February almost gone!

La Feria, TX  Warm and humid today -- had 1/2 inch of rain yesterday and has tried to rain several times today.

Photo at right was taken off Facebook.  Cousin Kent Miles and wife Karen were visiting one of the Union Pacific Big Boys.

 Patty Steckelberg at the Valentines Day dinner at the Rec Hall on the 14th. 

Our Activity Director Allison and her husband Gary at the Valentines Day Dinner.  She did a fine job.

One day we went to Mexico at Progreso. Patty took this picture.

Some flowers in "our" pharmacy on the south side of the Rio Grande River.

Some more flowers in "our" pharmacy on the south side of the Rio Grande River.

Playing Concentration card game with the Winslows.

The girls looking over jewelry while in Mexico.

Played Pegs & Jokers at the Raab's.  At left is their daughter who was visiting from Minnesota.  Beside here is Denny Arment and then Bobbi Raab.

Denny, Bobbi and Bob Raab, Phyllis.

Phyllis and Raab's grandson Derick.

Derick, Patty Steckelberg and meinself-Lynn Miles.  Pony tail of Derick's mom is at left in photo.

 Went to the local church at the Rec Hall on a Sunday when a quartet performed from Rio Grande Bible Institute (Click here) They will be traveling and doing mission work this summer.  We ate lunch with them at a new restaurant here in La Feria.  Top photo, Patty Steckelberg, Phyllis Miles, member of quartet.  Below, same fellow, Harold & LaRoahda Nehr from Hiawatha, KS and next to them the minister & his wife from Bibleville.

 

Three more of the quartet with one of the teachers from the institute second from left.

Ila Mae Newell from Callendar, IA (in the blue) has been coming to this park for 32 years and has sold her unit and won't be returning.  They had a nice farewell gathering for her.

 Ila Mae was surprised by a collection of family photos on display, and several gifts and cards.

 The three of us spent several hours on Saturday morning the 14th at the Rio Grande Valley Music Festival (Click here)   We listened at several of the 5 stages and enjoyed it.

We really enjoyed Gary Smith in blue in this photo.
I bought several of his tapes.  He was born and raised in Denton, TX and now lives in Nashville, TN.  We sat through two sessions of his on two different stages -- he told the story about how each of the songs he sang came about, what was happening that brought about the song.

Cecil & Diane Sunderman, from Clarinda, IA, spent a few minutes in the Rio Grande Valley and stopped by our place for a bit one day.

 Oliver & Mary Jo Herzberg, from Villisca, IA, who spend winters near us in another RV Park, came over and we took some pictures outside.

Cecil & Diane Sunderman, Phyllis Miles, Mary Jo & Oliver Herzberg, Lynn Miles.  Behind us is the new addition to our place.

We have Pot Luck suppers twice a month.  Good food and good visiting.

This last Sunday we drove west to Los Ebanos, Texas where there is a hand-drawn ferry across the Rio Grande River.  At $1 apiece each way we rode over and back.  Had to go through customs on US side with our Passports.  Quite a few vehicles were coming from the Mexico side over -- all we saw had Texas licenses on them.

Five guys are pulling on the rope to propel the ferry across the water.

 We spent time Saturday at Santa Ana National Refuge   Rode the tram and heard good narration of the area, animals and birds.  We then walked some of the trails and listened/saw many birds and ducks.

 Doris & Lyle Winter came by for a visit one afternoon.

Last night we played cards with Bill & Darlene Winslow and then enjoyed some delicious pie and coffee.

Patty heads back to Iowa on Friday morning -- to the cold and snow it sounds like.  We will be leaving in about another month and this year we will head pretty much towards home.  Plan to stop to see a few people on the way home, including brother Don and his wife Vicki in southeast Missouri.

Later, Lynn

End of another week in RGV

Last Saturday we went with Jim & Lavin Boozer to a Big Band Jam in Pharr, TX

Photo of Beth & Steve Gregory and Phyllis & Lynn Miles - taken in Colorado several years ago.

Photo of my brothers and sister taken in Lincoln, NE a week before she passed away.

Grabbed this off Facebook this week -- my Nephew Keith Miles, his wife Becky and their oldest daughter Tiffany -- in Lincoln, NE

Some of the people at our all-Iowa pot luck lunch at the Rec Hall Wednesday.

Later, Lynn

Books

Have been reading lots of books, most on Kindle. 

17 Cents & a Dream: My Incredible Journey from the USSR to Living the American Dream by Daniel Milstein

American Legends: The Life of Bob Hope by Charles River Editors

American Legends: The Life of Grace Kelly   by Charles River Editors

American Legends: The Life of Jimmy Stewart by Charles River Editors

Anna Karenina  by Leo Tolstoy

The Battle of the Little Bighorn: The History and Controversy of Custer's Last Stand       by Charles River Editors

The Day Before 9/11 by Tucker Elliot

The Line, the Itch and the Rabbit Hole by David Jester

The Citizen by Matthew McCollum

Just Farr Fun by Jamie Farr and Robert Blair Kaiser

 

Brrrr

I know it is cold in most of the country now, and this may seem warm, but it has been 36 degrees all day with a strong north wind and misty rain all day.  Pretty much undesirable.

 Wednesday, after doing our 3-month doctor visit and going to the airport to get Patty's luggage that showed up in Harlingen a day after she flew into Corpus Christi (due to fog the plane circled Harlingen and went back to Houston in the morning) and we picked her up there about 4:00 pm Tuesday,

we went down to Brownsville, TX to Texas Gulf Trawling where we got lots of information about shrimping.  Got tour of a shrimp boat that will be in the water Friday.  Showed us how the nets are deployed and told of the 50-some day trips the crew must make to stay out until the freezer is filled.  They "head" the shrimp, rinse them with water and a chemical I can't recall the name of that keeps the black off them when exposed to air, and then put them in plastic tray like containers with lids, fill them with water and quick-freeze them, turn the containers over and fill them with water again and freeze again and then they are stored below deck in a 0 degree freezer until unloading later.

Phyllis had her hand up in time to be one of the contestants in a little contest to remove the shell so she won a 1 1/2 lb. box of shrimp and the little tool by removing the shell of 5 shrimp a little faster than another lady.

 The owner telling about shrimping.  His company makes shrimp boats to sell, and have several that do the shrimping.  They contract with the captain who gets his own crew and decides how to pay them (percentage of catch).

        Looking up at the nets.  The round metal item with the parallel rods are turtle excluders.

The metal object at the left of this photo is the gate that spreads and forms the opening of the net when it is under water.  The shrimp actually live under the mud and sand at the bottom of the gulf and the nets are drug directly on the bottom.  Log chains are drug ahead of the opening which riles up the mud and brings the shrimp up enough to get into the net.

Guy at right is a "header".  He is holding the shrimp in his gloved hand and pops the heads off with his thumb.  He has to go through the whole pile of shrimp, heading them and putting the shrimp into baskets, flushing them with sea water and then filling the basket with a very heavy salted water and putting them in the quick-freezer before the next pulling-in of the net in 30 minutes to an hour or more.

He told about the quadrupling of diesel price and the fluctuation of shrimp prices that usually didn't keep up.    He elaborated on the farm-shrimp raising in foreign countries that have devastated the price of wild caught shrimp and the antibiotics usually used in such farm raised shrimp and the unfairness of the different countries tax levied on the shrimp shipped to the US.

We got to eat boiled shrimp that had just come in from a boat a few days ago, though for some reason I did not get a picture of them--guess too busy eating.

Monday was the February Kenwood Residents Association meeting.  Phyllis is Treasurer so was on the stage.

Took this photo of Bob Rabb supervising Bobbi Rabb planting some flowers in their front yard.  They are just 2 houses down from us.

Last Sunday several people met in Weslaco at a Chinese Buffet with Lyle & Doris Winter and their daughter Kate who had been visiting a while from Minnesota.

One evening Phyllis had several people at our place for Pegs & Jokers.  Photos here were taken during a break between games.  At left is Bev Mayer, Ardel Finken, Phyllis Miles, and Harold Nehr.

Rest of table, at left is Marion Finken, Gordy Maher, LaRohda Nehr, and Lynn Miles.

Received the group photo of our Neihart Tour group that was taken in San Diego in early January.  This was on the morning that we pulled out of San Diego and started east.




I started writing this post yesterday (Thursday).  Is now Friday - was 33 degrees here this morning, but with not so much wind.  Humidity as high as could be without actually raining.  Good day to stay in after we got back from stretching exercises and did a mile on trike around park.  Girls are heading out now to get some groceries and don't think too much activity planned for the day.

Have posted start of February photos to my Picasa page Click HERE

Later, Lynn