HDT Luncheon

Yesterday we had the HDT (Heavy Duty Truck) luncheon here at our clubhouse at Retama Village. We attended a gathering two years ago, before we had a big truck and it is always fun to get together with your friends for lunch. You did not need to look at the clock to know that the gathering had begun. These big trucks sure make a lot of noise when starting up, since the guys had to drive their trucks over to the club house to show them of. Unfortunately our truck is in the shop right now getting a new smoke stack, so you won't see our truck in these pictures.

We all brought a dish to pass, which means a salad or desert and the club provided the hot dogs, burgers, and sausages.

A good time was had by all as you can tell by the pictures.


We sure are going to miss our friends when we leave here this year, but I'll explain that some other time.

Village Yard Sale

This is the second year that I participated in the Retama Village Yard Sale. We have so much stuff in the coach house that we have not used in the last three years that I decided that I surely would not miss it now. Even though we are having the yard sale in February this year, it was sooooo cold. As usual, a whole group of us set up "shop" at Larry and Linda's lot.


We all had very interesting stuff to sell and just like last year, we had a nice crowd. It sure helps being the first stop as soon as you enter Retama.

And even though we had fun at the yard sale, trying to stay warm as the sun picked out every so often from behind the clouds, I was glad when it was over. I am just not good at haggling and apparently that is a big part of shopping at a yard sale.

Winter has arrived in Mission!!

I know that winter arrived down here every year, however, in the four years that we have been down here, it has never been this cold. The news said that is has not been this cold in the valley in the last 20 years. Look at the before and after pictures of my poor pansies.


As you can tell, the bed sheet was not long enough to cover them all. We will see if they will come back. Right now they are covered with ice.

The whole mess started on Wednesday when the weather report was calling for a hard freeze warning, which means it will be below freezing for an extended time over night. The lowest we measured was 28 degrees. We decided to to fill up the fresh water tank in the rig and unhook the water hose, just in case. Next came an email from the developer asking us to cover any exposed pipes, so that they will not burst. At that time I decided to cover up my panties as best I could.



By last night the weather report called for freezing rain and maybe some snow. They actually closed two highways around here, since the roads were icing up. This is what we woke up to this morning.


As you can see the sun is out and the ice should be melting fairly quickly. We have one more night of temperatures below freezing and then we will be able to hook up the water again, so I can do laundry, which is starting to pile up. This is our third day of sitting in the rig and I can't wait for the weather to get just a little bit warmer, so we can go outside again.

Another Big Job Done!!!!

You might remember that we replaced the gasket on the dining room side last summer while we were in Iowa. Unfortunately we realized to late that the gasket on top of the slide is a different type then the gasket for the sides. Since we had no choice at the time, we installed the same gasket all the way around the slide.

Since we are now sitting still in South Texas, we ordered the correct gasket and decided on Monday to install it. The cold is coming and we figured that we can recuperate from this big job for the next few days. Taking the wrong gasket off was fairly easy and was done in about 15 minutes. Then started the hard part. The flap on the new gasket is a lot longer and it is harder to slide the material between the slide and the top wall of the rig to clip in the gasket.



It took as a good three hours to install the 16 feet of gasket, but I am happy to say it is done. Now I can tend to my "wounds".

Since the slot to install the gasket is very narrow, my knuckles as well as my elbows gave some skin for the cause. As Larry said with a grin on his face "Your hide gets thinner when you get older and it comes of easier". I guess I am getting older!!

Another project done!!

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last posted. Thanks to my Dad reminding me last weekend, I decided I better get my butt in gear. Somehow time just seems to be moving very fast this year and we really have not gotten much done yet.

Well, to continue from where I left of last time.... We spend Christmas Day dinner with friends at the Clubhouse and had a very nice time.



As always there was plenty of good food and we ate way to much!! We spend New Years Eve at home with a nice bottle of wine, a good meat and shrimp fondue and actually managed to stay up till midnight after watching all the different firework shows on TV. It is amazing how much fireworks they shoot off down here. It started at around 10 pm and lasted well after midnight.

So the New Year began well and then the weather turned bad. It has been cold, cloudy and wet for most of the month. It seems we get about two warm days and then the next low comes in and it is cold, cloudy and drizzly for the next 5 days and than the whole thing starts all over again.

Ever since we came back to the valley Doug has been talking about getting a camera/monitor system installed on the truck so it would be easier to see the hitch when hooking up as well as eliminating a lot of his "blind right side" when making a left hand turn. Sounds complicated, but you will see what I mean in a minute. It took a while to install the two cameras as well as hide all the cable inside the cab of the truck, due to the lousy weather, but it is finally done. This is the "hitch" camera and the view Doug has when sitting in the truck.

The hitch camera is mounted on the back of the cab and we will paint a white strip on the hitch and the kingpin, so that Doug can line up the two lines and make hitching up a lot easier.
The second camera is the one that I thought is most important.

This camera is mounted in the side panel behind the passenger door and gives a wide angle view on what is coming on the passenger side of the truck. We took the truck for a test drive after the installation and it was amazing to see just how much more you can see. It sure should make things a lot easier for Doug when turning left at an intersection o on an exit ramp of the highway.

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.