Time to Go

   This is always a bittersweet time. We've made good friends here and each year it gets a little harder to leave. We will leave here on Wednesday morning and go to San Antonio for a few days. No beach time and no big shrimp at Dirty Al's this year. We plan to check out the River Walk, Alamo, Fredsrickburg, and Lukenbach and maybe meet up with Sticks, Kenny & Nilia at some half way point for them. 
    Before we left to go to Chillicothe, we had been invited to dinner at a friend/customer of Dennis for Sun. noon. We remembered it about 2pm that Sunday afternoon. Dennis called and they assured him they hadn't cooked, but I still wonder. Anyone who knows me knows I don't forget about invitations where someone else is doing the cooking! They extended the invitation again and this time we remembered to go. I felt like I was back in Grandma Minnie or Grandma Albertson's kitchen. We had roast, mashed potatoes, gravy,  slaw, green bean casserole, scalloped corn and hot rolls. I could of very easily embarrassed myself but used as much self control as I have. We sit and visited for a few minutes and she got up to make coffee and pulled a very tall angel food cake out of the microwave. She hadn't cooked it in there, just stored it there and then she pulled fresh strawberries out of the fridge!! This is my kind of eating. I don't know for sure where Bob found Arlene, but I hope he hangs on to her! After lunch, we headed over to their activity hall for a jam and Dennis sang.
    They have a good jam, but there are lots of accordion players. I like a good accordion song but after 10 they all begin to sound alike and there was 14/15.

It is now March 15 and I just realized that this actually saved. We made it to our RV park just south of San Antonio but had quite a scare before we got here. The driver's side inside tire blew out and I thought the whole motor home had blown up. It was very loud. Called our insurance agent and just left a message for them to call me without telling what I needed. They didn't call back for 2 hours! By that time we had realized that we needed to call the 800# on our card. Since it was a inside tire Dennis drove on the shoulder the last 15 miles to the RV park. Then we called the insurance and they sent someone out right away and changed it. A very pleasant young man had it changed in about 5 minutes. I was glad we didn't have to set on the side of the freeway with people going by 75mph.

  We are in an RV park that we've stayed in a couple of times on our way to Mission. This year it is almost full with workers. I assume they are oil workers because we see lots of signs about oil worker camps. It is very clean and well kept. We had to laugh last night because there were kids outside playing and laughing. We haven't heard that for a long time.

   Today we spent the day at the Alamo and walking the River Walk. I have posted some pictures and will post more later. Tomorrow we are going to Fredsrickburg which is a German town about 60 miles from here. Hoping to get better pictures of the wildflowers since we won't be on interstate.


 

Alamo and River Walk

This tree was on the grounds of the Alamo. Does anyone know what it is?

One of the waterfalls on the way to the

 RiverWalk

The Alamo. The line was so long  that we didn't go inside the church, just wandered around the grounds. We had been here before but were very disappointed by how commercialized it was. It used to be a shrine to the people who died in that war.

Musicians performing on the River Walk

Dennis waiting for lunch on River Walk

Long Week

When I typed last Wednesday morning that I didn't have too much to tell, I had NO idea what the next week would bring.
   That afternoon we got a phone call from home that no parent ever wants to hear. Marcy kept assuring me that everyone was ok but took a while for her to get out what wasn't ok. As I'm sure you all know Denny & Margie's house burnt last Wed afternoon. They lost all 3 of their little dogs but they were at work and Jaime & Jaxon were at school so we thank God on a regular basis that they were not injured or worse. We sit and looked at each other for awhile and finally Dennis said "what do you want to do"? Like any Mom I said "I want to go home". We started grabbing a few clothes and meds and headed out the door. Left the motor home here because we could get there quicker in the car. I kept assuring the kids that their Dad had a level head and he wouldn't drive all night. Wrong! He did park in a Walmart parking lot and slept for a couple of hours. We left Mission at 5pm Wed. night and pulled into Chillicothe at 6 pm Thurs night. That's a lot of driving/riding and hope we don't have to do that again! There was nothing we could do when we got there, but I could touch everyone and give hugs and know for myself that they were all ok.
Denny & Margie and the kids have handled this with such dignity and grace. It amazes me, because don't know if I could of been as calm and collected. I told them it hurts worse to see them go through this than if it had of been my stuff.  They have some awesome friends and family that have supported them with food, cash, gift cards and lots of prayers. Jaime was upset not because her stuff was gone, but because she had clothes and her Daddy didn't. Think maybe she's been raised right! I know that lots of you who read this have donated to them and I say a BIG thank you. I'm sure you will hear from them when their life gets settled down to a new normal. 

   We were able to see where Marcy & Wes' new house. It is a very neat house and I'm sure they  will make a beautiful home out of it. More than 1 person has commented on facebook that it would be a great place to raise a family, but Dennis says I can't say that!! Wish it was a little closer to Chillicothe but don't think I'm supposed to say that either! LOL Marcy we love you guys!

