THINGS HAPPENING

First thing I want to say is the Valley has been a much better experience so far this year. 

RV PARK - I am staying at Tropic Winds RV Resort.  It is an Encore park and it is very nice.  When they say resort, they mean it,  at least in RV terms.  They have 50 sites allotted to Thousand Trails (TT) members.  Depending on what kind of contract you have, you can stay 2 or 3 weeks and then you have to leave for a week.  When I first got here, there wasn't hardly anyone in the TT sites.  In the past couple of days, more and more people have come in.

Tropic Winds has MANY activities going on each and every day.  You can be as busy as you want to be.  The people here are extremely friendly too.  They have gone out of their way to greet us and make sure we were invited or included in many happenings.  We ran into a couple that were in the park with us last year.  Her husband fishes every single day that it is not raining.  Since they only have 1 vehicle, she is at the park all day without transportation.  They moved to Tropic Winds this year because there is so much more to do.  It has been nice to see them and get to visit with them some.  .

The RV park is in Harlingen.  Harlingen is one of the bigger cities in the Valley.  There is a small mall, 2 Walmarts, 3 H-E-B grocery stores, 2 movie theaters, numerous chain restaurants, and countless local restaurants.  Staying in a city where there is more to do and is easier to get to helps too. 

OK, check that part off as a big improvement.

WEATHER - So far, the weather has been AWESOME!  This weather is why people come to the Valley.  It has been mostly in the 70s during the day and in the upper 50s at night.  We have had a few days where the highs were in the 60s, but no freezing temps and NOT HARDLY ANY RAIN!  Yay!  Last year was cold AND rainy.......a lot.........almost everyday..........enough to make you not want to go outside........you get the idea.  The park we were at was muddy and didn't drain, so when you did get out, you better wear rubber boots.  Tropic Winds may be muddy too if it rained that much, but I am very thankful that I haven't had to find that out so far this year.  The forecast for the next 15 days is more of the same beautiful weather.

OK, check that part off as a big improvement.

ENTERTAINMENT - There have been some acts making the rounds down here and so far, so good.  We saw a band named Saturday Night Live the other night and guess what songs they sang?  They are a tribute band to Bee Gees and they were really good.  By the time they got to the "Saturday Night Live" era, I was feeling like there should be a disco ball spinning, everyone should be wearing leisure suits, and John Travolta should have stepped on stage at some point.  But, the guys sounded almost exactly like the Bee Gees.

Since we are close to a movie theater, one of the days that was misting and dreary, we went to the movies.  We saw the new Star Wars movie.  I saw the first 3 Star War movies as they came out "back in the day."  Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were awesome in my opinion.  If I remember correctly, there seemed to be a long stretch of time before the next Star Wars movie debuted.  It was episode 1 and went back to what happened before the original Star Wars and the characters were different.  I really didn't get into the next few Star Wars movies.  But, the one out now has the original characters from the first movies.  So, I could totally relate to it and I loved it.  If you are a fan of the original series of movies, go see this one.

The next set of entertainers we saw called themselves Linley Creek.  It is a family that bills their show as a variety/blue grass show.  They are a very talented family.  It is Dad, Mom, teenage son, teenage daughter.  They live on their bus and travel around performing.  Each person plays several instruments and plays each instrument very well.  They sang some old songs, some bluegrass songs, some gospel songs, and some newer songs.  It was a very entertaining show and worth the ticket price of $7 to see.  I even won the door prize which was one of their CDs.  Who would have thought?

Tonight, we are going to a show here at the park called the Renaissance Rockers.  I hear it is 4 doctors that do this on the side and are very good.  It is a dance and I hear that a lot of people get up and dance.  From the name, I'm thinking the band plays old rock and roll.  Wouldn't you think?  I'll let you know.

Mr. W has been wanting to learn to play pickleball and this park has 4 pickleball courts and some people that REALLY love to play.  He went down the other morning and got to get into a game with 3 other guys that play all the time.  Mr. W is very athletic and he can usually jump in and master whatever sport it is pretty quickly.  The guys were teaching him the rules as they went and giving him some pointers and teaching him some strategies.  He has tried to go back and play on another day but there is going to be a "valley wide" competition soon and the teams have been out practicing up for the tournament.  They do that during the morning hours so he decided he needed to try to go in the afternoon and see if any other non-tournament guys were at the courts wanting to play.

OK, so check entertainment off as an improvement too.

So, there you go.  Things are looking up.  There will be more to come.