Victoria Palms is Absolutely Awesome!!

  We are having such a good time here at Victoria Palms!!  Let me give you an idea of how much there is to do here and how each week shapes up:
  Sunday morning we leave for church at 8:15.  The service starts at 9:00 but I joined the choir and we practice at 8:20 before the service.  There is a Sunday brunch in the restaurant, but we have only gone once.  Back to Harvey around 10:15, change clothes and then we usually head a couple of miles down the road to Walmart to pick up any necessities.  Then lunch, the pool, shuffleboard at 2:00 and water volleyball at 4:00 in the big pool (although no one has shown, so far).  Then supper and cards inside Harvey.  By the way we are 22-22 with 5 crowns now.
   Monday morning there is shuffleboard or ping pong at 9:30, bean bag at 11:00 and then the pool. 
   Tuesdays we play Bocce ball at 9:00 (we are loving that!), water volleyball in the small pool at 1:00 and then either line dancing 101 and 102(just me), Karaoke at Pecker's, a local bar and grille at 3:00 or a pot luck meal back in the CG's Cactus Club at 4:30.  Then John has started playing pickleball from 7:00-9:00. He just bought his own paddle.  Pickleball is a cross between, tennis, ping pong and badminton.  The court is small than tennis and the balls are similar to a wiffle ball, just a bit smaller.  It is extremely popular among us "older" folks. 

"Uh...I think that was yours."  "No, it was yours!"

 


"Oh, oh, oh...I can almost reach it."

 

Pretty good form, but what's with the hand on the thigh?

 

Perfect!

   Wednesday morning John plays pickleball at 9:00 (and, by the way, next year my foot and hip WILL be good enough for me to play, too!) or we both play shuffleboard at 9:30.  Then we go to the flea market just behind the CG for the largest, sweetest pineapples we have ever had.  They even core them for you.  And, weather permitting, we hang out at the pool and the hot tub the rest of the afternoon.   Are you feeling sorry for us yet?
   Thursdays we play Bocce ball at 9:00, possibly bean bag at 11:00, water volleyball at 1:00, line dancing 101 and 102 at 3:45 and John plays pickleball from 7-9:00.
   On Friday there is a farmer's market in the parking lot of the ballroom from 9-12:00, I have choir practice from 9-10:15, ping pong from 10:30-12:30, pool/hot tub and Karaoke at the Cactus Club from 7-10:00.
    Saturday morning John plays pickleball from 9-11:00 and we have the rest of the day to do our own thing.
   In the evenings we sit outside and watch TV or watch TV inside and play cards.
   Most Mondays there is a happy hour at 1:00 poolside called, "sip and dip" with entertainment.  The first and third Tuesday of the month there is  dance in the ballroom at 7pm with a live band and every Friday there is happy hour in the ballroom at 3pm with an entertainer and a dance in the ballroom at 7pm with a live band.  Sometimes it's hard to chose which one we want to attend!!  And every Saturday night there is a dance with live entertainment in the Cactus Club.  Every Wednesday the activities dept hosts a special activity like the Not-so-Newlywed game or Min It to Win It or Ladies Night Out.  John and I are signed up for Min It to Win It on the 22nd.
   And in between all the resort activities we get together with friends, go out to eat and go shopping.  It's a tough life here in Texas!!
   The weather the last 4 days has been very warm in the 80's and 90's, but we have had a lot of rain with thunderstorms.  It will pour for an hour and then the sun will come out for a couple of hours and be very steamy.  So, all in all, we have been able to most everything we usually do except water volleyball on Thursday.
   Some of the highlights:
   On Monday we decided to go to Mexico even though we didn't bring our passports or birth certificates.  We are about 40 minutes from the border and it was a fun drive taking in all the new sites.  We checked with an officer at US Customs when we got there and he said we shouldn't have any trouble getting back into the US with our military ID's.  It just might take longer than a passport would.  So we took the chance.  After being there about an hour we were ready to leave.  Too much pan handling and begging, and it was HOT that day.  Every other building was a dentist office, plastic surgery office or pharmacy.  People were standing outside all of them asking you needed any work done or any drugs.  Got old!!  We bought a bottle of clear vanilla for $.95, a silver bracelet for $6.00 and a pair of sunglasses for $5.00.  OK...now we can say we were in Mexico.

