http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog Traveling with Larry and Linda: Blog Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:13:51 -0600 http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=d6a2ca36da9659f5eb15a11382711159_4b01f8cf Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:13:51 -0600 Finally got the new blog site up. Do a copy/past to see it. larry-linda.blogspot.com http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=b9cbcc28cb423c468c5f68421fc905e1_4b0070e3 Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:21:39 -0600 I was trying to think of something to write about on today's blog than this morning Larry gave me something. David Cypcar and Larry decided to go for bike ride in the State Park and before leaving our park they saw three young fellows walking down one of our streets towards them. They waited to see what they were up to. Their first clue that maybe these guys weren't from around here was 1) they were in our park when the gates hadn't opened yet (not sure how they got in the first place) 2) sure didn't look to be over 55 years old 3) spoke very broken English 4) asked to use phones (Larry/David kept saying "have no phones" and 5) once Larry/David opened the front gate they no sooner got out and they were surrounded by border patrol and a helicopter. Let me clarify to our family/friends who think we are in crazy being here so close to Mexico. We do not feel we're in danger here, like Larry said even though you could tell these guys had probably spent the night out in the brush they were very polite and thankful to have the gate opened for them (not sure once they were surrounded if they were still as happy......). Obviously the border patrol had been watching them for some time and were just waiting for them to leave our park before arresting them. In talking with people that have been confronted with the illegal's they have all said that they are polite and never have felt in danger of being around them. Larry said he almost felt sorry for these guys, they were very young, maybe early 20's and probably spent a very scary night out in the bushes after swimming across the river. They had no idea where they were at (kept asking for Mission), other than they finally got to America only to be picked up and be returned to Mexico less than a half mile from the border. Some of these people have traveled for weeks to get here and paid thousands of dollars to smugglers only to be dropped off at river and left on their own. From what the border guys have said they would be told that Houston or Dallas is just a couple of miles once they crossed the river and they would never get caught. So that was the excitement at Retama today, I was in the exercise room the and only saw the helicopter hovering outside the gate so didn't get to see anything. Oh well. Guess that's it for now, till next time....... http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=d5ac491f8c867dcff9289aa48213add2_4afb5a18 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:43:04 -0600 I know it has been awhile since the last post. There's not to much happening around here to report. I'm still thinking about doing the new blog and one of these days I will. Just taking the time out of my busy schedule to set it up. We had a community meeting yesterday. Pretty much everyone that is here attended. Not sure where they are going to put people next month when more get here, the place is elbow to elbow now. The owner of development was there and explained the rules about the use of the new pontoon, atv and bikes that are available to us. It went on way too long and most of it was talking that wasn't really necessary but we learned a few things. Today we went over to friends Larry & LaVila down in Mercedes which is about a half hour from here. We met these neat folks back in 2006 out in the desert at Quartzsite AZ. Always enjoy spending time with them, except LaVila and I wonder why we let those two Larry's play together, always seem to have to out do the other and us girls seem to get the bunt end of it. Went to Gonzales Burgers for lunch, this is the hottest place for getting a hamburger. They grind their own meat first thing in morning, open the doors at 11:30 am and when the meat is gone the doors close. The menu consists of one size Hamburg, with either cheese or double cheese, fries, onion rings and water or can soda. Tables are the long ones that seat 10 so you get to know your table mates while you wait the half hour for your name to be yelled out. The place was packed and since these burgers are huge Larry and I split one, we both are still stuffed so "if" we have any dinner tonight it will be a P&J sandwich. Guess that's it for now, till next time............... http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=8eb5c49fe4ce9ff7843f01a1b5cc7295_4aeb88b1 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:45:37 -0500 One of the nicest things about coming down to the RGV is how the locals all try to make you feel so welcomed. That was one of the reasons that we purchased a lot here rather than say in Florida, that and of course the cost of the lot. It would have been nice to find a lot and park like this at a price we could afford in FL just because it would have been closer for the family to drive. When we spent winters in Florida and Arizona we did look around at parks and lots and at that time anything like this place was going for $80 to over $100,000, granted because of the economy now those prices have come down but still way over our budget. Anyway to get back to my first sentence, people and business's open their arms to the northerners by putting signs up every where saying "Welcome back Winter Texans". Last Saturday one of the couples here hosted Oktoberfest which was a complete success. Lots of food was prepared with the help of ladies in the village, it turned out to be a perfect night to eat out on the patio and no one left hungry that night. We finally went out last night for my favorite Baked Potato dinner. Tomorrow we're suppose to go out with a group to a new Mexican place so we skipped the community pot luck tonight. Way to much rich food all within a few days. I'm thinking about changing to another Blog site. There's one that a lot of my friends use that I'm able to post pictures beside what I'm talking about. It would be nice for you to see a picture of what I write about. If I do I'll post it here to let you know. Guess that's it for now, till next time................ http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=5e0c4394efa0c92a5e7460b9f84e9acf_4ae458cb Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:55:23 -0500 Our cool weather looks to be leaving us today. It's been in the 80's with fairly low humidity for the last few days. But alas starting today it's back in the 90's for the rest of the week. Mind you I'm not complaining, this just means we will be spending more time in the pool in the afternoons. While the temps were down we took advantage of it. The seats in the car needed to be cleaned after the summer with the grandson who seems to have this magnet when it comes to dirt. I swear I could check him out from top to bottom but the minute he would climb on those tan seats.... Well you get the picture. You'd think gr-ma would wise up and put a towel under the car seat. Also Larry was eating a candy bar the other day and lets just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So while he was cleaning the seats I started straightening up some of the cupboards in the living room and taking Murphy's soap to the wood. Good grief we have a lot of wood in this place. By the time I finished the living & dining area's he was done and we called it quits for the day. Larry grabbed his book and headed for the lawn chair behind the rig in the sun and I took mine out under the awning. That's how we spent the rest of the day, either reading, talking to friends who walked pass and than happy hour. Guess that's it for now, till next time .................. http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=34db98602e438430181702591553d16c_4ae0fdde Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:50:38 -0500 One of the most noticeable things here this year is the lack of helicopters flying overhead in search of illegal's. Since the "Wall" is pretty much finished around here, which can be seen when driving along the back roads, we figured there would be more traffic in our area. Because of the State Park right next to us the powers that be decided the Wall could not destroy any portion of it. The Border Patrol did hire hundreds of new recruits this year and I have noticed there seem to be a lot more patrol vehicles in our area so I'm wondering if the lack of the chopper's is because of more patrols. All though listening to the news the illegal's are still coming across. It's hard to believe they aren't crossing in this area, lets face it we're in a perfect spot for a group to hide once they get across the river. Very thick woods and underbrush, than huge fields of tall sugar cane and no wall to scale. One of our concerns here wasn't the illegal's, basically they are just scared people that want to get as far away from this area as they can (FYI the majority of illegal's that are caught here are not from Mexico but from other countries), our concerns are the drug runners. Fortunately they aren't using this area and I'm thinking it's because there is only one road leading out of the park that runs right beside us so it's not as easy to get away. That's not saying they aren't around, only have to drive a mile or two down the road but at least it's not right in our back yard. Now that I say that I do remember an article about a bust this summer where they drove pass here, into the State Park and ran the pickup right into the River and swimming back across. It just amazes me when the news media reports seizing hundreds of pounds of marijuana. Just this last week it was reported the Patrol seized 11,719 pounds of marijuana in eight unrelated busts that has a street value of over $9.3 Million dollars. Now think about it, if they caught these guys just how many got away? Kind of scary. Guess that's it for now, till next time.............. http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=021de99dc3f983e1f192bcdf52ac85d0_4adc590b Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:18:19 -0500 Our little down pour on Friday ended up giving us almost 2 inches of rain and we're glad to say the drainage