The Travels of the Agnew Family

Our neighbors, John and Carol were heading to the grocery store so I gave them my grocery list .... smart thing to do as they came back saying it was a total zoo.

For the first time this season, Ed, Zaph and I went to Bentson state park for a walk. Our timing was good as the bird feeders had just been filled.


A view of the resaca.


Golden-fronted Woodpecker.




A different view of a Kiskadee



Tonights dinner was barbecued steak with a mushroom ragout, salad and garlic bread. Yum. After dinner we headed up to the rec hall to show a movie .... the audience selected Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Trailer people seem to really enjoy this movie and can watch it every year. It was around 11:30 when we got back to the trailer from watching the movie, so we grabbed our lawn chairs and the bottle of champagne and walked to the edge of the park so we could get a good view of the fireworks being shot off in the neighboring towns. It was a little tougher to find a good spot to see the fireworks as the fields closest to the RV park have corn in them obstructing our view.




Washer woman Cait with her mom.

Six of our friends arrived over the last two days and two came back after a trip home for Christmas. Instead of heading out to a restaurant to celebrate we had a cook out. Ed and John smoked pork tenderloin and barbecued chicken.



We had a great visit and a great meal.

The weather has been cool and damp, encouraging us to stay indoors. This has allowed me to read a couple of books, murder mysteries, and work on some slide show. Earlier this summer I decided that it was time to organize the digital photographs that have been just sitting on the hard drives. The easiest way for me to organize them is to create slide shows the way I would have created photo albums with prints. Ed bought his first digital camera at Christmas 2002. My goal is to have Christmas 2002 and all of 2003 done by the end of this year and I've almost accomplished that --- just have music to add to one slide show.

On Christmas Eve there is a short program followed by "finger foods" at the rec hall each year. Once again it was pretty good and there was way too much food.

Christmas morning Zaph gets to see what's inside his stocking. This year he got a couple of toys and some treats. Think he liked what he got.



Catie and her mom and dad came over so Zaph and Catie could exchange gifts. Zaph gave Catie one of his bandannas and she really likes it.






A couple of birds hanging around our site.


On Christmas Day there is a pot luck dinner at 1pm. I think "the park" cooked 5 turkeys and 3 hams this year and everyone else brought a dish. After the meal a couple of people got up and sang Christmas carols including the little girl who belongs to the park's handyman, Jose. Michelle sang Here Comes Santa Claus and who walked in during her song --- Santa, Mrs. Clause, and JJ Claus. It was a lot of fun but as always ---- a lot of food.


The crowd.


Jose and family. A number of people give Jose's children presents that Santa gives out.


Santa, JJ Claus, Mrs. Clause and the elf

One of the things we miss by going to the Christmas pot luck is left over turkey. To remedy this situation I bought a 17 pound turkey (the smalled turkey I could find) and invited 6 people over for Boxing Day dinner. The first response is "huh??? what is boxing day? and a after a quick explanation including when boxing day is they are happy to come. I had hoped for warm enough weather that we could sit outside to eat but that was not to be. I now know that eight people can sit comfortably at two tables in my trailer.


The trailer is ready.




Everyone is here.


Today's visitor

2nd Saturday in a row that it has rained. This time it wasn't all day and it wasn't a downpour --- but still rain. Shouldn't complain though as it has been really dry here and locals are really happy to see the rain. I must admit that it is nice to see the grass and plants turning green.

Today there was a Barbecue Sandwich dinner at the rec hall which Ed and I decided to attend. Dinner included a large bun with lots of pork, potato salad, coleslaw, vanilla pudding and a drink --- all for $6 and it all tasted good.

One of the local schools brought their grade 6, 7 and 8 choir over to the park to sing for us. It was a short concert, only a half hour. They were nervous at first but relaxed as they performed. Most of the songs they sang were fun Christmas songs that were new to me.



A number of people in the park are bell ringers for the Salvation Army at the local Walgreens. One couple have a dog named JJ. JJ put on his fancy duds and went bell ringing with his owners and his presence increased the amount of the donations. Today JJ dressed up and came down to the rec hall to see the choir.