   I'm sure some of you are wondering why we are back in Texas. Denny and his family are staying at our house while they are hunting for a new place. We will go ahead and stay here for a week or 2 and then start home to be home by March 24th for Joy's birthday party.
 
   Since we were in the car Dennis decided that we'd try a new route and go through Mineral Wells, TX where his parents were married. We spent the night there Monday night and made a couple of phone calls and found someone who had known the people who lived there in 1945 when they got married and could give us an address and directions to get there. I had found the marriage announcement online in the archives of our local newspaper and it gave the name of the people who she was rooming with while his Dad was in the Army and it said they were the witnesses at the wedding. As soon as Dennis told this historian the name she said oh said she knew them and knew where their place was. I had also emailed the Mineral Wells library and asked about old phone books or cities directories that might have the address of Cameron Guinn in it. If I can figure out how to do it I will include the emails I've received back:

Ok once again, the pictures didn't go where I wanted them to. But for the Albertson children/grandchildren, this is where it all started. The pictures that Grandma showed me it was white and the yard was much neater. Don't know if that was taken when they got married or if they went back later. We found it cool that the flag on the porch had an A on it.

"'Dear Dennis and Sharon, 

When I came to Mineral Wells in 2005, I bought their home at 2315 NW 3rd Avenue and remodeled it extensively.  It is a wonderful home with a spectacular front porch.  I may have some pictures from the time I bought it but it should look better now.  It had been vacant for some time.

A young couple own it now.  Good luck with your research.

Sharon, the house was to be a two story house but the stairs were never added.  Instead of walking into a anteroom with the stairs in front of one and a hall way to the north opening both to the parlor and dining room, one walked into a large room about 23 by 15.  

In the front of the house, off the big room to the north there was a room, a parlor, about 12 x 14 with two pocket doors that use to slide into the wall on either side.  Through the doors, a dining room as big as the parlor with a large opening back into the big room and a door into the bathroom, both doors on the south and a door on the west into the kitchen.  So the north side of the house was a parlor, dining room and kitchen.  The other side was the big room, then side by side, a bedroom and the bathroom off the dining room.  

Sometime, someone married a corner of a preexisting structure behind bedroom and the bath, giving the kitchen a room to the south, squaring out the back of the house.

At one time, the lot was bordered by 4th Avenue, 3rd Avenue, and 23rd Street.  The yard with those old oaks must have been lovely.

The ceilings were over 9 ft high, it had wood floors, and solid wood doors.  The kitchen had a large window (the window may have been the original back door) and one over the sink.  The parlor, dining room, and bedroom each had two large windows.  The big room had a window onto the covered porch and two at the end.  The dining room did not have lathe but the wallpaper was papered onto the boards.  The paper was rotting but very spectacular.  The wallpaper had grayed black background with a repeating floral design with muted green leaves and large white flower similar to magnolias.  The accent colors in the flowers were gray, yellow and red.  Very fashionable for the late 1920s.

It would have been a splendid site for a wedding."

The genealogy Gods were smiling down on us! We had an old picture of the house and except for paint it hasn't changed a whole lot.

 

  So as you can see the past week has had some good points along with the bad. We have some friends that we've made here that live in Anadarko (probably not spelled right) OK. They are the ones who had to leave early last year because their only child had passed away. They kept telling us that we need to stop by when we are going home so since it was right on the road, we stopped and said "hi" on Monday. They acted like they hadn't seen us for months and were so thrilled we came by. Never mind we'd just left on Wed and they went home on Thurs. Don't know if we'll go that way with the motor home. We paid $11.50 tolls in the car so would of probably been $40 in the motor home. The roads aren't that great either.

  

  Tonight we went to Riverside to eat tenderloins with Butch/Brenda and 3 other couples from the park. They have really big good tenderloins. We ate out on the deck right on the Rio Grande river. Yesterday it was 92 degrees when we got back here at 6 pm. Today it has been mid/high 80s but lots of wind so very comfortable.

 

   Brenda & I did water aerobics this morning and we are both still moving so that is a plus! For the ones of you who visualize these little old people teetering around, you should try to keep up with them!! There is something going on ALL the time.

 

   Last Wed Dennis went across the street to one of the other parks and they were having a karaoke day. He sang 3 songs and is beginning to really get his voice back and he loves singing as much as he did 30 years ago.

 

   Something to add to my list of things that make you go hmmmm: Denny & Margie had made reservations in Kansas City for Friday & Saturday night to celebrate their anniversay. After the fire they decided they couldn't go and asked their friend/travel agent to see if she could get some of their money back. She called the hotel on Friday and explained the situation and offered to send them fire reports, police reports, etc. Their comment was "why didn't they call sooner?" As I'm typing that I'm still thinking "they really didn't say that" but they did. They did credit 1 night and said if they'd called sooner they'd credited both nights.

 

  If you've read this far, please know that this is mostly for me to have a record of what we are doing. Some of you requested to receive these updates and some of you just got added. If you want to be taken off the list, let me know.