Week of Monday January 17 thru Saturday January 22, 2011-Rayford Crossing RV Resort

Our last week at Rayford was pretty uneventful. I'll give you a brief rundown of what we did.

Monday was a routine day off of running errands and washing at the washateria at the park. We wanted to get as many things done on our day off as possible. We will be in Mission soon and want to get as much done before we leave as possible. When she got through washing, she came over to the Lone Star room to play games with me, Mack and Jim. We played a looong game of Mexican Train that lasted until about 11:30.

Tuesday was another typical work day and I had a committee meeting at Rayford to plan the activities of the month and hosted games in the rally hall after the meeting. Jim and I played a few games of mexican train. I had been talking about the fact that no one had been coming out, so it was nice to finally get someone to come out to play games. When Stella got off work, we went to a new-owner seminar at Tomball Dodge. There were a lot of new owners in attendance and it was worth going to, but I really didn't learn anything new. By going, we now get half-price oil changes and free tire rotation for the life of the truck at Tomball Dodge. They even fed us hot dogs with saurkraut which was pretty tasty, so it was a good night for us.

Wednesday was a regular work day for Stella and I pulled the change out of the machines and swept the floor to do my chores. Gwen had given her an early closing time because tonight was steak night at Rayford. Francis is the butcher at Randalls grocery and had offered to buy some steaks for us to grill. There was a huge turnout and the steaks were delicious. We had a great time with our friends and will be looking forward to other times in the future.

Thursday I had to go to Bellville to renew our trailer license plates. Since our address is now in Bellville, we had to go there to pick them up because we had missed the renewal notice that we got in the mail. It was a smooth trip but while going, the cold front blew in and dropped the temperatures about 18 degrees in less than 30 minutes. Wow...

I did get to meet our friends A.D. and his wife Dee that we had worked with at Stephen F. Austin state park last year. They are having some serious medical problems and it was good to spend some time with them. I also stopped off at Camping World and had a nice visit with Joe French, the Internet manager there. Joe has worked with me on some of our previous rallies and I wanted to stay in touch with him in case CW starts carrying Heartland products again. I stopped off at Ron Hoover RV to see Ray Diab, the sales manager there, but he was in a meeting and was not available to talk to me.

I went to pick up Stella from work and she talked me into going out to eat some oriental food tonight. We had a nice meal and still got home in time to take care of the puppies. Tramp hasn't torn anything up so far this week and I have been working with him when I take them out in the afternoon on his obedience training. He is really coming along well-thanks Tommy, for the training tips!

Friday morning, we took Cassie to the Dogs Day Inn for grooming. We were really early for work, so we stopped at Compadres for breakfast. I had been there last year with Jim and Reta and knew how good their food is, but Stella had not. We had a great breakfast at a reasonable price and made it to work on time. This is our last day to work, so Stella worked a little later than usual, cleaning and checking everything before we leave. We decided to eat some mexican food tonight at the El Palenque. I had borrowed a volt/ohmeter from Ricky and dropped it off at their house before going to eat. It was a mistake to wait so late (6:30) to try to get into a restaurant. The line was almost out the door, so we decided to try somewhere else. We ended up at the new location of Pitmasters Barbecue, and although they were very crowded, we had a good meal and didn't have to wait.

Saturday morning we went to eat breakfast at Luby's cafeteria with Jim and Reta. It was a good meal with our friends and after dropping them off at the park, we gathered up some items that we wanted to put in storage and went to Texas City. We made our drop-off at storage and went to watch Cameron play basketball. I forgot to bring my camera with me, and it was too crowded to really get any good pictures anyway. While we were at the game, our friends Harry and Judy came by to see us. We had been talking to them about meeting for lunch today and when the game was over, we went to Ryan's with them, Kim and the boys. We stayed there for a long time catching up with each other's travels. They just returned from a trip to Hawaii, so there was a lot to talk about. It was good to spend time with our friends. Of course it was good to spend some time with Kim and the boys. Tyler and I talked for a little bit about our summer trip with them and he promised that he will do some research and let me know where he wants to go.

This was a good week but kind of busy. We got a lot done and got to see lots of old friends that we haven't seen in a long time. We came back to the park and sat outside at Jim's trailer around a campfire that he had built in our firepit that I am leaving with them to use while we are gone. It was a fine way to end our stay here at Rayford.

So long.