system here in the park did what it was suppose to and there wasn't any standing water. The rest of the weekend turned out to be perfect with clear skies and temps in the low 80's. A bit chilly first thing in the morning but it seems no one gives us any sympathy on that, hmm why not? So glad we went over the Island last Friday, the Red Tide algae surfaced there and made things pretty miserable for visitors. This also explained why we were having problems with our eyes when we left there and Larry and I were really coughing that night. Here's a link to the local news station that explains it if your interested: http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=364427 (if this doesn't work just go into valleycentral.com and it has it on front page. The rest of the weekend was pretty much a slow pace (is there any other type of pace) laid back and socializing with friends. More and more residents are arriving each day and I'm back to it taking an hour to do a walk around the block when Larry is busy checking for pin holes on his eye lids or watching a MSU game. So guess that's it for now, till next time...... http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=719045814d089514f90a1365b1738490_4ada717e Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:38:06 -0500 Just finished uploading some of the pictures from the SandCastle Trip to South Padre Island TX http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=9abe6a53fde699adcb866522bd6270ba_4ad8fe07 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:13:11 -0500 Our weather person has proven to us that nothing has changed since last winter. Forecast for today was a slight 20% chance of rain when the cold front comes and we're having one of those good old down pours where you can hardly see your neighbor. Oh well!!! So today we went over to South Padre Island with Doug and Jutta Franks to the Sand Castle Competition. The actual judging isn't until tomorrow (hopefully they aren't having this rain) but really not into fighting thousands of people for a place to park, stand and eat so we decided to go today. The sculptures weren't done and unfortunately the people must have been gone to lunch but we were able to see the progress of them and I took pictures. It's amazing what they can do with a little wet sand. We wanted to walk the beach but it was a bit windy and wasn't a pleasant day to do any walking. So we decided it was time to have some lunch and left the beach to head over to Dirty Al's. This place is right on the canal and trust me you don't have to worry about any dress code here but the service is great, people are friendly and the shrimp is yummy. We happened to luck out as there was quite a lineup and heard one person say 45 minutes. When I asked the guy how long and he asked how many he said no problem, can seat you right now. That gave us some looks as we walked thru. Must be everyone had more than four people. Once we finished we walked over to a charter boat place to see the costs of going out to see the dolphins. Price not bad for a two hour trip so maybe something to think about this winter. Time to head for home and several times we drove through rain so we were very lucky with just the cloudy skies and wind while on the beach. Oh we did stop at this little market and picked up a pound of the large shrimp ($8.99 lb) for dinner tomorrow. Marinate it in Italian dressing for the day than toss it on the grill mmmmm. Guess that's it, still having our downpour along with some thunder boomers, guess we'll see first hand how good our drainage system is here. Till next time....... will be attaching pictures this weekend http://www.larryandlindamoore.zoomshare.com/:blog?id=9a6cad65f5531664643a95185d1e4f69_4ad617ff Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:27:11 -0500 My emails from friends this week all seem to say about the same thing. Have had enough of their weather and heading south to RGV. Some were in snow, some in rain and some in ice. So glad we came when we did, we sure can't complain on what we've had here when listening to them and watching the weather. Bonnie Quinn put it plain and simple when she said she's had the heat and socks on for the last month and she's had enough. They were trying to move some commitments up so they can get down here ASAP. Each day we get one or two more neighbors in and it's always great to see them. Pat/Mike McFall got in on Monday, haven't seen them since they left last spring so lots of catching up to do. Over the weekend we pretty much hibernated as it was cold (70) and drizzly. (hush from the peanut gallery up north) Trying to hit the gym and pool every day, need to get rid of the after effects of to many large meals with family and very little exercise during the summer. Did get over and replaced the "For Rent" sign on our other lot/trailer. Someone had taken it with them at some point. I did get a call from a woman about renting it but how hard is it to understand "NO PETS". Doesn't matter if it's part of the family, it has 4 legs and poops in something other than the toilet. Now if they can show me where it walks on it's hind legs and no's how to flush a RV potty I might consider it. Guess that's it for now, life is good in the RVG. Till next time.............