Settled in for the winter

http://picasaweb.google.com/fisherneal1/Winter20102011PharrTX#

Greetings from Pharr, TX., where we HAVE to run the air conditioner every day :-)

We've been here a week now and have things pretty well organized.  It took a few days to wash the trailer, car, and truck, to refill the fridge, and rest up a bit.  Now it's time to get down to the serious business of happy hours, dinners with friends, exercising,  going to the pool, stained glass class, gym, shopping, (Bernie's all alone on that one) going to the ocean, and on and on.  We're already back to trying to figure out how to fit it all into our schedule.

I have inserted a link (above) that will take you to some pictures if you're interested.  The picture I inserted here is to show where we set up our 5r for the winter.  We picked out this lot last fall and planned to be here if the 5r would fit and it did.  That tree to the left is an orange tree that provides me a with a nice fresh, sweet, orange for my breakfast every day.  I only pick them in the AM so they can fresh and cool for breakfast.  Sucks to be us...... :-)

We have had a great week although the  first few days were all catch up.  You wouldn't believe the road grime we had to take off of the 5r from two weeks on the road.  We didn't have any rain at all on the way down but we sure did have tons of road grime to wash off.  We got the fridge stocked, the flowers planted, the grass seeded, the stretch mat down, the bird feeder up, the bird bath down, and now we get to start all of the fun things.

Today we start our dance classes once again.  Friends/dance teachers Bob and Lynn (picture in the link above) are ready to take us on for the fourth straight year so we're good to go.  We haven't danced a step in 7 months so it will take a couple of lessons to get our legs back.  Bernie has been going to the gym, we've been walking, I have my bicycle all tuned up, so we plan to leave here in better shape than we are now.

Last Sunday Bob and Lynn took us to the "Shrimp Festival" in Brownsville/Port Isabelle.  It's quite an experience.  Imagine a huge area fenced in by a few dozen booths and inside each booth some restaurant or company is trying to get you to try their "Best Shrimp Dish."  In the center is a huge tent, holding a few hundred people, with a really good band blasting music from the 50's, 60's, 70's (they know the target market down here), the beverages are very cold, the sun is very hot, and nobody even mentions the swear word "calories."  Following way too many samples we went to a local eatery for some of the best shrimp Bernie and I have ever found.  This place uses some kind of spice in the batter of their butterfly shrimp that makes me drool, I could go back every day.  Fortunatelyy it's an hour away and we only go twice each winter.  Of course we have to follow it up with Italian Ice Cream from the shop on S. Padre Island.

From the restaurant we drove to S. Padre Island, for the previously mentioned ice cream.  There was a kite competition going on with every imaginable kind of kite in the air.  The wind here makes it a great spot for the sport.  Friends of Bob and Lynn just won a "World Championship" for precision flying.  They, along with three others, compete with small kites and fly them (8 of them) in precision maneuvers.  Teams come from Canada, Australia, and Europe to compete.  There are kites as big as cars, (see picture of fish kite in the link) kites of all shapes (see dog and bone in the link) and hundreds more.  It's an experience.

So that's about it for today.  I have to go and pick that fresh orange for breakfast, put on a pot of coffee, and wake my bride.  She likes to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee and I like to make it for her.

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by, and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal