Jan 20, 2019
After our adventure getting back to Tx. from Brads things have settled down a bit. Weather still has been on the cooler side. Seems like we will have a couple of decent days and then the wind blows hard and blows in cold air and rain and much cooler temps. Oh well, better than the -20 below winds chills in Wi.. John and Laurie finally got here on the 10th. So good to see them again. They had a few issues on the way, one of which was their bumper breaking off and causing some damage to lauries bike. But they got here and now we are the 6 pack plus 1 (Marlon the dog) again! We do have a lot of fun together. Yesterday, on a verrrry windy day we set up a coquet court and played. Laurie was the big winner, I think she has been practicing at home even tho she denies it. We also entered a Chili cook off contest on Friday night here at the campground, but sadly we didn't win. I still think my chili is the best! We also went to  DONWES Flea Market in Donna Tx this week. It was smaller than I anticipated but they did have some interesting stuff. Will probably go back. I have been going to water aerobics 4 or 5 days a week. Class is held any morning it is over 55 degrees. The water temp is always 89 or 90 degrees so it is beautiful!  It is a very nice workout. Today we will be going back to Louies backyard BBQ for ribs and for the guys to watch some playoff football game. I am going to try and get a walk in on the beach too. .We have met a few more people closer to our ages. Jan and Phil, (Tennessee) along with Dave and Jo (Mn.). Both fulltimers. Nice folks.  We have also went to a street fair in Harlingen. Had a fun afternoon there found a fun bar with music. Classics I think it was called. And found a great good ol boys place called Harleys where Saari the bartenders is a hoot and keeps things hopping! I started a Diamond Dots picture class. Thousands and thousands of dots that get stuck onto a mat and hopefully turn out to be a nice picture. We will see.... Our friend we made last summer at Pine Harbor died here in Rancho Viejo this week. We just had a lovely dinner with them last sunday. RIP Dean Poppe.

Beth and I enjoying our free sample of a wine mixer

Classic bar.

Saari giving Todd some crap. He loved it!

Jan 1 2019
 Happy New Year. 2 full years on the road already. It has been an adventure to say the least, with a HUGE learning curve! Some by listening to others advice and taking it and others by doing  things at the time seemed right but turned out wrong and yet others by doing some really dumb things.
 We spent Christmas at Brad and Mallory's. We left on the 19th of dec. flying into charlottsville. Got there without problems and had a great Christmas with

Christmas at the Rykals 2018

them. We ate way too much and had a few libations and just generally hung out, walked, talked and laughed. Their renovation on their kitchen/dining room/deck turned out amazing!
 Coming back "home" to texas turned out to be yet another adventure. We left Charlottesville right on time and got to Charlotte NC. Right up to 10 minutes prior to departure everything was right on time, then a delay of 15min, then another 15, then an hour, then another 30. Finally, everyone on the plane and loaded, pushed off and then sit on tarmac for about an hour. All due to weather in Dallas. Then pilot announces that we can get to dallas by changing flight pattern but we need to get more fuel so back to a gate we go, everyone gets off. Then its announced that the crew has timed out and we need to find another crew.....ei yi yi...ok everyone takes a sit as we are advised to hang around the gate and be ready to go...then a short time later its announced that flight is cancelled...mad dash to customer service counter. we are at the almost end of line as we didn't move  fast enough...American airlines re schedules us for the next morning connecting in New Orleans. ( the storm is headed that direction by this time) we opt not to take that flight and brad/Mallory book us for the next day at 4:30p and then book us a room at the Hampton across the street. Very nice place by the way. The next morning by 1130 we get a text stating our 4:30 flight is delayed by 2 hours.. ok we can still just barely make the connection in dallas. We go to the airport and try to get on 3 different flights to dallas on standby earlier. As did the other 70 people on the standby list. We didn't get on. Then our flight is delayed yet again to 7:45pm. Ok, we wont make our connection but at least we will get closer and be in texas. THEN the flight is cancelled. No explanation. And we were rescheduled for Saturday at 6:pm! (its thurs evening!) Brad calls and says get on the plane to Charlottsville and come back to their house and basically start over. So we did.. Brad then rebooked us on United from Richmond Va on Monday morning. They delayed us once a full 24 hours in advance and then on sunday night they changed the flight time back to the original...ei yi yi! I didn't know if we would ever make it home, but we finally arrived yesterday a full 120 hours after leaving brads the first time.  An adventure yes, but one I hope never to repeat. Traveling via tires on the ground doesn't seem so daunting now. Our wonderful friends beth and todd had wine chilling and dinner ready for us last night. That was so nice of them!

Cousin Bob Novotney came for a visit. We haven't seen each other since 1995.

sunset at the campground

Mallory, Brett, Cash and I on a hilly, slightly muddy walk at Mint Springs.

gathering for drinks and laughter with Scott and Trish

Brad with his buddy Cash

Brett loves his video games!

Mallory liked her new butterflies from Mexico

this is the line for rebooking after the first cancellation on Wed. night.

We got notification of thurs flight getting cancelled at 6:16pm

but the departure board still wasn't updated at 7:14

this is when we should of gone. frustrating experience!