I was surprised to see it was almost 6:00am when I woke up this morning - especially after going to bed earlier than normal last night. I haven't done my exercises the past few days, however, not wanting to go too long without doing them, I followed through today.
I read blogs and finished Monday's post before getting up, getting dressed and heading up to the clubhouse for coffee There were quite a few people there and we visited until about 9:30-10.
On our way back I took a few pictures here in the park.
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| Our group is parked at the bottom of a hill. The park manager has been wonderful though. After they had all of the rigs parked they gave our group the use of two golf carts so we could shuttle those who need it to the clubhouse. It's also nice for getting some of the food up the hill too. |
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| What a neat looking tree. Almost looks like a face and a nose. Can you see it? |
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| Our President's site - letting everyone know who our group is! |
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| Fun fall decorations! Our neighbors Stan and Linda decorated the outside of their rig. So cute! |
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| We walked a little this morning as well. I thought this was just a pretty site with the brown and green grass. |
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| At the top of the hill is this truck. The wording on the side of the truck (not permanent) advertises the food drive they have going on for a local charity. For every item that is brought in, each person will receive a ticket. They have a few gifts that will be given away at the end of the drive. You do not have to be present to win - if you win, they will send your gift to you. |
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| The office, laundry and clubhouses. We are in the smaller clubhouse to the left. Behind the office and laundry is the larger clubhouse. We had 34 at our potluck meal this evening....which is large for us. What a wonderful turnout! |
For lunch I had a carnitas taco from last night and it was delicious. Dean had a tortilla rollup. It was a quiet afternoon. I had our mail forwarded here and it arrived today. We received several more confirmations of a change in address, which I'll add to our folder. So far we really like the Escapees mail forwarding. Each day that mail arrives at their facility in Texas for us, they scan the envelope and email it to us. It's convenient for us to know what is there and if it's something they need to send us or not, or if we need it right away or it can wait until more mail accumulates before they forward it to us. I've already realized there are a few things we might be able to have emailed to us rather than mailed, or we might be able to access online rather than have it sent to us. I will be checking with the companies to see if it is possible. The more we have emailed to us, or we can access online the less it costs us in postage - as well as them.
Everyone received a copy of the agenda for the week's events. Tonight is our potluck dinner. We had an enormous amount of food brought in by everyone who attended. Of course it was all delicious.... well, everything I tried was delicious. There was no way I could try everything but I tried hard when it came to the dessert table. Not really...but I did take small bites of several to taste and they were all wonderful.
After the potluck we were going to play card bingo. About 2/3 of the way through our meal, the electricity in the park went out. Mike, the park manager, came in a short while later to let us know the electric company was aware of it. We were able to finish our dinner and clean up since there was still sufficient light, but it was starting to get dark by the time we headed back to our rigs. It was probably between 2-2.5 hours before it came back on. It was beginning to get pretty cool in the rig by then. We could use the gas heater but it does need electric to operate, and while our batteries would do also, we had no idea how long it might be out and didn't want to run those down. We just grabbed a throw and a heavy jacket and we were fine.
I was glad it came on before we went to bed as it would have been awful climbing into that cold bed, unable to turn on my heated mattress pad. Brrrr!
What a great wonderful day we had with our Escapee friends.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - Morning Chores; Great Luncheon; Hand and Foot; Leftover Potluck, Card Bingo
Dean went up to the clubhouse for coffee and to visit this morning. I needed to bake a cake for today and wash my hair. I had pulled out all of the ingredients for the cake, then realized I did not have enough brown sugar. I called Linda B. to see if she had any I could borrow; and she came to my rescue. Dean walked over and got it for me. It didn't take long to make the cake. I put it in the oven after it had been heating up for a good 15-20 minutes to make sure it was at the right temperature. I set my timer after putting the cake in the oven, then washed my hair. I had also set a timer on my phone so I would be sure to hear it while I was in the bedroom drying my hair. After my hair was dry I curled my bangs on the left side, but when I tried to curl the right side, they fell almost flat. What? It was still hot, but absolutely would not curl them. I guess it was losing the heat. I used lots of hair spray, hoping that would keep them in place for the day.
The timer went off but I was surprised to see the cake was not even close to being done yet. What now? I put it back in at least two more times, maybe three before a toothpick in the middle finally came out okay. This has never, ever happened in the rig. This cake has always cooked perfectly in here. Sometimes it's just not your day to have everything go right. I had the topping/frosting ready to go on when it was done, and added that.
I started to walk up to the clubhouse after washing the dishes and straightening things up, and I met Dean part way. We came back to Bentley and then we headed to Walmart. I was out of 81mg aspirin (which I take daily); nutmeg (used the last in the cake today - thank goodness I had enough) and brown sugar. I also picked up a new curling iron. The one I had was at least 12 years old, maybe older, so rather than trying to mess with it, for 12-13 dollars, it was peace of mind to replace it. As soon as we got home I gave it a try and it curled the right side just fine. That was good!!
