We are still enjoying our time at Bentsen Grove Resort in Mission, Texas. We are into our second month here, and we're beginning to get into a schedule. On Monday, Denisa heads to line dance class in the morning. It's great exercise, as she can get her 10,000 steps in a three-hour line dance class.
We've been blessed with great teachers, who have an amazing number of dances memorized and at the tips of their toes! They have danced over 70 different dances in class this season. It's amazing that they know so many! A past teacher (pictured below in the jean jacket) is 87-year-old Marie. She's proof that line dancing keeps you young! We've been missing her in class because she is battling breast cancer right now.
Marie was leaving the park this week to head home to start chemotherapy, so we organized a flash dance in her honor. Just down the street, we were plotting our strategy to enter the dance from four different directions at the appropriate time. Our leaders found that organizing line dancers is a little like herding cats.
But we all made it to the right location, coming in to the dance at different times to give it the flash dance feeling. We were wearing different shades of pink and dancing to "Mama Maria" in honor and support of Marie's battle with breast cancer. She plans to be back next fall to continue dancing here at Bentsen Grove.
Whew! That story was a bit of a detour from the description of our weekly activities. On Monday, Denisa finishes line dance just in time for a little snack before heading off to Spanish class with Mark. We are learning key Spanish phrases and words, and our teacher hosted a pot luck fiesta this week. That's another example of great volunteer leaders here at Bentsen Grove Resort. Monday night is bingo night. But after 4 straight win-less evenings, Denisa has turned in her bingo dauber to go to card-making class for the evening.
Tuesday has the least scheduled activities. So it's a good day to catch some time in the pool at swim-nastics for a good workout without even sweating. Then it's time to head to the pickleball courts for some real exercise. Even in the new air-conditioned in-door courts, we are sweating.
We were here for the grand opening of this new facility. We've found that pickleball is a great sports for all ages. The ribbon-cutters in the picture below are Max and Clara--two of our favorite players. This year they are celebrating 90th birthdays, as well as their 70th wedding anniversary--and they are still very good pickleball players. Again, evidence that exercise keeps you young.
Wednesday brings intermediate line dancing, and Denisa works up a sweat in this fast-paced class. But she loves this aerobic exercise with fancy footwork to cool music. It's good exercise for the body and the mind trying to remember all the complicated steps. She then goes directly to card-making class, which is like "crafts on steroids." The group has all the stamps, die-cuts, and punches, and leaders that patiently show newbies how to use them. Below is a picture of some of the cards Denisa has made this winter.
Thursday has more line dancing, lunch at the rec hall, and more pickleball. That's followed with an evening in glass class. Denisa has tried different fused glass techniques--again guided by great volunteers that enjoy teaching newbies. We have access to the glass cutting tools and kilns that a professional shop would have. One of the easiest is the melted glass earrings pictured below. It looks like Denisa is trying to get a pair in every color.
Friday has fewer activities, so it's a great day for zumba and some more pickleball. But we have to be sure to make it to the produce truck that sells local fruits and vegetables right inside the resort. There might be time for more ball after stocking up on groceries for the week. But we can't wear out our legs on pickleball, because there is a dance every Friday evening. We love to two-step, but we are learning new couple's dances this year. It's also fun to visit with the many other dancers that look forward to this form of exercise as much as we do.
Saturday morning has breakfast and a park-wide activity, followed by lunch. We've found a festival most weekends to fill the rest of the day.
Church services and bible study start off our Sunday, with over 200 people gathering in the rec hall. We usually finish the day with ice cream sundaes. Volunteers dip ice cream every evening, but we get toppings too for our sundaes on Sunday.
We are enjoying fun activities throughout the week here, and we don't even have to leave the park! We hate to complain, but it's hard to find time to fit in a trip to the pool, and we really need to juice some of the oranges off our trees. It's certainly tiring being retired!!
We bought our motor home used, so we didn't get to make decisions about the details of its lay-out. Even though we really like our home, there are a few things we would change if we could. One of those is that the kitchen is in a slide out. That means that some very heavy equipment (like a residential refrigerator) is sliding in and out every time we set up camp. Also, the kitchen sink plumbing has to slide. Because slides need a soft cushion surface, all the slides floors are covered in carpet. From the beginning, Denisa has really disliked having that strip of light-colored carpet right in front of the cooking area.
