Back in Mission !!!

As most of our friends know, we have been back in Mission since October 22nd. I have been trying to get caught up with the blog since then, but we really have been pretty busy.

First we had to get settled back in and open up the coach house, which survived the summer without any problem. That made me very happy. We started to shop for some furniture for the coach house, but have not had any luck yet. I want a wall unit, where I can store all the stuff we hauled around this year and never used, but everything down here seems to be very massive looking and made out of dark wood. Ikea, where are you when I need you!!!!! The closest one is 300 miles away and that is so much to drive just to look for a wall unit and have to drive it back here, if we find something we like. So we might have something build for us. As if I needed another project for right now!

The first thing we did after we got back was to give both our vehicles a well deserved bath. It is amazing just how dirty the cars and the rig get when traveling down the road. I started on the rig this week, but it will take me a while to finish it. It is still to hot in the daytime to work on it while the sun is beating down on you. I am sure my friends from the east coast fully understand my dilemma :-). The weather was pretty much in the high 80 low 90 degrees in the daytime and about 70 degrees in the nighttime for the last three weeks. And then the first real cold front came through last night. I actually got the electric heater out and it got down to 40 degrees here last night. For us that is really cold!!!! Daytime temps for the next few days are supposed to be in the mid 70's, which will be fine for me, since I want to continue cleaning/waxing the rig.

Another one of my projects is our small "garden" at our RV site. The roses are still blooming like crazy and I have to trim off the old blooms every week to make sure the new ones can still come up for a while.


I wonder how much longer we will have roses. They are just so beautiful. We also have this bluish ground cover plant that has been attracting a ton of butterflies each day.

They look like Monarchs, but I have been told that the Monarchs left about two months ago. We can easily have about twenty butterflies on this bush in the afternoon and it looks so pretty. I really love sitting outside and watch the butterflies. Two other ladies and I have started our own vegetable garden this year and are growing bell peppers, tomatoes, green beans, peas, lettuce, scallions and radishes. We could not find plants for most of the veg's and started them from seeds. They actually started growing within a week. The sun and humidity really are helping us with our garden. It is just amazing to me, since I never had a vegetable garden in my life.

To add to all this excitement, Doug's right foot started acting up already again and we finally went to a foot specialist to find out what is going on. He has been having problems throughout the summer, but normally about every two months. This time it did not take four weeks for the pain to return. It is hard to go to a doctor when you travel as much as we do, since most of them want to see you for a follow up. Well, it is good that we are stationary for a while now. We got an appointment, the doctor wrapped and taped his foot and gave him some heavy pain/anti-inflammatory pills and asked us to come back in a week. Doug has capsulites (inflammation of the ligaments around the joint in his foot) and an inflamed/swollen nerve in his ankle. We went for the follow-up visit last Friday and the wrap came of. He is feeling much better and now has insoles for his shoes. If that does not help the swollen nerve, he will have to have shots. We will go back this coming Friday for another evaluation. I am so happy that we are here for a while and can take care of this problem. It has been on my mind a lot, since at one point this summer we had to stay for an extra day on a long drive, because he was in to much pain to drive the truck. That is really scary to me, but again, we will get it all fixed hopefully while we are down here. I have also found a primary care physician and we will get our physicals later this month. It was time to establish a family doctor again, since we are running out of medications and have not seen a doctor since we left New Jersey.

There has been a lot more things that we have done in the last three weeks, but I don't want to bore you guys and most of it has to do with housekeeping and making this new rig our HOME. As you can see, it has been a busy time, especially when you have "Happy Hour" every day at 4 pm and then there is the water aerobics three times a week. Life is just sooooooo stressful down here :-). I would not trade it for anything else right now.

I promise I will update you guys again, but it might not be every Sunday as I have tried to do over the summer. Things will slow down here eventually and we will be just hanging and relaxing for a while. It sounds so good. So stop by in about every two weeks and we should have some more stuff to report.