Sunday March 15, 2009

We got up this morning to cold weather but no rain thank goodness. We all stayed inside our trailers for breakfast on our own, but agreed to go to the Blessing Hotel for lunch. The has been a landmark in Blessing Texas since 1906. We have been coming there for many years, and some of Stella's family is pictured on the walls of the dining room.

A note about the Blessing area. One of the old Texas cattle ranchers who lived in this area of Texas was Jonathan Pierce. Pierce set aside 640 acres for a town at the intersection where the Southern Pacific and the Missouri Pacific railroads met. Jonathan was so glad that the railroads had come to the area that he wanted to name the town "Thank God" but the Post Office wouldn't allow it, so he named the town Blessing.

Bob and Donna had to leave today because her school was on spring break last week and Judy's school is on break this week, so she and Tom could stay. Tom and Judy rode with us to Blessing, David and Charlotte drove their truck and Bob and Donna took their truck and trailer and left after lunch for home.

We drove by Stella's old home place in town, and by the Chaparral RV park where we have stayed in the past while visiting in Blessing. We then returned to Palacios where we went to the Ace Hardware for Tom to get a drill bit to repair his trailer. We stopped at the grocery store and picked up a few items before returning to the trailers.

We stayed in the trailer until 4:30 or so when I went for a walk with Tom, Judy and Charlotte. It rained on us near the Baptist Encampment and we took shelter on the porch of one of their buildings for a few minutes until the rain stopped. We saw what appeared to be an RV park while walking, but when we came back we saw that it was several RVs that were parked on the grounds of the encampment. It was a nice walk, even with the rain.

After a short rest, we all went to the recreation hall for an ice cream. The park was serving ice cream for $.50 a scoop, so we all got some ice cream, and what was even better, David bought it all! David and Charlotte brought some almonds that sure were good on the ice cream and some leftover brownies. I was a good boy and didn't eat any of the brownies, but I did have some ice cream and almonds.

After the ice cream, we played a couple of games of Farkle. This is a dice game that we had just bought at one of the flea markets in Donna. Tom and Judy knew how to play, so we all had a good time. We went home about 9:30 for a good night's sleep.

Later,