What do a couple of wanderers do for a month at a resort?

After our long drive to the tip of Texas, we quickly settled into resort life at Bentsen Grove Resort in Palmview, Texas. This is the ninth winter that we have spent time here, so we are familiar with the activities that we like. Denisa immediately started going to line dance class, where she joined friends that she met nine years ago when she didn't know a jazz step from a lindy. She found out that this group was performing at the park meeting just a few days after we arrived, so she had some catching up to do. While the others in her class line dance for 5-6 months each winter, she has to catch up in just one month.

Likewise, Mark's favorite activity here is pickleball. Just like Denisa, he is playing against players that spend 5-6 months every winter honing their skills. So in one month, we try to play competitively with our friends that get a lot more practice. Bentsen Grove has an air-conditioned two-court building that allows us to play on those cold or hot or windy days that would be no fun at an outdoor court. So players from this resort get lots of practice. We cheered on our friends from the resort who were participating in the Rio Grand Valley Golden Age Olympics at the recreation center a few miles away.

The picture below is of some of those pickleball friends that won medals in the senior Olympic competition. What a great group!

Besides physical competitions, our park also hosts musical programs and events. One evening we went to the trivia contest. People are divided into groups of five based on the card they drew when they entered the room. Denisa's team won candy for their trivia performance. She hesitates to tell you that they got the candy for their last place finish. Mark's team ended up in the upper half of the teams, but that better performance didn't win any candy!

Another interesting event was a presentation by the spokesman from the Rio Grande sugar co-op. He explained how the sugar cane is planted and harvested. When we sometimes see bits of black soot falling from the air, we know that they just burned a cane field. He explained why this was a necessary part of the harvest, and the stringent rules they have to follow before burning a field. One of the rules is that they must post signs on the perimeter of the field in several languages, including pictures that indicate a fire will be started soon. Then they must circle the field, making the announcement (again in several languages) over a loud speaker. The announcement states that everyone should come out of hiding in the field now before the fire starts, and no arrests will be made. In this time of illegal immigrants looking for hiding places, they make every effort to be sure they don't accidentally burn someone.

The resort has a nicely equipped exercise room, and we spent a little time there. While we started out well, Denisa's start on load-bearing osteoporosis exercise fizzled when she got too busy.

Denisa's sister and brother-in-law (Connie and Joe) visited for a week, so we did some activities that they enjoyed too. Denisa took a picture of her sister holding the orange bags at the weekly bean bag toss.

She also took the picture confirming that one of those orange bags made its way through the hole, scoring three points. We should also say that the bean bag team from Bentsen Grove did well at the Senior Olympics competition. We also had gold medalists in the table tennis games, as well as the puzzle competition. Who knew that there was a senior Olympic event where teams of four get the same 750-piece jigsaw puzzle, and the team that finishes it first wins gold!?! There is also bowling, cookie baking, horse shoes, cribbage, bread baking . . .

Another day we went with Connie to bean bag baseball. You have three chances to land one of your bags in one of the holes on the board. You can make it to first base, second base, third base, or bring in all the runners if you land a bag in the HR (home run) spot. But players that miss three times are out. Also, if you land your bean bag in the "Out" hole, you are awarded the outhouse trophy--a roll of toilet paper. You can see that Denisa's sister is holding the trophy until another player hits the "out" hole.

We spent some time playing indoor shuffleboard with our guests. If you know anything about scoring this game, you know that that blue team scored ten points on that round. We were the red team.

Mark didn't participate in any crafts while we were at the resort. But Denisa is a sucker for learning a new craft, so she tries one or two new ones every winter. This season we had the opportunity to learn how to tie dye t-shirts. You make a reservation for a class time, and show up with a 100% cotton laundered t-shirt. Then Denisa learned how to wind that shirt into a spiral and lay it over a colander. The shirt is divided into quadrants and sprinkled with dry tie-dye powder.

Another colander is filled with ice and placed on top of the shirt.

As the ice melts, the water drips down through the powder dye and colors the shirt.

The second day of class includes rinsing out, and then washing and drying our new tie dye shirts.

Everyone was supposed to wear their new tie dye shirts at an outdoor dance and party later in the month.

Denisa also tried the polymer clay jewelry class. They teach a different technique every week. This class called for choosing six different clays, forming them into tubes, and then rolling a thin white clay layer around each. The six tube are then squished together to form a six-color log. We used sharp blades to slice that log into thin pieces.

Those thin pieces are placed together, and then burnished into a single piece of clay.

From that new piece of multi-colored clay, we cut out pendants and ear rings. That clay can also be twisted and rolled and then recut to make designs. It was a lot of fun!

Denisa went back for a second class that included cutting the colored clay into small chunks, adding a sheet of silver or gold, adding a touch of colored chalk, and smashing it all together into a log.

The log is sliced into pieces and burnished together to form a new colorful sheet of clay.

After cutting the clay into the desired shapes, it is baked, then coated with resin, and ready to wear!

Denisa's other form of craft entertainment is making greeting cards. She is a member of the club that owns a whole closet full of inks, stamps, and dies for making custom cards. While she enjoys the class that she can go to every other week, she especially likes designing her own cards. The closet is open on Monday and Thursday evenings, and she is busy cutting and stamping those nights. She took a picture of some of the cards she made during this month.

While Denisa is making cards on those evenings, Mark and Betty are playing bingo. No pictures, because let's face it--bingo just isn't that photogenic. Mark only won one game in his 8 nights of bingo. (Just for the the record, he played 184 games of bingo, and only won once!) But he considers it a win because he gets to enjoy the evening with his buddies, and he got to buy and eat the ice cream served at the rec hall on each of those nights.

Even though we attended at least one type of class or physical activity every day, we still spent time at Denisa's Mother's house every day. Betty is 92, and she still plays a mean game of cards and likes to play rummikub even better. In the picture below, she is holding up the score sheet of the game where she beat all of us.

We have to say that the weather hasn't been great this winter in the Rio Grande Valley. We had a long string of cold and windy days, and we ended with another long string of very hot and windy days. But the weather isn't a big factor if you have options for playing indoor games or going to indoor classes. So that's just a little sample of the things that a couple of wanderers do when they spend a month sitting still at a resort.