It’s 2021!

We’ve been very busy since our last post so we will skip right over a lot of what has been happening. To make this post brief and readable I’m just going to hit a few of the highlights.

We made a quick trip up to the Dallas area a few months ago to visit with John. We towed the trailer and stayed at Sandy Lake RV Park in Carrollton. John brought his motorcycle over and Larry got a chance to ride it around the RV Park. That brought back his desire to get a motorcycle again (he had a Honda GL1100 Gold Wing a while back). We also went to a typical Texas smokehouse / bbq for dinner. These are prolific in Central Texas, and all of them seem to be good!

We also made a short weekend trip to Port Aransas (Mustang Island at the north end of Padre Island and Corpus Christi). Jennifer’s mother and step-father had a condominium there (at that time, since sold). We spent a nice weekend visiting with them all of them – Jennifer, Ryan, Dennis, Diana, and the grandkids. It was the first time that we had the travel trailer on a ferry. Unfortunately, the island was evacuated because of an incoming storm. The RV Park was 5 feet above sea level and the storm surge was predicted to exceed that. When we heard that the land route through Corpus Christi was flooded and closed we decided to pack up and leave a day early. It took us 15 minutes to pack up / hook up and 5 minutes to drive to the ferry; then it took almost an hour to get on the ferry. Apparently everyone else on the island had the same idea that we did. We got away no worse for the wear.

On the way home we stayed a few nights in Goliad at the Angels In Goliad RV Park. The first Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas was signed here, and a famous battle / massacre happened here and in nearby Fannin. The well-known flag “Come and Take It” was created and first flown here when the nation of Mexico attempted to take a canon used in Goliad to defend the colony.

COVID-19
We have been very healthy and neither of us has contracted COVID-19 (as far as we know). Larry did see a cardiologist after a short episode of tachycardia (rapid heartbeat). It turned out to be AVNRT (Atrioventricular Nodal Reentrant Tachycardia), which while uncomfortable, is neither serious nor fatal (unless it is so frequent as to impact life activities). Larry went to a dermatologist to have ‘warts’ looked at. She (the dermatologist) found one skin spot that was cancerous, removed it, and he’s all better now. Sue also went to the same dermatologist as part of diagnostic procedure involving arthritis. She had one skin spot that was cancerous and had it removed. Still working on her arthritis and rheumatism.

2021 Polar Vortex
Yes, we did feel the effects of that famous polar vortex. The temperature at our home dropped to a low of 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit one morning. We had done some frost protection to exposed faucets. The water line for the refrigerator froze (it’s the only water line on an outside wall). The plumbing is PEX and it is in the concrete slab foundation. The travel trailer is under the carport that we had installed a few weeks before the storm hit. We put an auxiliary heater in the travel trailer and kept the temperature inside it at about 50 degrees. It is plumbed in PEX. None of the lines ruptured. (I’ve heard that PEX is supposed to withstand freezing without rupturing) We never lost power for more than a few seconds at a time. We did lose water pressure completely for about 2 days. We are on a gravity system. Power was lost / shut off to the pumping station supplying our area’s elevated tanks. While the water company has electric generators at the pump stations, they are not automatic, and they could not get there to start them manually because of the snow and ice road conditions. We filled several buckets with water for the toilets. We always keep a decent supply of food and drinking water on hand, and we have a Berkey water filter if we need to filter water for consumption. We still have our winter and skiing clothes, so we were comfortable in 68 degree temperatures in the house.

Just around the corner from us is a new Texas family, another escapee from California – Ukiah to be exact. We are taking them out on Saturday evening to the Roadhouse Paige for authentic Texas smokehouse bbq.

John came down from Dallas for Larry’s birthday weekend. They worked on several small projects around here including installing a ham radio in Sue’s car, re-hanging shower curtain rods, putting knobs and pulls on ALL the cabinet doors and drawers (used a very handy adjustable template for this project).