The Merry Marsden Travels

Easter 2014 We started out from Trophy Gardens in Alamo as planned on April 2/14 and landed our first night in New Braunfels to visit our Lakefield friends Marlene and Heinz Loth in their Texas home. We went for 2 lovely walks together and had a lovely dinner at the Gruene Gristmill (restaurant is a former cotton mill) followed by a walk around the historical town of Gruene. We walked through the Gruene Dance Hall - oldest continuous used Dance Hall in Texas. George Strait had his start here. The Texas Bluebonnets were in bloom on our drive north of San Antonio - known as Hill Country. April 3/14 - spent the night in a Fairfield Inn in  Mesquite, Texas - suburb of Dallas. April 4 - 5/14 - HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS We traveled north to spend a few nights with our Trophy Gardens' friends, Rick and Brenda Watts in their beautiful huge condo in Hot Springs - boyhood home of Bill Clinton. The first afternoon we had a lovely pontoon boat ride on Lake Hamilton over to scenic Garvan Woo...

Monday, March 24, 2014   Damp cool day in Texas Good time to get caught up with this blog. Some of our Winter Texan friends have started the trip north. This winter has been cooler and damper than others we have experienced here but then the conditions up north have been a lot more wintery too. We still keep busy. Don completed his baseball season healthy but not victorious this year - even losing the US - Canada game. Many games had to be postponed due to bad weather. Don is staying fit by walking at least 10,000 steps a day encourage by his "fitbit force" wristband tracker. We enjoyed a "Texas Gold Shrimp" talk and boat tour one morning in the Brownsville Harbour in February. It is a family run Shrimp Company that has been doing these talks and tours for the past 2 winters for Winter Texans to educate them about the shrimping business and only consuming wild domestic shrimp and the reasons for that. I won a pound of shrimp and a shrimp shelling tool from a l...

February 2014 Trophy Gardens Alamo Texas Don and I started the trip south on November 24/13 from Lakefield - lunch with Gramma and Grampa Marsden in Toronto, dinner with Katie and Dave in Winona, overnight in St Catherines with Ellie and Jan and Lincoln Lech and crossed over the Canada/USA border on the morning of November 25th. We spent the next night along the route to Virginia ( our 35th wedding anniversary)and arrived at Tom and Diana's to celebrate Thanksgiving and the lighting of the Charlie Pugh's Christmas house next door. After a few days, Don and I moved further south to North Myrtle Beach for a week at Wyndham Towers timeshare resort right across the road from the Beach. Tom and Diana and the kiddies joined us there for a few nights and then moved on to Orlando for a week together enjoying each other, Disney World and Universal. Little Benjamin spent some quality time with Oma and Opa when the others went to the parks and even experienced two timeshare presentatio...

Monday, Oct 28/13       35th Anniversary Trip - Venice to Barcelona Started out in AM from Lakefield and had lunch with Mom and Dad Marsden in Toronto before parking at the Park and Fly Economy lot (1/2 price internet coupon) near YYZ for our 7:40 PM KLM Flight to Venice via Amsterdam. (Thought we may be flying Air France due to wind storm in England but this was cancelled.) Flew overnight on full 747 - no sleep in cramped seats in 31st row in middle - 6 hours - had gluten free meals). Tuesday, Oct 29/13 8AM to 10 AM in Amsterdam Airport and then smaller KLM 2 hour flight to Venice. Arrived to rain in Venice. Met Oceania personnel and bussed to ship Marina in Venice Harbour. Rain stopped. Settled in our Room 7063 (Veranda Stateroom), had lunch, looked around ship and then unpacked. M/S Marina is a medium sized cruiseship of Oceania Cruises with 15 decks,  8 restaurants, 1,250 guests and 800 staff from over 50 nationalities. Mary went to Venice Grand C...