Yesterday, Ed noticed a small crack in the windshield of the truck that looked like it was going to creep up into the middle of the windshield. Ed decided he wasn't going to wait for the crack to get worse so he called the insurance company. In turn, the insurance company called whomever they deal with for claims in the US, and they called us. An appointment was set up for today.


After an hour and a half, the windshield was changed and we were on our way. Stopped at a Walmart to pick up a couple of things and when I got back in the truck I noticed that the review mirror was hanging by it's wire. With me holding the mirror up, we drove back to the auto glass shop. One of the guys came out right away and used a different adhesive to attach the mirror.

Haven't had to deal with the insurance company often but happy to know that they are efficient.

Today was a very quiet day for us. It poured rain all day plus the power was out from about 10:30am to 10pm. Being in a trailer we weren't as inconvenienced as people in park models as we can run off our battery power. Ed prefers that we don't expend a lot of power unnecessarily so I relaxed and read a book. The 5 o'clock news on a local TV station said the power outage was due to dirt in the insulators catching fire and causing the poles to burn --- now that's different. Rain gages in park showed 1 1/2 to 2 inches of much needed rain.

Hildago, a town not far from us has a festival of lights each year. This year, six of us drove over to view the lights --- three photographers and three not. The first stop is at the city hall.




This is a house across of the city hall. Three houses get right into the Christmas spirit.


John taking a photo.




Estudiantina Guadalupana entertained the crowd. This is a group of 25 junior and high school boys from Mexico. The group had its origins in the 16th century in Spain and the costumes are replicas of the original costumes.


Ed had a lot of fun taking photos of the Ferris Wheel.






The three "boys" decided to go on the Ferris Wheel and take photos from the top. The ride attendant was very nice and put them on seat 8, which stops at the top for a while; then he let me go around a second time. Guess they don't get a lot of "gray hairs" with cameras on their rides and decided to treat them well.


John and Bob.


Looking straight down.




2nd stop was at an Ice Rink .... yup an open air ice rink. A number of people were skating and a Zamboni was driving around smoothing the ice.


Even the fire department gets into the act.

Many lights were found on a marked route.






A time lapsed photo got all of the positions of Santa's hat.

No, we didn't move our trailer, but we watch an "old" trailer get moved out of the park. We think this trailer has probably been in the park for at least 25 years and has had trees grow up around it. Surprisingly the move went quickly and with no problems.






Zaph is always going across the road to get Carol and Caity to play ball with him.... he knows where they keep the tennis balls.

Hard to believe that 25 years ago Ed and I wed. It has certainly been an interesting 25 years with finishing building our house in Mountsberg, travels to some exotic places and some not so exotic places, retiring, moving to Walkerton and wintering in Texas.

The weather wasn't going to co-operate with us so we opted for a quiet day: slept in, bought some outdoor chairs as we forgot a couple of our chairs at home, then went out for dinner with a few friends. We haven't been to a Red Lobster in years and decided to give it a try and we were suitably impressed.


especially with the drinks

Our neighbors, John and Carol, brought their smoker south with them this year. It was a little less windy today, so we decided to do the first smoke of the season.


After much discussion, the guys decided the best spot for the smoke was at the back of our trailer. Ed also got our grill going and cooked up some vegetables.


Ribs .... yum!!!



Dinner was delicious. Looking forward to many more smoked meals.

The drive from my sisters to the RV park in Mission is a little over 800 km or 8 1/2 hours of driving time. We decided to take it easy and split the drive into 6 1/2 hours and 2 hours landing at a Walmart in Kingsville for the night. After we pulled into a curb side spot behind another RV, a security car pulled up and asked if we would move to the other side of the parking lot where a couple of other RVs were parked. Apparently the spot we had chosen is a little busier and they like to have the transport trucks park there. He also commented that they would check the RVs when they did their rounds.


Found a good spot to park. The people with other Titanium were heading to Bentson Palm RV park abut 5 miles from our RV park.

We arrived at the RV park on December 1st. It was nice to see that some of our friends had already arrived. Zaph was happy to see his people and dog buddies. It took a couple of days to get the Internet going (we have a pay as you go cell stick and had to buy some time) but we're up and running.