Baltic Cruise – June 2019

First Week at Trophy Gardens, Alamo, Texas

We arrived around 1 PM on Wednesday, Dec 14/11 - sunny and warm and Texas windy. We extracted ourselves from our little Subaru Impreza and all the stuff we brought. Before we go home I must take an inventory of our clothes - we brought a bit too much cause we didn't remember what we left behind in April - we had to buy 20 more hangers.

At 3 PM I joined the neighbours at the clubhouse for a Brown Bag Christmas exchange - 100 people joined in with the exchange of $5 gifts in these brown paper bags - lots of bottles of wine, tins of popcorn and boxes of chocolates ( which everyone down here refers to as candy). I was fortunate to go back to the trailer with my new gift - 4 muffins and a loaf of homemade bread made by the neighbour across the road from us. Poor Don was back at the trailer still setting up things so the food came in handy since we hadn't shopped for food yet.

Thursday morning, I took Don's bicycle (mine has a flat tire - which happened right before we left last April) and joined the Bike Club here for a 10 mile ride - with a stop for breakfast at a restaurant - which was the destination. The weather was a bit cloudy but still warm. The afternoon was spent washing the Texas dust and dirt off the trailer. We had drinks later that evening at Rick and Brenda's new mobile home - they were leaving the next morning for their home in Hot Springs Arkansas for Christmas with their family.

Friday morning I went to exercise with the ladies in the Clubhouse to a 30 minute Jane Fonda dvd at 8 AM and did a line dancing session at the Clubhouse from 9 to 10 AM. In the afternoon we visited the local hardware store and signed up at the local library - but we do have a library in our clubhouse that may have more books. The weather has turned cooler and cloudy today and will be that way for a few more days. Don played poker with the boys in the Clubhouse in the evening and I caught up on my emails.

Saturday - still cool and rainy. I went with our Kincardine, Ontario friends - Bonnie and John - to a World Birding Centre in Edinburg for a talk and hike from an experienced birder - focusing on Winter Wetland Birds. It was weather for the ducks and we saw lots of them and herons and a flock of over 100 White Pelicans. Also learned that the Moorhen is now called the Common Gallinule. Meanwhile, Don took my bike to the Don West Flea Market Birke Repair Shop and had a new back tire installed on my bicycle.

Sunday - still rainy - vegetation is greener all the time. Highlight of the day was attending the Christmas Concert of the University of Texas-Pan American's award-winning Mariachi Aztlan Band at the UTPA Fine Arts Auditorium. The show also included performances by the Luz de Luna Folkloric Dance Ensemble and McAllen High School's Mariachi Band. It was a Christmas music day with carolling back at TG in the Clubhouse at 6 PM.