December 1, 2009
I woke up this morning with my cold getting worse. Took some more medicine and crawled back in bed. There was no need to stay up since I could hear the rain falling on the roof. Gina and I finally got out of bed around nine o’clock and started the coffee brewing. With the weather terrible outside we knew it would be an inside only day. Besides that I didn’t want my cold to get any worse. Gina played on Facebook while I wrote and posted an entry to our blog. I don’t know how I caught this cold but I hate them. We discussed leaving here on Thursday since I wasn’t feeling well and it would allow us to take our time heading to our house in Louisiana. Outside of that Gina bounced between reading a new book by Mitch Albom titled “Have A Little Faith” and seeing what our friends on Facebook were doing. She just finished another book by him called “For One More Day”. I kind of played on Facebook but really I played with an application called networkedblogs. There are a lot of blogs that I read and I was looking for a way to see them all in one place. I already have most of them listed as links on our blog. However, what I wanted to see more is, if I could get facebook to automatically post an update on our wall when I posted a new entry. I finally got it figured out but don’t ask me to explain it. The functionality is greatly limited if you have not been confirmed as the author or if you do not have a minmimum of seven followers. Now I should tell you that instead of Gina and I having separate facebook accounts we just share the one account. We do this with our email too. It just works out better for us. By the time I finished playing with networkedblogs and reading all the blogs it was five o’clock. Ok, I might have had a little nap in there too. I asked what was for dinner and Gina said she was making chili. I said, Great since it was getting colder outside and I love chili. The chili tasted great at least from what I could taste. We watched a little TV before we both went to bed. Gina was reading her book as I told her goodnight.
Wednesday
December 2, 2009
I woke up and looked at the clock and saw that it was six o’clock and decided to just take some medicine and crawl back into bed. I must have fell back asleep since I woke up smelling fresh coffee brewing and Gina wasn’t lying next to me. I got out of bed and fixed me a cup of coffee and realized it was nine o’clock. Didn’t think I had slept that long. I decided to get online while I drunk my coffee. I always enjoy reading blogs and this morning was no exception. I did write a few emails while Gina wrote a few replies to some friends on Facebook. I was feeling a little better this morning but I still felt the pressure in my head. I looked at the weather and it would be clear for the next few days between here and Louisiana so Gina and I made the decision to go ahead and leave tomorrow. That put Gina in the pickup and stowing mode. I walked down to Mike & Pat’s and Mark & Dale’s to let them know that we would be leaving tomorrow. After that I walked back home and realized Gina was almost finished with the inside and I hadn’t even picked up the first thing outside. Now, I believe we had just about everything that we keep either in the truck storage or the trailer storage was pulled out. It was going to take me a while to get all this put away. I just started working on it one item at a time. The first item was to get the satellite taken down and get that secured in the truck storage. The next was to rearrange the trailer storage. That was a job since we acquired two new chairs and a new storage bin for can goods that is now stored in the trailer. Right after I finished with the trailer storage area Doug walked up and asked if I was interested in selling my spare Brakesmart controller. I said sure but I wanted to make sure it worked so we hooked it up and verified that it worked. All was good so he took it home. I then went inside only to find Gina baking brownies for our little potluck this evening welcoming Larry & Geri up at the clubhouse to Retama Village. I didn’t get everything loaded into the truck but it will not take me long to finish up in the morning. Around three o’clock Doug walked back down and said he called Brakesmart and they were backlogged and they couldn’t even give him an answer on when he would be able to get the required pressure sensor to go with the brakesmart I gave to him. So he decided to just give it back to me and that he would just go with a Maxbrake. If you want to read more about the two different brake controllers I recommend you read about them on Mark Bruss’s website http://www.dmbruss.com/. By this time it was a little before four o’clock so we got our drinks and the plate of brownies and as we walked out the door Dale & Mark were getting in their jeep. We were going to walk up to the clubhouse but since they offered us a ride we hopped in with them for a free ride up to the clubhouse.
After we enjoyed happy hour it was time dinner. Everyone brought their own meat to grill. However, with our colds Gina and I were not hungry. We enjoyed the fellowship with our friends and it gave us some time to tell them goodbye. I know that we don’t really say goodbye but rather we always say “see ya down the road”. We all live fulltime in our RVs and we know that we will see each other again. It still doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier. These friends are part of our family and we will miss them all and will long to meet up with them again real soon. We all took pictures in front of the Christmas tree tonight. Thought I would show you all some pictures of our family here in Mission Texas.
The Girls
The Guys
Larry & Geri Gustafson
Mike & Pat McFall
Mark & Dale Bruss
Doug & Jutta Franks
Rocky & Sheri Rhoades
Me & Gina
After the picture taking was done we said our goodbyes and caught a ride back home with Dale & Mark. After we dropped off our stuff at home we walked down to Mike & Pat’s since I told Mike that I would bring the pictures that we took tonight down to him so he could load them onto his computer. I also wanted to buy a new hardwire connection for my pressure pro monitor. We discussed meeting back up in February at their place in Congress, Arizona since we intend to spend the month of February in Arizona. We said goodnight and walked back home.
On a final note: There are no words that I can write to describe what Gina and I feel as we live this lifestyle or the people we meet. For us it’s like stepping back in time when there were no strangers just family members you hadn’t met yet. I still know friends of my parents that we met when we were camping over forty five years ago in our popup and we still stay in touch with each other. We are so thankful for the people we meet out here in our travels because without them this lifestyle wouldn’t be the same. Our family just keeps growing bigger and bigger and we love it and wouldn’t change a thing!!! We are grateful and feel extremely blessed that Our Heavenly Father is allowing us to live this lifestyle and for the people he brings into our life.
Our Final Sunset Here at Retama Village
(until the next time)
Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.
Thomas before he left