So as soon as we bought the motor home, we started looking for a way to protect that carpet from the spills and drips that will always happen in a kitchen. We found this set of of carpets at Camping World that matched our colors, even though they didn't really match the size we needed. We were also disappointed in their durability, as we have purchased three sets and the binding has frayed on all of them.
Since we are staying in one location for two months here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, we decided it was a great time to look for a better option. Mark found a guy that can make custom-designed rugs. Joe even has experience in working with RV owners. Armed with our Christmas present money, we went shopping for new carpet. We found our best option at Home Depot, where we could buy in-stock carpeting by the foot.
The next step was making a very precise template. In RVs, the carpet is laid, and then the cabinets are built on top of it. That means that we have a very jagged edge where the cabinets meet the carpet. We knew that being off just a quarter-inch any place would keep the rug from scooting in close to the cabinets. So we brought the just-cut carpet back to the motor home before Joe bound it. We were surprised at how well it fit! With just a little trimming, it went back to the shop for the final binding.
Here's a close-up example of just how detailed the cutting and binding had to be to fit in close to the base of the kitchen cabinets.
We were excited to bring home the finished product and slide it into place. What a good fit!
The carpet roll at Home Depot was 12-foot wide. We had to buy a seven-foot length to get the three different rugs we needed to cover the slide carpeting in the living room. One went under the dining table to cover that light-colored carpet that is susceptible to spills while eating.
We had another one made for the strip of carpet in front of the sofa and recliner slide.
We even had enough carpeting to make a perfectly-shaped rug for the step in the bedroom. We think this has been a great home improvement project, and we would recommend Joe's handiwork! Sometimes it's good to stay in one place to get big projects accomplished, and we have found that this section of South Texas is a great place to find good work at a fair price.
We always make the drive to South Padre Island at least once each winter for a little beach time. From our camping spot in Mission, Texas, we're about an hour's drive from the Gulf. Our first stop is usually at the visitor's center on the Main drag of South Padre. We've taken pictures of the massive sand castle in front of the visitor center many times, but today's picture looks much different.
After five years in this location, the sand castle is being demolished. If you look in the bottom right corner of the picture below, you can see the "message from the artist," that is a permanent part of the display. So it was fun to get to talk to the artist--Andy Hancock--in person. He described the process of tearing down the old sand castle, which had been preserved in place by coating it with glue.
Now he was chipping off that sand/glue exterior that had kept this masterpiece standing for five years. He plans to have the bigger and better sand castle completed in time for the spring break crowds. Because we were watching with such interest, he gave us a little piece of sand castle history. It's a sand falcon from the castle--petrified by glue five years ago.
After spending time with the sand castle process, it was time to hit the sand at the beach.
The water was a little nippy, but the air temperature was just lovely. The best part was that the usually gusty ocean winds were perfectly still.
When Denisa was taking the picture above, she was waiting for a nice big wave to come in for a good background. That wave brought the water up higher than Mark had planned, getting his rolled jeans wet. Yes, that Gulf water is very nippy!
Last year we discovered that the west coast has few sea shells, so it was good to be back on the Gulf of Mexico. We were glad to see a sea-shell-strewn beach once again! Nothing fancy and no sand dollars, but lots of delicate shells makes it look like a healthy beach.
Over the years we have come here for many windy trips, getting sand-blasted on this beach. So today it was nice to stroll on such a calm day. We left Denisa's Mother sitting on a beach chair while we got a mile walk in the sand.
Turn-about is fair play, and Mark caught Denisa trying to get away from an incoming wave that got her jeans wet as well.
While on our beach walk, Denisa picked up black and gray shells. She doesn't keep the shells, but enjoys using them in a picture. This was her tribute to our day in South Padre Island.
We drove back across the causeway, to the town of Port Isabel. Last year the lighthouse was shrouded in scaffolding while it was being refurbished. It looked fresh and well-cared for against the cloudy skies as we drove through town.
We usually eat at Dirty Al's, but we decided to try Joe's Oyster Bar this time. Good fried and grilled fish and shrimp for dinner completed our successful day. We stopped by the local fish market for several pounds of gulf shrimp for the freezer. We ended our day in the not-so-glamorous job of de-veining those shrimp, but we have a little bit of the Gulf to eat in the days to come. It was a good South Padre Day!
