New Year - New Decade

I was driving in the car yesterday and Spectrum radio was playing a top 28 of the 2010’s. That’s when it hit me that we were not only entering a new year but a new decade. Damn, I’m getting old. A whole decade whirled by and I barely noticed. I have a vivid memory of my friends and I standing on the playground in grade school, discussing how old we would be in the year 2000. That milestone was 20 years ago! Several years ago my Dad told me that at a point in my life, time would not just be going by fast but I would actually feel the sensation of acceleration of time passing. I think it’s safe to say I’ve reached that point.

It started me thinking about where Champ and I were in our journey in 2010. We had been married for 8 years; I was entering the severe burn-out stage of my career but wasn’t aware of it yet. It was the year our youngest got married. We were also in the fantasy stage of the life we are living now. We had held some of those late-night campfire meetings about how cool it would be to sell everything and be the volunteers we met in the campgrounds we frequented. Since 2010, we sold our acreage and moved into town thinking we would never be full time. We’ve had 4 grandkids born since then and somewhere along the line, I retired early we sold the place in town and are now entering our fourth year as full time RV volunteers.

Thinking about the past year, is about like any other year. There were some good things that happened and some not so good things. In the past 12 months we have met people who are now in our regular communication circle as a result of our travels and seen some new places. I am excited for the next year and the next decade. As I look ahead another decade to the beginning of 2030,  I marvel that our youngest child’s oldest son will be 18 years old. Our oldest grandson will be nearly 40 and the youngest of the grandkids will be in high school.  In 10 years, I will be applying for Medicare and Champ will be 78, yikes! Hopefully, we will still be working and travelling around the country.   In 10 years, I imagine we will be among the old timers at Saylorville Lake in the summers having 14 years under our belts as work campers there, by then. I’d like to believe our rig will be paid off, but trades seem to make that a life sentence that we choose.

In my mind, I have been developing a sort of decade bucket list for the 2020’s. I want to tour the Pacific Northwest and work camp at Glacier National Park. Given our strong desire to be in Iowa through the summer months, that will require a good deal of sacrifice at some point. I want to spend a winter in the Florida Keys. That is on the schedule in 2 years at a NWR we are scheduled to volunteer at in ‘21/’22. I would love to venture down the Baja Peninsula some winter and work in Alaska one summer. I dream all these things assuming of course the Champ and I will be eternally the age we are now. But if you don’t believe that what would one accomplish?  I look ahead with the best of hope that we will both stay healthy and active till we are a ripe old age and someday come off the road together by our own choice when we have done all we want to do. I can’t begin to wrap my head around how many more people we will know ten years from now when I am looking forward to the dawn of the 2030’s.

In the meantime, we don’t know what the next decade holds, or tomorrow for that matter. Who will we know, who will we have lost? Will be both still be alive?  What places will we see that we never dreamt of? What kind of cool jobs will we get to do? Life is full of unknowns. That is what makes it so much fun. Scenery changes, people come in and out of our lives and the wheels on the bus go round and round.

Until next time…

Another Snowbird Christmas

We are starting to get the hang of the whole snowbird Christmas routine. It will never be easy, but we get through it and have some fun along the way. This year was decidedly more social than ever before. Sitting here stuffed and exhausted on Christmas night I realize it ended up being a three-day event, with a little burp on Tuesday morning when we both worked for the park till Noon.

We have seen golf cart parades in other parks, but here at Llano Grande, they took it to a new level. They were more like floats than golf carts. We had never seen anything like it. The party started at the Events Center where over twenty decorated carts lined up and people could walk around voting. Some participants were vying for votes in the form of shots as we walked around and checked them out. After an hour-long parade through the park they gathered again at the Rec Hall at our end of the park and continued the party and awarded prizes from the voting. We congregated at our friends down on the corner to watch the parade go by and got so busy visiting with other volunteers we had just met that evening we missed the award ceremony. Realizing we had reveled through dinner time we broke up around 9 pm grabbed a quick late bite to eat and headed to bed so we could get up and report to work at 7 am the next morning.

Parade Winners

Runner Up

After our busy Christmas Eve morning with the park, we continued the festivities with Will and Judy at the home we were invited to on Thanksgiving. This time Paul and Cindy joined us, and we basked in the warm afternoon at the home of Kelly and Linda and much of their family. We marvel at the warm, welcoming way of Texans. Complete strangers will invite us into their homes as tagalongs from a mutual friend and make us feel like we’ve known them for years. It has happened that way all three winters we have been in Texas. The people here are most definitely the main draw for us to return to Texas.  After spending the afternoon at Kelly and Linda’s we headed back home to exchange gifts ourselves.

Kelly and Linda's place. Our wonderful hosts are at my left in the photo

Not a bad setting for a Christmas gathering. 

Somewhere along the way on Monday night we organized a Christmas morning communal breakfast with work camping friends here.  John and Cathy had plans to come over from Laguna Atascosa and spend Christmas with us as well. We awoke on Christmas morning to 60 degrees and brilliant sunshine. Hosting the breakfast was a welcome distraction to help us work through the yearly Christmas morning funk that we both find ourselves in. Face time with the kids and grandkids, lots of texting pictures back and forth is a double-edged sword. It makes us happy to see them and talk to them but depresses us at the same time. 10 of us enjoyed a huge potluck style feast, talked about our video chats with grandkids that morning, the angst about being away during the holidays and took calls and texts from family and friends. We disbanded around Noon. But it didn’t end there…

Christmas Brunch with friends 

Last year in Florida, our friends from Maine helped me connect with their neighbors and long-time friends, who are avid birders and spend their winters in Texas. They arrived last week and called me. I told them about our plans to check out the Butterfly Center near them and invited them to join us.  a Today we met them and spent a couple of hours getting to know each other as we shared our favorite hobby. I was in heaven with John, Cathy, and Judy and Marlin all very experienced birders on my flanks to explore the area. The wildlife viewing was mediocre, but the company was awesome. I saw a few butterflies that were new to me, and plan to return in March when the flowers are peaking, and the butterflies will be much more plentiful. It was a nice introduction both the Judy and Marlin as well as that area of Texas for birding and butterflying.

Me with my new friend Judith

John and Champ goofing around

Laviana White Skipper

Zebra Heliconian

This was our first snowbird Christmas that didn’t involve a park potluck. As far as Christmases go it was a very memorable one for us. No matter what we do in future years, something tells me, Christmas 2019 will be a memorable one.

Merry Christmas from Champ and Britt

Until Next Time….

Enjoy The Cold While It Lasts

“Enjoy the cold while it lasts”.  Those were the parting words of the weather reporter on the local news tonight. Highs in the Rio Grande Valley have been swinging between the lower 90’s and lower 70 ‘s. The cool temps last about 36 hours.

I’ve been lax about taking pictures, so far, this year. It’s not that we have been sitting idle, I have just lost my lust for the camera lens temporarily if you can believe that. We celebrated our good friend, Will’s 80^th birthday, attended the Christmas Party for the pharmacy I’m working for and the Resort’s Work Camper Christmas Party this past weekend. For most of the week, I’ve been pouting about our commitment here preventing me from being on the trip to Europe with my Aunt and five of my cousins. It is a trip I’ve been trying to do for years and this was the year to do it. But the work camping gig would not allow me the time off. I thought I had accepted the reality till my Google Calendar went off on Sunday evening reminding me I had a flight to catch the next morning. ( I forgot the travel agent synced  the itinerary when I initially booked the trip)  I have spent the week reminding myself of all the good things that this winter has placed in our path. I wondered to myself what would have happened if I had not been upfront and called them to get their blessing for the time off and just dropped it on them when I arrived this fall. Others in the park have done just that and gotten away with it. I don’t think the park is thrilled with the situation, but they didn’t kick them out either. I know I have missed a trip of a lifetime with extended family in a place I have longed to see for most of my life, but things happen for a reason. So, the week went on and I sit here this evening recalling the alternative experiences I have had in place of the trip down the Danube.

Friday evening, as Judy and I walked to the truck, just ahead of Will and Champ as we left a great Italian restaurant where we celebrated Will’s Octogenarian rite of passage’ we talked about the enduring features of a southern Christmas Season that northerners never really fully process. Like the sound of crickets and frogs while you look at Christmas lights and seeing garden tractors and grills on the sidewalk at Lowe’s instead of snowblowers.

I have a hard time processing the fact that we have only been gone from Iowa for 8 weeks. Nine, days after we put the jacks down in Texas I started my bookkeeping adventure for a local pharmacy. I talk often about this life presenting opportunities to do things we never thought we would do. Keeping the books for a pharmacy is definitely in that category. I have had one of the most professionally challenging experiences of my career in this, my semi-retirement. I took the job coming into a small well-established operation that lost its bookkeeper of 13 years and had been basically running on auto pilot for 4 months before I came into the picture. I was hired to be a fixer. My departure in late March was out on the table from the beginning and the plan is for me to clean things up, get the train back on the rails and groom an existing employee ( with no bookkeeping experience) to step up and take over when I leave.  They hired me to come in and take over. There is no training in a deal like this.  I have no experience in the pharmacy business, but know accounting processes. You go in, figure it out and apply your knowledge and experience. I’m more like a contractor than a part time employee. It’s a fascinating and eye-opening experience to see the inner workings of an industry that I generally shun. I go out of my way to avoid the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to putting things in my body. The people who own it are wonderful, down to earth people. Getting to know them is the real gem in the center of this experience. Yes, I’ll make some money and pay some bills, but the big take away will be meeting Ruben and Rosemary. They treated their staff to dinner out, some fun games, prizes and Secret Santa gift exchange Saturday evening. It was a long way from the stuffy bank Christmas Parties of my past.

At the park I am gaining experience in the reservation office and will leave with a working knowledge of the Campground and Resident Manager software used by most parks across the country. The park management hosted a fun meal and party for the nearly 100 work campers here at the resort. The event filled our Sunday evening to rounded out a weekend of holiday and birthday revelry.

Christmas is a week away. The pictures of grandkids visiting Santa are filling my inbox. We still look at long driveways and for a moment think what a pain it must be to plow them, before we remember there is no snow here.  We are planning to spend Christmas Day with good friends we met on our first volunteer gig in 2016. Others we met on the road over the years are arriving in South Texas and plans to see them are being put on the calendar. We will keep ourselves busy and try not to wallow in the sadness of not being with family.  As I talk to other snowbirds, I am reminded none of us ever get over the depressing feeling of not being with the kids for Christmas. We are thankful for technology like video phone calls and Amazon Prime.

As we search for a sweatshirt to put on for these cool days, we are reminded by the locals that this cool weather is welcome by them and they will indeed ‘enjoy the cold while it lasts’.

Until Next Time…

Dancing and Dinner

Friday’s are Dance and Dinner. I say it in that order by design. Most people call a good night out Dinner and Dancing. Allow me to illuminate you. One of the included amenities here at Llano Grande is Friday Happy Hour with live entertainment and a huge dance floor to line dance, two step or do the Fonzi Shuffle, that my husband and many others like him do.

Here’s the hitch. In this 55 and over park where the 55’s like me are the approximate age of the general populations’ kids; Happy Hour is from 3PM – 5PM. I leave work at the pharmacy early on Friday’s so I can make this weekly ritual.  Everyone gathers in the mid afternoon in the dimly lit ballroom. The band plays, people dance, and BYOB coolers and snacks are welcome. I must admit, for a snowbird park on a Friday afternoon the bands are damned good. It only lasts for 2 hours so you can’t get in much trouble in that time. It’s wierd in that it's a little like going into an afternoon matinee’ at the movie theater and emerging at 5pm into daylight. Your brain forgets that it is still light out in the dimly lit afternoon venue. Live music and dancing are generally associated with 8PM and later. So, the dancing and drinking happen first then we all leave in search of dinner. Last night was our friend, Paul’s birthday. His wife is out of town this week, so I brought birthday treats and got the band to sing Happy Birthday to him.  At 5:00 we all emerged from the building with diallated pupils squinting in the daylight and talked about where to scrounge up dinner. 

Happy Birthday Paul!

Last night we had one of those “better to be lucky than good” evenings. The usual Fish and Chips dinner was not offered at Happy Hour, so we all left hungry. Champ and I ventured into Mercedes to a pizza place everyone raves about. I eat pizza about 3 times a year, so it was a big night for me. Mercedes is a small border town. The pizza place is just off the Main Street of the historic downtown district. We saw street barriers being put up as we entered. Luck would have it that we found a street side parking space across from the pizza place. More luck would have it that the Lighted Christmas Parade was to take place at 6:30 and half block from our dinner venue! Timing was everything. We had our pizza which was very good, by the way, and just as we finished and left the building the parade was starting. We put our leftover box in the car and strolled all of 50 yards to the intersection to watch the lit parade.

It was a parade of true south Texas culture. We stood there in the dark, in our shorts and sleeveless shirts. It was still 80 degrees and the warm light southern breeze was wafting up the street. Marching bands and beautifully lit floats carrying Santa and the kids led the way, churches and local Ag Queen floats were next, a few local politicians running for Mayor, City Council and State Legislature followed. Then, it got fun! Big 4WD trucks lit within an inch of their lives, music and horns blaring; sporting the names of local businesses followed. The street was lined with robust holiday revelry and Christmas spirit! We literally stumbled into it.

That set the tone for the rest of the evening. We drove back to the park and spent 45 minutes driving around looking at the holiday light displays at the sites around the park. Yep, it’s a big park. Now that our holiday spirit has been awakened, we will spend tomorrow decorating our own place inside and out.

Until next time…