Princess for 24 Hours - Sunday, May 10, 2015

On Saturday afternoon while I was working, Bob brought in a fruit cup from the Fruteria down the road. The cup had pineapple, mango, strawberries, canteloupe, watermelon, coconut, and cucumber. It was so good. I shared it at work and brought the rest home.

$6 fruit cup in a huge Styrofoam cup

For the rest of my 24-hour princess treatment, Bob told me I needed to be ready to go at 6:00 pm. (I get off work around 5:45 pm.) After going home and changing clothes, we headed out. He took me to Massage Envy for a one-hour massage. It was wonderful. I had the massage therapist work on my neck and shoulders where I hold most of my stress. She found and worked on lots of knots.

After the massage, we went to dinner at Magic Time Machine, a funky restaurant with waiters and waitresses dressed as fictional characters. Our waitress was a fairy. Bob sarcastically asked if she had pixie dust. Of course she did. She took out her vial and sprinkled it in Bob's hair. LOL. Other waiters and waitresses were dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, Katniss Everdeen, one looked like a cross between Spiderman and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. They put the fun in funky.

Bob and Katniss

Bob gave me three beautiful cards, two for our silver anniversary and one for Mother's Day.

Sunday morning, I cooked pumpkin pancakes and fried eggs before we headed out for the day. First, he took me to the Farmer's Market at The Pearl. I had been wanting to check it out. We looked over all the booths, but didn't buy anything. From The Pearl, we went to The Quarry Marketplace where he took me shopping at Ann Taylor, Soma and Nordstrom Rack. I requested a stop at Walmart to buy jeans.

He also wanted to take me for a manicure, but the good salons were packed. I'll go when it's not so crowded.

After our shopping spree, he took me to La Madelaine for lunch, then to see the movie "The Longest Ride." Yes, I had seen "The Longest Ride," but I wanted him to see it too. It's such a romantic movie. He loved it.

We made it home in time to watch "60 Minutes."

Bob has always been such a romantic. I love him dearly. Even though we've been married 25 years, we have been together for 32 years. I hope we're together for 30 more!

I love you, Bob. Thank you so much for an awesome celebration of our anniversary and Mother's Day. You are wonderful.

Mother's Day for Eight - Sun., May 11

First, Happy Mother's Day to all my readers who are mothers. You know who you are.

Here are the five mothers at our brunch this morning.

Five moms: Susan M., Susan A., Peri, Louise, Laura

Six wonderful people joined us today at 10:00 a.m. in the Recreation Hall at Traveler's World RV Resort in San Antonio for a Mother's Day Brunch. At this time of year, not much happens in the RV Park Rec Hall because the Winter Texans/Snow Birds have flown the coop for cooler climes in the north. My boss, Brenda, said using the kitchen and the Rec Hall would be fine.

When we went into the hall to set up this morning, the doors had been unlocked and the air conditioning had been turned on for us. We have such thoughtful management here. Thank you for doing that.

Saturday night, I put together (in two boxes) all the non-perishables I needed for brunch. At 9:00 a.m. Bob helped me take everything to the kitchen in the Rec Hall. For brunch we had pumpkin pancakes, topped with warm cinnamon applesauce with a fried egg on top of that. Peri made a very tasty fruit salad with blackberries, blueberries and strawberries. They also brought Cool Whip to top the fruit. Darren and Susan brought their Keurig coffee maker and coffee since we don't drink coffee and other guests do. Thanks, guys.

Grill in Rec Hall kitchen.

Pumpkin pancakes, cinnamon applesauce, fried eggs.

Laura and Louise, Bob's sister and mom, are visiting from Las Vegas. It's their first trip to San Antonio and they're enjoying the Riverwalk, missions, restaurants and sightseeing.

We met Jim and Peri two years ago at an RV-Dreams.com rally in Kerrville, Texas, and kept in touch ever since. Our time together is spent walking, going to movies, eating out, visiting each other's fifth wheels, playing games, talking and watching Spurs games on TV. Last year we taught them to play pinochle and enjoyed a few games of Sequence. This year we taught them Qwirkle which they picked up very quickly.

I met Susan and Darren through Volksmarching. She and I walked together, found we had a lot in common, and she accompanied me on many of my Centurion Challenge walks (100 walks in 2013). We enjoy getting together to eat, walk, talk, go to movies, and watch sports. Now we need to teach them Sequence and Qwirkle, and maybe even pinochle.

All of us sat at a round banquet table in the Rec Hall and had good conversation with our meal. After brunch everyone pitched in to clean up and I swear it was cleaned up in ten minutes flat! Many hands make light work.

Here are the roses Bob bought for his mom and me. What a romantic man! Thank you, sweetie. (African violets courtesy of Aunt Sally.)

And I must include a huge thank you to the men in our lives who help us be the best we can be...

Our support team: Jim, Bob, Darren

Have we driven them to drink?

(The two photos above look like the game where you try to find all the differences between the two pictures.)

