.

Meanwhile back near our resort there had been other things happening.

I enjoyed watching the men play....

About 22 of us took advantage of a group deal and had a bus pick us up, go to dinner, and then attend a professional basketball game. The Rio Grande Valley Vipers are an expansion team from the NBA Development League. We won!

The #1 fan of the game-Cassandra from our park

...and the ladies dance.

We had other visitors as well. I first met Jim and Pat in 2004 when I initially came to the Rio Grande valley. Several years ago they relocated to southern New Mexico, and their home is a favorite stopover point for me, and now Daisy.

Jim, Pat, and I managed to find a perfect day for golf.

On another day they introduced us to their good friends and we shared a meal at a local spot we will return to.

Chile relleno

Cisco and Anne

And now a word from our sponsor...

Yep, she is so cute she cracks me up.

This year the University of Texas Pan American staged a theater production of Pachanga, a Latin Dance Comedy. The basic plot involves two dueling families, but instead of using gun play they have a dance off to determine the winner. The fast stepping music kind of mixes Latin meringue with the conga. One unique aspect of this production involved audience participation, and Daisy and I had opportunity to dance on the main stage as part of one of the dance-off families.