I walked over to Mark & Karen's to visit with Karen for a little bit around 10:30 or so. She was busy getting ready, so I visited with Mark for a short time before heading back to the rig to get our "brown bag gifts ready". Mark and Karen are new full-timer's. He decided to keep a side job he's had for awhile since he can easily do it on the road. He showed me the printer he bought.
It's exactly what I need - half the size or less, than what I have. When I bought my current one it had both black and colored cartridges. I asked the guy helping us if it had to have a color cartridge in it to work and he told me no, it would work with just the black cartridge. Not true - but of course I didn't realize that until we went through the trial cartridge that came with it. It's expensive to replace both cartridges when I only print in black. This printer may be a purchase in the near future. It's small enough, we could make use of quite a bit of extra space in the cabinet where we planned to put the printer and save money on the cartridges. I love having extra space and saving money for things I choose to have. Not that I have to fill every little spot, but it prevents having everything crammed in to a space where you can't find anything when you need to.
I almost forgot today was "brown bag gift" day. I pulled our gifts out, then rummaged through all of the brown bags I have accumulated since a year ago, the last time we did this. We wrapped "our gifts to give" in plastic bags, put them in an appropriately sized bag, then stapled the tops shut to hide the "prize".
Stan and Linda are our hosts for today's luncheon. Linda loves to decorate and Stan joins right in with her. They make a great team! We had sandwiches for lunch, with a fruit salad and desserts. Linda found some neat little trays, that fit perfectly in brown paper bags to go with the "brown bag gift" theme. She had printed off a cute fall theme and pasted them to the top of the bags.
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| At the bottom of this picture is the brown bag that Linda had our sandwich plate in. It was long and just fit in the bag perfectly. She added the paper decoration on top. |
On each table was a burlap placemat with a fall decoration laid on top. She had all of the fixings for sandwiches: ketchup, mustard, mayo; slider buns; meat choices of ham, turkey and roast beef; swiss and american cheese; lettuce, tomato, onion, and a few other condiments. The sandwiches were wonderful and just exactly right for a nice light luncheon. The fruit salad was delicious. For dessert she made a pumpkin dump cake and a cherry dessert. Both were delicious. Because we had so many attending, I made an oatmeal cake too. They were all hit pretty hard. There was some of each leftover that we will probably finish off tonight at our "leftovers" potluck.
After lunch, we had our brown bag exchange. Each person draws a number. Whoever has number 1 gets to pick from the brown bags first. The person with number 2 gets to pick, or steal the gift from number 1. This continues throughout the game, with more chances to steal a gift as more gifts are available. A gift can be stolen up to three times. Once it has 3 X's on the bag, it stays with the person who has it at that time. There were at least four or five that ended up with 3 X's. A few REALLY popular items, although several others were stolen throughout the process as well. It's so much fun, especially when you have some of the friends we have egging things on.
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| Stan (his arm in the air) and Linda - our hosts for today. |
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| I wanted to get pictures of each table - there's Karen in the back waving at me! |
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| Stan choosing his "brown bag" |
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| Patty and her prize |
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| Alvin, Our President - I don't remember what he was telling us, but I'm sure it was very important! See my brown bag prize at the end of the table. It is a dishtowel with an RV theme to it. I love it. |
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| Several others checking out the prizes - should we steal or keep what we have? |
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| There was someone at this table trying to speed things up, playing the Jeopardy countdown song! |
About three o'clock, a group was going to play a card game, hand and foot. I love to play and haven't had the opportunity since we were in Texas in March. Dean walked up with me in case we needed another person. He ended up staying to make a foursome with Leroy, Cindy and me. Dean and I were partners and won both of the two hands, but overall it wasn't by much. We typically play three, but we didn't have time to finish a third one before dinner at 5:30.
Back home we gathered our tableware and something to drink before returning to the clubhouse. Oh my goodness, I think almost everyone brought a dessert. We had a hard time finding enough room for all of them.
Again, another great meal. Once everyone had taken their dishes back to their rigs we gathered again to play card bingo. We broke up into groups of four. A deck of cards is dealt to the four players (13 each). Alvin (our President) was the caller. As he called a number, whoever in each group of four had that card would put it in a pile in the middle. When someone (or more) was out of cards, they are to say Bingo. It was fun. We played several (7?) games. Dean and I each won one game. By the way each person puts a dime in the kitty for each game and the winner, or winners wins what is in the kitty. Dean won by himself. I had to share my portion, which is fine. It's more about the fun of playing (always lots of laughter) than winning.
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| Card Bingo |
When we left the clubhouse it was DARK outside. Tomorrow night, if we are out this late, we need to remember to bring a flashlight with us.
I was too tired to work on the blog, so you get two posts today.
Nice post Cheri. It's fun to be part of the topic!
ReplyDeleteI really am enjoying my time with you guys during the Rally. Even if we lost both rounds our baseball!
I finally recalled that it was Kelly at BK American Odyssey blog that has that same HP printer. It's been a little touchy setting up the wireless connection, for me anyway. I just use it plugged in and will get the wireless up and working later.