After brunch Bob drove Laura and Louise to The Menger Hotel so they can walk through the lobby, after which they plan to go to The Alamo and El Mercado (a Mexican marketplace). Tonight we plan to pick up a to-go dinner from Taqueria Guadalajara, the Mexican restaurant across the street from our RV park. We'll watch 60 Minutes and The Amazing Race.

Yesterday I wished my mom a Happy Mother's Day. She is visiting friends in California so gave me a call when she was free to talk. She just returned from a couple of weeks in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at her friend's second home on the Bay of Bandera. Now they are off to their condo in Palm Springs. She sure knows how to live life at 84! 

Last night I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from my son, Michael. We talked for almost an hour. He lives in Oregon so I'll see him at the end of this month! His job is going well. In fact, he received a-dollar-a-hour raise at the beginning of the year. This last week, he received a new title of Data Manager and another dollar-an-hour raise! Congratulations, kiddo! He's been there ten years (ever since he graduated from University of Oregon).

Today my brother, Frank, called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day and we chatted for a while. He and his wife are doing very well. They are spending the weekend at their property by a lake in northwestern Washington state. (They live in the Vancouver, WA area.)

Again, Happy Mother's Day!

Many Things to Celebrate - Sun., May 12

Happy Mother's Day. Happy 23rd anniversary to us. Happy birthday to Aaron and Iain. Many celebrations today.

Bob and I went our separate ways this morning. He ran 10 miles on the Riverwalk, and I hiked five miles at Government Canyon Natural Area with Hill Country Hikers. Both of us enjoyed our respective forms of exercise.

The hiking group started at 8:00 a.m. and we did five miles in two hours. Quite a few new hikers joined in today. I think we had about 15 people. Today's hike was a walk in the park - mostly level, easy trails with just a few rock and root trippers.

Hiking down into the canyon.

A portion of the canyon floor.

Brown-eyed Susans and blue-star

Bunny frozen in place.

Prairie larkspur.

Government Canyon State Natural Area - A path we didn't take.

Another 2.5 mile hike was next on a different trail in the park. We could opt out of the shorter hike and three of us did. After 8.8 miles yesterday, I felt five miles was enough for today. My feet thanked me profusely for not adding blisters.

I went back to the 5er (5th wheel trailer). Bob had not returned from his run. I started making our anniversary brunch thinking he'd return at any time. He came in the door with just enough time to shower before brunch was ready. I made scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms and avocado, heated refried beans, and cut up strawberries.

We relaxed for the rest of the day and had Papa John's Pizza for dinner while we watched the Survivor finale. I was very happy Cochran won.

I hope all the moms had a great Mother's Day celebration.

Travel Bug out.

We Earned Our Pay Today! -- Sun., May 13

Cotulla, Texas:
Happy Mother's Day to Mom and all my friends and relatives who are mothers!  I hope you enjoyed a nice relaxing day today, maybe with flowers, massage, chocolate, or a meal at a good restaurant.

This was, by far, our busiest day. We have two "pads" at our gate. Today both pads were up and fully functional. On my night shift I may have between 12-20 trucks from 3 pm to 3 am. Today, I had 54 incoming trucks. Bob gets the brunt of the check-ins during the day, I think he filled out seven log sheets today compared to my 2-1/2 pages of log sheets. But I do log out a number of the trucks he logged in during the day, so my count is a bit higher than 54 as I overlap with him...but who's counting?

All kinds of trucks came in today. We had trucks lined up on the road, trucks coming and going right at the gate. Inside, our gate road splits into a "T": Pad A is to the left and Pad B is to the right. Most of the big equipment was headed for Pad A to do cold tubing.

There was a time today when a huge trailer with wide load was trying to get up on the B Pad. Three sand trucks were waiting to come out. The huge "Wide Load" semi with trailer had to back down by our fifth wheel to let the three sand trucks out, then had to back up and do a three-point turn by the gate to get turned around again. By this time another sand truck was ready to leave. The two trucks were tete-a-tete and neither wanted to back up. One of the crew on the pad had the sand truck back off. It was that kind of day.

The weather the past two days has been beautiful...mid 80s, blue sky with white puffy clouds. Nice.

I love sitting outside in the late afternoon while watching the gate. I'm in the shade right next to our generator aka "bird feeder." All afternoon, I have birds (Bewick's wren, mockingbird, a pair of cardinals) coming to catch the insects on the ground by the generator. There are still some birds I haven't identified, probably because my Audubon book is the Western Edition.

Bob is such a wonderful man. For our anniversary yesterday, tucked into the card, was a packet of seeds for "Forget-Me-Nots." He knows I love to garden, but don't want any plants in the 5er for now. I can plant these seeds out in the soil behind our 5er and we can water them with our gray water. Hopefully we won't have any more major rainstorms that dump inches of water at a time. I don't think forget-me-nots are very hardy flowers. The seeds take 4-6 weeks to become flowers, so we should still be here to see a pretty display.

I forgot to mention, on the day I went into town to do laundry, a roadrunner "ran" (more like sauntered) across the road in front of my car. I had to stop to let him cross. He didn't seem to be in a hurry.

That's all folks!