We have officially lengthened our stay in South Texas for a second month--which will be our longest stay in one park ever. The activities in the park are keeping us busy during the week. But during the weekend we are always looking for fun and festivals in our surrounding area. We put the South Padre Island Kite Festival on the calendar weeks ago. But Saturday morning dawned cloudy and foggy, and we wondered if we would even be able to see the kites after our hour-long drive to South Padre Island. As we crossed the bridge to the island, the fog concealed our destination. (Incidentally, we weren't in danger because the lights weren't flashing. We took the picture below as part of our Spanish homework to bring Spanish phrases to class. We are proud to report that we were rewarded with a chocolate for being good students and completing our homework.)
Even though it was cloudy, we could see the kites clearly once we got to the festival grounds on South Padre Island. These over-sized kites were hovering overhead, and reminded us more of hot air balloons rather than kites.
The 10 mph winds at the beach kept the flags flying and the big kites in the air when we first arrived.
We got our chairs set up among the thousands of other festival-goers. We're here with Denisa's Mother, Betty.
We watched as professional kite flyers made their kites dance across the sky in choreographed programs.
These people come from all over the country. In the introductions, we heard flyers announced from New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and even all the way from Texas.
We arrived just in time for the mega-event--twelve kite flyers doing an intricate choreography together. At the bottom center of the picture below, you can see the twelve flyers on the ground. There were lots of other kites in the sky, making it harder to get a clean photograph of the dozen kites that were racing and chasing across the sky.
We don't understand how they could place those kites in intricate positions in the sky without getting those long kite strings tangled, but they did.
They could also land them gently to the ground, in a perfectly straight line.
By this time, the winds had diminished down to less than 5 mph--unheard of this close to the gulf waters. All the big decorative kites were down on the ground, because there just wasn't enough breeze to keep them air-borne. But the announcer said this was perfect weather for trick kite-flying, allowing the flyers to do intricate moves that normal gulf winds wouldn't allow. There was just enough breeze to keep this six-piece kite in the air.
It was being flown by Connor Doran. We had seen him a couple years ago as one of the 12 finalists on the television show--"America Has Talent." His indoor kite flying was a success on the show, and he has continued to use his talent to raise funds for Epilepsy Awareness.
We spent a couple hours enjoying the festival, learning more about the world of kiting. It made us remember our few feeble attempts at getting a kite in the air when our sons were young. How do these people make it look so easy? We're glad we made the trip to South Padre on this questionable-weather day that turned out to be perfect!
With classes and activities available every hour of the day inside Bentsen Grove Resort, we wouldn't ever have to leave. We have visited the area around Mission, Texas, many times before, so we often think there is nothing left to see. But we still wander outside of our gated resort to experience a little more of the Rio Grande Valley. One of our trips took us to the Don-Wes Flea Market. This market gets its name from its location between the towns of Donna and Weslaco. Here we bought honey, cheese, produce, birthday cards, a bicycle light, a billfold, kettle corn, dishes to replace our broken (and discontinued) Corelle plates . . . It's a multi-dimensional market that is always busy. In case we should tire of shopping, there is often entertainment in the courtyard.
Some people say that the Don-Wes Flea Market is filled with winter Texans. For a more local experience, we were told to go to the market in Penita. It is actually called "Pulga." From our Spanish class, we now know that pulga is the Spanish word for "flea" and we seemed to be the only non-Spanish speakers at the flea market in Penita.
It was almost as if we had suddenly slipped south of the border, as all the signs were in Spanish. After communicating mostly with hand gestures, we bought some produce, then headed to the food stalls. We couldn't decipher the menus, but we saw people carrying around these odd sticks.
We determined that was a potato cut with a special spiral cutter, then deep-fried as one huge french fry--or maybe it is a "spanish fry" in this case. We didn't know exactly how to place our order, so we stood in line and did some pointing and managed to get one. After slathering it with ketchup, some hot spicy sauce, and a little mayo, we enjoyed a new-to-us Mexican treat.
A little knowledge of Spanish is needed to understand many of the signs on local streets in our area. We now know that "elote en vaso" is corn on the cob. Here "tunas" are not fish, but prickly pear cactus.
We have gone to several festivals and expos since our arrival to the valley. Mission hosts a Citrus Festival, and we visited the booths on the festival grounds with Denisa's Mother, Betty.
Instead of using tissue paper, this parade is famous for floats that are decorated with slices of the valley's citrus fruits. Because of the prediction of rain, we didn't go to the parade. But we did see the shoe-box-sized floats decorated by local elementary students.
