Christmas Eve - Eggs in a Bag

Today was the Christmas get together for the HDT group and we decided to have a brunch. It is a slightly gray day, since the cold front is supposed to come through tonight, but it was pleasant enough to sit out on the patio.

On the menu for brunch was egg in a bag and since I had no idea what that is, and therefore was not able to explain it to my dad during our video conference this morning, here are the instructions.

1) Get a ziploc bag and write your name on it. Make sure it is a ziploc brand bag, since cheaper bags apparently can break in the hot water and you loose your omelet.

2) Fill the back with two or three eggs (without the shells of course) and everything you might want in your omelet, like cheese, sausage, bacon, onions, etc. Close the bag and mix all ingredients as well as you can. Let the air out of the bag and put it on a tray with everybody else's bag.


3) Next, all the bags go into a big pot of boiling water and are being carefully watched by our two great cooks Larry and Linda.

4) While the bags were boiling in the water for 13 minutes, we started on the delicious coffee cake, banana bread, blueberry cake and cookies. :-)

5) Remove the bags after 13 minutes and guess what!!! It really kind of looks like an omelet and it tastes just great!!!


What else can you wish for at Christmas - great friends, great food - it does not get much better!! And now it is time for a nap!!

Mystery Night at Retama

Last weekend we had our annual mystery theater night at the Retama clubhouse. The theme was the "Murder at the Trailer Trash RV Park" and Doug had decided to take part in the play. It was a nice and warm evening for the group to put on this play. The characters in the play sure dressed their parts.


The play consisted of three acts with dinner being served during the intermissions. At the end we all got to guess who done it. This play sure was different, since the person that was supposed to be dead ended up still being alive in the end and I sure did not see that coming.


We all had a good time and by the time we were done, the cold front had arrived and we all headed back to our homes.

The weather has been somewhat strange this season. We warm up to about 80 degrees for a couple of days, than the cold front comes and we go down 20 degrees. Two days later we are back up to 80 degrees and then the next cold front shows up. We had three cold fronts in the last week and are expecting another one tonight.

This of course makes it a little bit difficult to work on the outside of the rig, but we have managed to get the axles on one side greased and the stems in two tires changed. Hopefully the weather will warm up again sometime next week and we can get the other side done.

Life does not get much better!!

We left Mission on Thursday morning at 7:45 am to start our 5 hour drive to Austin. The drive was pretty uneventful, the highways fairly empty and we got to Doug's dad house around 11:30 am. It is nice to spend holidays with family and between Doug's stepbrother, his dad, his wife Vee and her two sons with their wives and children, we had a pretty full house.


Dinner was served around 2 pm and everything was delicious. I love having big dinners with family. We left about 4 pm to start back on our 5 hour drive to Mission. A cold front was coming through, the temperature had dropped already 20 degrees when we left Austin, but we managed to get home around 9:30 pm before the cold front. By the time we woke up the next morning, it was in the mid 40's.

Friday we were invited to the Thanksgiving leftover dinner with our friends. Dave and Sue were gracious enough to lend us their huge living room in their new house, since it was to cold to sit outside. There was nothing leftover about this dinner and Dale was so sweet to make another pecan, chocolate chip and Southern Comfort pie. It was to die for and there was no piece left at the end of the dinner.



So now it is Sunday we just got back from Turkey soup dinner again at Dave and Sue's house. We had a humongous pot of turkey soup, bread, squash/raisin bread and brownies. The ladies cut up everything yesterday and made a most delicious soup for today.

Now you tell me. Can live get any better? :-)

Time flies when you are having fun!

I can't believe that we have been back for almost three weeks now. We have been busy, but it feels like time is just passing by to fast.

The Friday after we got back to Mission we went back up to New Braunfels, since Doug wanted to go to Wurstfest. Normally I am not that impressed with these celebrations, but it was not bad at all.


The food was good and it amazed me just how many of these old German drinking songs I remember, since I never used to like "Oktoberfest" in Germany. And just like last year the line for the potato pancake was so long and moving so slow that I gave up after 1/2 hour of waiting. We were told that people were in line for 1 1/2 hours for three potato pancakes. No pancake can taste that great for me to wait that long.

On the way back to Mission on Saturday, we decided to go see the USS Lexington before going home. We were up in Corpus Christi two years ago and had to leave after checking out the Aquarium early because of a bad storm coming in.

This ship is amazing. It took as four hours to check it all out. I had no idea that it is basically like a small city with a hospital, dentist, barber shop, post office and of course a big mess hall. The machine shop was pretty impressive too, never mind the huge area underneath the deck where they park the planes.

Don't I look great in the driver's seat?? Unfortunately they would not give me the keys to start the big boat, so I could not take it for a spin.

If anybody reading this blog has served in the Navy, please excuse my probably incorrect terminology, since somebody already told me I can't call this floating city a "boat". We had a blast and arrived back in Mission in the evening.

We have also been busy pressure washing out lot, washed the truck and the car, and I got my planting done for the season, unless we get frost again. Temperatures dropped down to 43 degrees last night.


We still have a very big "To Do List", so I am sure we will not get bored for yet a while.

Back Home in Mission!

We arrived back in Mission on Monday afternoon. It was hot, Doug fought head winds all the way down from Sattler, but I am glad we made it and are sitting still for a while now. The last three weeks have been crazy, so let me fill you in on what has happened.

First we were at the HDT rally in Hutchinson. It turned out to be a great rally with a pretty good turn out. I actually enjoyed the ladies outing that Thursday and as always the lunch was really good.

At one of the seminars, and there was a lot of them, one of the vendors brought this cool looking truck. Isn't it a beauty!!!

Friday came around and I was really excited, since we would finally get into the main picture without having to wait. I actually drove the truck to the meeting spot and parked it.

I think it is a pretty impressive picture to see all these big trucks come together for a week of fun and seminars. Here are some more pictures of some of our friends that were at the rally.




We left Hutchinson on Sunday and went 340 miles to Thackerville, OK. I love my new car so much!! Got into Thackerville without even feeling tired and went for a two day gambling session, since this is our last time gambling until we leave Texas in the spring.

Our next stop was Poolville, TX to go see 2L Custom Trucks for a quote on getting the truck repainted. It is not like it really needs it, but by now the front passenger fender has changed color and it is really annoying me. We actually got quoted a price that did not give me a heart attack.

We moved on the next day to go see Doug's dad and family in Austin, TX. I don't know what it is, but every time we go to Austin, we can't find room at a campground near by. So we decided to go down Route 281 to Johnson City and stay at a campground there. It was a straight shot from there to Austin. We will never (ever) do that again. I thought Route 281 was a four lane highway pretty much all the way down and I was sooooo wrong. Between it being a 2 lane highway most of the time and the steep hills up and down, our fuel mileage was lousy and Doug was not a happy trooper anymore. I thought it might be a pretty drive through the hill country, but I was wrong. We will not make this mistake again, but at least we had a nice dinner with Doug's dad, Vee and Jonathan.

Friday we moved on to our favorite campground in Sattler and rested up for next three days and went to our favorite German restaurant in New Braunfels, TX. I am glad to report that the food is still as good as we remembered. We wanted to go to Wurstfest, but unfortunately it is still a week away and we did not feel like staying at the campground for a week, when our lot in Mission is only 265 miles away. So on Monday we packed up for hopefully the last time this year and went back to Mission.

Kansas Underground Salt Museum

Hutchinson is known for its huge salt mine, which actually runs under the city. We did not have time two years ago to check it out, so we decided to do it Friday, before a lot of our friends were pulling in on Saturday.

When we arrived we saw this beautiful locomotive, which always remains me of my dad, who worked for the train company in Germany pretty much all of his life.

We went into the building to realize that the museum and the whole tour is actually 650' underground in the salt mine itself. We got our hardhat and a rebreather in case something would happen. In their whole history of being open since the 1920s, there had not been an accident, so we were pretty much at ease. However, the dark elevator going down 650' to the mine itself was not to my liking.

Arriving down there was pretty amazing. It is a comfortable 68 degrees all the time and a steady humidity.
The walking tour was pretty interesting. Since the shaft is so narrow, some of the equipment and cars that they use to get around in this vast tunnel system are just left behind, since it is to difficult to bring them back up to the surface.



Look at this awesome looking rock formations.

Saturday rolled around and right before lunch time the rigs started rolling in. I just love watching them come in, there is a lot of hugging the people we have not seen for the last six months and everybody just has a really good time, helping each other parking the rigs. We belong to a pretty neat group here!!!! And this year our big truck will be in the main picture!! I am so excited about this. We are expecting 40 rigs and here are pictures of a few of those.



Can you spot us in any of these pictures?