This is the entrance to Mexico from the US side.

 

This bamboo was growing inside the fence below.
I've never seen any that thick!

 

This is the walkway into Mexico.  There were mostly women standing underneath begging for a nickel.  At the far end young children had their
arms stretched out through the holes asking for money.  It was gut wrenching!

 

This is the Rio Grande river.  I was expecting it to be bigger!

 

 

The official boundary line between the US and Mexico.

 

This was a small cluster of shops on the way out.

   On Friday we asked Claudia and Larry to go along to a burger joint we had heard about while we were at Sunshine CG.  It's called Gonzales Burgers and we were told it is one of the biggest and best burgers we would ever have.  The story is that the owner grinds up 300 lbs of hamburger in the morning.  When it is gone the place closes.  Claudia and Larry got there first and warned us that it just looks like a house...no sign or anything.  (They actually went inside and asked someone at a table if it was Gonzales Burgers.)  They offer only hamburgers, fries, onion rings and cans of soda and bottles of water and they only take cash. The patties were huge...looked like the size of a T-bone steak!  And they lived up to their reputation.  They were delicious!  Only Larry was able to eat the whole thing, but he didn't have any FF's or onion rings.

The burgers were fresh.

 

  We met Claudia and Larry 2 yrs ago on Jekyll Island,
GA.  They are from Macon, GA.  He is retired Air Force and
she is a retired elementary school teacher.

 

This rattler was mounted on the wall along with a couple
other animal heads.

 

This is the "leftover" half of John's burger.  Larry was the
only one to eat the whole thing, but he didn't have
any fries or onion rings.

   I don't remember if I mentioned the craft show they were having here yesterday (Sat.).  I called here about it when we were staying at Sunshine and was told I needed a Texas sales tax number in order to participate.  I got one and then when I called back I was told there was no space available...it was full!  Well, almost every day after we got here I would go down to the activity office to check if they had any cancellations.  They did, but there were already others on the waiting list who were given the space.  Well. on Friday afternoon I checked again, and there was still no space available.  So, I asked if I could come in around 6:45 on Saturday morning to check if there were any no shows.  Guess what...I got a space!  I did ok and had a lot of fun!

How do you like my new short hairdo??

   Today (Sunday) it is much cooler with some rain and a lot of clouds.  It will definitely be an indoor day.  Last night we went to a dance in the Cactus Club with Larry and Claudia and there neighbors, Bill and Betty.  John plays pickleball with Bill.  The singer at the dance was named Leslie.  She was phenominal...she could sing anything!!  We are both a bit tired today because of the time change.  John took a nap while I worked on the blog.  I think my turn is coming!  We went to Walmart after church to pick up a few things including beer.  But when we went to check out the clerk told us he couldn't sell us the beer until 12 noon (it was 11:40), so we hung out for 20 minutes so we could purchase the beer.  I wonder if we will ever be able to purchase beer/wine at our Walmarts at home??  We stopped at the flea market to get 2 pineapples on the way back and then just hung out inside Harvey the rest of the afternoon.  Maybe we'll go down to the large card room to play "crazy cards" at 6:00, whatever that is.  Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?!?  Mom called me back and we talked for almost 35 minutes...well, she did :)   She had a suspicious spot on her lip and is awaiting the results of a tissue sample that taken and sent off.  Other than that she and Dad are doing great!  And I'm happy to report that according to her blog, Bonnie and Ken are feeling much better, thank goodness.  They were laid up for 2 weeks!  I also talked to Alexandra.  She and Todd were on their way to Lancaster Co from the base in Virginia to visit.  They are planning on heading back home before the predicted snow coming to Lanc Co on Tuesday. 
   We just can't say enough good things about this RV resort.  We love it here!

Please enlarge these pictures to get the full effect
of how beautiful the entrance is to Victoria Palms in the evening.