It's a busy season of fairs and festivals here in the Rio Grand Valley. We are at the peak of the winter Texan migration, with the maximum number of snow birds flocking away from the cold weather up north. We have also found that many entertainers come south for the winter. People that normally hang out in Branson or Nashville during the summer, book shows all up and down the valley in the winter. Large resorts like Bentsen Grove host programs several nights each week during peak season. For around $7, we can enjoy some great entertainment without even leaving our park.
The most expensive ticket of the season is Molly B. The queen of polka music, she played around twenty different instruments before the evening was over. She only had two shows in the Rio Grand Valley, so the seats were all full that night. The largest instrument she plays is the alphorn, which took up most of the stage.
During the winter season in South Texas, Denisa is a happy camper because there is a dance at our park every Friday night. In fact, it's easy to find a good dance any night of the week down here! So we've been two-stepping and toe-tapping our way through an entire month here in the Rio Grande Valley! Sorry that the blogs are so infrequent, but we're just too darn busy having fun!
This is our fourth year to spend a month at Bentsen Grove Resort in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. After spending a few days making repairs on the cold-damage to the motor home, and restocking the groceries, it was time to settle into resort life.
We have been sedentary for the last 7 weeks, so it was wonderful to have lots of ways to exercise. Besides riding our bikes and walking around the campground, there are many ways to burn a few calories. Some of Denisa's favorites are line dancing and going to swimnastics. But she has also gone to aerobics, zumba, and yoga. Other options for exercise are tai chi, biking trips, clogging, water aerobics, regular exercise classes, a well-equipped exercise room, and two swimming pools.
For those that like playing a game while exercising, we really enjoy playing pickleball. But on the weekly schedule we can also play golf, softball, shuffleboard, darts, horse shoes, pool, table tennis, bowling, and volleyball.
This year Denisa is trying a new craft--dichroic jewelry. If that term doesn't sound familiar to you, she didn't know what that meant either. But at the Glass Adventures open house, they showed her examples of this fused glass art. More importantly, the projects are tiny, which is important if you live in a motor home.
Throughout the week there are lessons for quilting, needlework, woodburning, stained glass, woodcarving, paper quilling, ceramics, watercolor, rock club, scrapbooking, card making, wool working, swedish weaving, encaustic, photography, and oil painting.
All of these classes are taught by volunteers, so there is little to no expense to participate. Over the years, nice equipment has been purchased for these different craft groups. There are kilns for making glass projects, saws and polishers for rock projects, etc. All of the equipment is made available through seasoned volunteers that are happy to share their expertise with beginners like us.
Volunteers also teach other new skills. In this 55 and older park, it's not hard to teach old dogs new tricks in Spanish class, birding class, and Computer class. We are both going to Spanish class that meets every Lunes (that's Monday! We're just anxious to work on our homework this week, which is learning the days of the week in Spanish.)
For those who like music, the resort offers plenty of opportunities to play your instrument or sing. Every week there are practices for church choir, ukulele lessons, melody theater, kitchen band, acoustic country jam, holiday choir, and senior ambassadors.
We have never participated, but there is also a scheduled time to play every card and board game imaginable. This is a long list of games one can meet with others to play every week at a specific time and place: bridge, polish poker, bingo, bid euchre, cribbage, mah jongg, nomination, 7's from Hell, "65", Omaha poker, pokeno, hand/knee/foot, card bingo, duplicate bridge, ten square, bunco, pinochle, dirty board, sheepshead, rumicub, whist, pegs & jokers, and Texas Hold 'em. Whoo! These retired people have given up working to do a whole lot of playing!
The park also has a full kitchen, and serves several meals each week. We take advantage of these opportunities, as the prices are kept low because of the use of volunteer labor. There is also ice cream served out of this kitchen every evening, and sundaes on Sunday. Another of our favorite foods coming out of this kitchen are the home-made donuts made on Wednesday. After finding out that they sell out fast, we have learned to pre-order our cake donuts. Even with all the exercise, for some reason we're not losing weight. It might have something to do with these donuts.
The schedule is full, and if anyone is bored here, it's clearly their own fault. Any time we have tried a new activity, we have been welcomed into the group with open arms. That's why we have met so many people during our month-long stays. Denisa's Mother has been coming to this park for over 30 winters, and we always teased her that this was like going to winter camp for old people. Now that we're one of them, we can see why she has enjoyed it for so many years, as we settle into this resort life for ourselves.
