The Merry Marsden Travels

Another week has gone by in sunny Texas and now I have to try and remember what we did special this past week. There has been lots of golfing since the weather has been nice. Here is a picture to show this to be true. Don goes out to men's golf on Monday mornings and I tried Ladies Golf on Thursday morning and didn't embarass myself too badly. At the weekly park meeting it was announced that there are 875 residents in the park now and some more expected in the next 2 weeks. I went to the evening entertainment on Tuesday evening - "Gold Wing Express" - a father and 3 sons from Branson Missouri - very good musicians/singers and funny too. Spanish class is an hour on Wednesday and we have homework too but it may need alot more time than that to get it to sink into our brains. Wednesday afternoon, Don and I went into old McAllen for a massage - a deal out of the newspaper - we each had a 45 minute full body relaxation massage for a total of $45.00 - it was a good deal. On...

It has been a disappointing rainy cool week in Texas but we manage to do what we can - no swimming or golf for a few days - but no snow either so we can't complain. We did go on a outing on Thursday night to Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen (across from the McAllen International Airport). It is one of the largest remaining adobe homes built in Texas and dates back to 1935. There is a cottage and hooch (3, 325 sq ft)and a main house( 6,739 sq ft)( all constructed of 12 inch adobe block). An unusual feature of the house was the aluminum sulfate paint on the inside and out to prevent radar waves from penetrating the building. There was 25 x 55 ft adobe block bathing pool. When constructed, the pool was all one depth, that being 12 feet. It was known as a draw and fill pool, as it had no filtration system. It had to be drained and refilled whenever the water became dirty. It was filled from a freshwater well located at the back of the cottage. The owner would attach a six-inch pipe at an air...

Got to catch up again. Did go on the long bike ride to McAllen last Monday morning - great until we had to bike back from Country Omelette with full bellies and into the wind? Wednesday's Mystery Tour went to the "Museum of South Texas History" in Edinburg - a town northwest of us. It was very well done for the history of the Rio Grande Valley from prehistoric times to 2000. Lots of unrest in this area due to border disputes with Mexico. This is also a rich agricultural area - with the help of irrigation for the crops of cotton, sugarcane, citrus and vegetables. One building was the original jail complete with gallows. Lunch that day was at a barbecue place and then we came back to the RV Park. We did have another adventure to a soup and sandwich fundraiser at another mobile home park not too far away but that wasn't too exciting. We will try to be more exciting this coming week. I am off on another bus ride tomorrow to an aloe vera farm?

Sunday, January 2/11 Maureen (cousin Don's wife) and Gail from Manitoba and I visited the Our Lady of San Juan del Valle Basilica in San Juan - about 5 miles from our RV Park. This shrine averages more than a million visitors a year and is one of the most visited shrines in the United States. We arrived today while a Spanish mass was going on with capacity attendance - 3500 in the basilica - floor and balcony seated and about 2000 standing and more people outside. It was the 4th mass of the day with 2 more scheduled. The history of this Marian shrine began in 1920 as a small wooden chapel. A bigger church was built in 1954 but was destroyed in 1970 by a tragic event. While 50 priests were concelebrating mass with another 50 people in attendance, and 100 school children in an adjacent cafeteria, the pilot of a small low-flying airplane crashed into the roof of the shrine and exploded into flames - the pilot was the only fatality. A new shrine was built and dedicated in 1980. The be...

We have experienced our first Christmas as Winter Texans (WT). On Christmas Eve we attended a Candlelight Service in the Trophy Gardens Clubhouse - followed by fingerfoods - yummy. On Christmas Day, we had a potluck Christmas Lunch with 300 other WTs in the Clubhouse. There were 12 large tables set with each table having their own potluck - ours had ham and turkey. The food was great and plenty of it so we went back at 5:30 for leftovers. We did manage to take a walk inbetween the feasts. My Christmas present from Don was an hour lesson with a golf pro at a local golf course that our neighbour here arranged. I learned alot but time will tell if anything sunk in. Don must have been watching because he almost had a hole in one yesterday. The little ball stopped 4 inches in front of the hole on the 7th green. Today I too k off for an adventure to the coast - a 2 hour boat tour out of a marina on South Padre Island. The tour was arranged with the tour bus that is onsite at Trophy Gardens ...

Wed. Dec 22/10 Thought you might be wondering if we are keeping busy - and yes we are. We go golfing on the 9 hole Par 3 golf course that is attached to our park every day - no charge and noone laughs at our pathetic strokes. The weather has been lovely with mid day temps in the 80s so we spend some of the afternoon at the pool and may get back in some time in the evening. I have been teaching a morning exercise class 2 x per week. An exercise class runs Mon-Friday but when I don't do it, it is Richard Simmons or Debbie Reynolds so mine is a change for the ladies here. We are in a new site in the park this year so we get to meet new people - most people are older than us - alot from Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Minnesota, The Dakotas - very friendly. Yesterday Don gave me an early Christmas present - my first golf lesson with a pro at a nearby club. This was arranged by a neighbour here who works parttime as a marshall at that club. It is amazing how many things I was doing wrong. The nei...

Yes we have been here for a day now. It is windy but it is a warm wind. We started out at 6AM on Saturday morning and headed down the 401 and crossed over at Sarnia. We were ahead of the bad weather predicted. We travelled through Michigan and rain started in the late afternoon - but the temperature was above freezing so we were fortunate. We stopped for the night in Seymour Indiana. On the road again the next morning at 8 AM and the predicted cold temperatures had moved in but it wasn't snowing when we got going. The snow caught up with us before Nashville and the road to Memphis was hazardous with many cars in ditches due to slippery conditions. We were fortunate to be able to go around a pileup thanks to following a trucker down an off ramp and up the other side - the collision was on that overpass bridge. By the time we reached Memphis, the sun was out and there was no more snow. We spent Sunday night in Grenada, Mississippi - in a hotel room still because the temperature was w...