Monday, December 21, 2015

Our Winter Camp Schedule

We've been camped at Bentsen Grove Resort for two weeks now, fully immersed in the activities of the park. One of our favorite activities would have to be picking (and then immediately eating) citrus off the trees in the park.  There's few things better than eating a tree-ripened grapefruit just a few minutes after it was hanging on the tree.  This is a picture of a variety of citrus, plus a papaya on the left, that we just picked.

Most of the fruit is the size you would normally find at the grocery store.  But there are some monster grapefruit out there that would cost a pretty penny if we had to purchase it by the pound.  It's a good thing that it's the perfect price--free!

Denisa's Mother has been coming to this park for 30 winters, and we had visited her for a short time most of those years.  We always described it as "winter camp for old people" because there are fun things scheduled to do every hour of the day (just like at camp when we were kids).

Now that we are retired, we are enjoying the "winter camp schedule" as well.  Notice we left off the "old people" part of the description since we are the ones now attending all the fun.  Every Thursday we get a two page listing of all the activities we can participate in for free.  This is one page of activities, representing the things available for Wednesday through Friday at the four main locations in the resort. 

The activities are many and varied.  For example, on Monday morning you can participate in exercise class, quilting, bridge, yoga, computer class, biking, table tennis, horseshoes, aerobics, line dancing, zumba, golf, swimnastics, soft ball, stained glass, or pickle ball.  Try as hard as she could, even Denisa couldn't fit all of those into her Monday morning schedule.  Every day the activities change, so the list for other days will also includes bingo, crafts, woodcarving, shuffleboard, melody theater, mah johngg, quilling, cricket, clogging, ceramics, watercolor, radio control, kitchen band, rock club, glass adventures, tennis, darts, cross stitch, scrapbooking, stained glass, bowling, wood burning, church choir, swedish weaving, encaustic, oil painting, smart phones, and Spanish.  If you can't find a class or group that you enjoy, it looks like you don't enjoy much.  One of our favorite activities has been playing pickleball.  Crazy name for a fun game that is related to tennis, but has a different racket.

Denisa is also enjoying her clogging class.  Only here for a month, she has resigned herself to the fact that she'll never be an accomplished clogger.  But they still welcome her with open arms into their clogging fold.  It's a great way to burn calories!  It's amazing that the shoes are provided, as well as small-group instruction for beginners.

We also enjoy the line dancing classes.  It looks like there are more dances than we will ever be able to learn, but there are volunteer instructors that know them all.  No pictures of class because we are too busy concentrating on which way to turn to be fooling with cameras in class. We are amazed at the teachers and their abilities, as well as their willingness to teach left-footed beginners like us.

Every evening there are card games played all over the resort. One can find a group to play about any game we have heard of, and plenty that we have never played.  Also, every evening there is ice cream available for sale.  A dollar will buy a generous cup full that is enough for two people to share.  They usually have 6 or 7 different flavors, and the volunteers get a good work-out scooping all those dips.  Special on the weekend, there are "sundaes on Sundays" with toppings to go with that ice cream!  Knowing how much Mark loves ice cream, this might be his favorite part of the resort.

To off-set all that ice cream, there are vegetables and fruits also available for sale here at the park.  Every Friday a produce truck pulls up with lots of healthy choices.  The fresh pineapples and watermelons have been especially good this year.  Also, the huge fresh carrots and the little cucumbers are picked that morning.  The photo below pictures Denisa's purchases this week.  Smaller than usual because we are leaving for Christmas soon, she still made quite a haul of goodies.

The weeks are rolling by, as we realize we have been here over two weeks now.  We have been welcomed warmly, and we are enjoying the warm weather.  What a great place to hang out for a month!

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