R-V There Yet?

Last week end I drove my car to San Antonio and met Ayden, my granddaughter, and my daughter-in-law, Jennifer, in SA.

Ayden had to participate in a championship cheer leading competition. What a hoot that was!!!!

Thousand of girls from all the gyms in TX competing against each other. The TX school districts were also competing but not against the gym participants. They were from all over TX and all ages. The requirements for cheerleading were to have your hair in a pony tail or a curly bun, a colored short outfit and glitter on your eyes to match your uniform. You MUST have a BIG bow or ribbon in your hair to match your uniform and eyes. The other requirement is for the girls to jump up and down, practicing the cheers and do cart wheels every where they walk. They did a great job of doing that!!!!!!

When 2 days were over everyone was dead tired from either watching the cheerleaders or being a cheerleader.

I imagined cheerleaders getting up doing a cheer and being judged. No such thing!!!! You can not hear the cheerleaders doing their routine because every cheer is being done to a loud rock and roll song being blared out to the crowd. The crowd is sitting in the dark with lights only shining on the cheerleaders.

It is expensive to get in for some people. If you are a little sister or brother and being drug to the competition by your parents you get in free. If you a participant you get in free. If you are a parent or a friend you pay $30. If you are older than 60 you get in free. I told my son that was nice of them to let the grandparents in for free. He went on a rant and said that meant grandparents would buy things for the granddaughters and spend a lot more than if they had been charged. That was absolutely correct. I bought a t shirt, sweatshirt and a few minor things which added up to a lot more than $30.

I am busy getting ready to go on a trip to Belize with my sister and her husband. We are going to have a blast.

I know some people are wondering what happened to me or what I am doing. As the title reads Life Goes On. And it does. I miss and think about Rick everyday. That will never change. I found if I sat in the 5th wheel all day I could find myself getting very depressed. So I forced myself to get out and join in some of the activities in the RV Park. Everyone says don’t make any decisions for a year as to where I will live and what I will do. But I have done some research and thinking about what I will do and where I will live.

Here are some of my ideas. I have always liked the idea of a Dell Webb type of community. That is a 55+ gated community with a large clubhouse with all kinds of activities. You have to buy a house there. The problem with these type of communities they are not located near where I want to live. I have looked at several in Texas. I wish they had one closer to my sons and families in Dallas. The ones in Dallas are about an hour or so away and through lots of traffic.

I could pull my 5th wheel up to Dallas and live in it. The problem with that is the winters in Dallas and there are not any nice RV Parks near the family. Or I could leave the 5th wheel here in South Texas. Last summer was very hot here though and I do not want to stay here during the summer. Very few people stay here in the summer as they all leave and go back up north.

I might go somewhere that is cool in the summer. A couple of summers ago Rick and I spent a month in Ruidoso, NM. It is up in the mountains and the high is about 85 degrees. Now there is a problem with me pulling the 5th wheel everywhere. I have never pulled it and it is very big. I have had several people offer to drive it where I want to go or offer to teach me how to drive it. I will take them up on the offer to teach me to drive and pull it this spring. I know I could drive it. The problem with that is I have always felt sorry for just one person traveling and pulling a big 5th wheel. It is much easier with another person in the truck with them helping navigate and being another set of eyes for the driver.

I have another idea about pulling a trailer. I could leave my 5th wheel here in South Texas and buy a small trailer (about 24 ft.) and pull it to different places during the summer. For instance I do not think it would be a problem to drive it up to NM. I would still take driving lessons for the small trailer. Then I could drive it to Dallas this summer, stay a few weeks and then drive to NM.

I could just buy a house in a regular neighborhood around Dallas and live near the family. But I do not want to live in a regular neighborhood. There are a lot more activities in places like I have described.

I have a few trips planned but I will leave that for another blog.

If you are reading this I thank you for still being around. If you have any wonderful ideas about decisions I should consider leave a comment.

Today is my mother’s 94th birthday.   Next month I will go up to Kelowna, BC and visit her and my sister.  Actually I will go up and visit with Mom while my sister and her husband go on vacation and take a break from being  a caretaker for her.

Happy Birthday, Mother and also Happy Birthday to my cousin, Trisha, who shares the same day.

Personally, we are happy to see the end of 2010.  There were excellent adventures and some mis-adventures.

We had great travel experiences in the Dallas area; Ruidoso and Santa Fe, NM area; the beautiful Davis Mountains of Texas; very educating visits to Boston; side trips to Maine and New Hampshire, and a family reunion in Connecticut.  The Connecticut visit was to celebrate Rick’s mother’s 90th birthday.

On the downside, in January, Rick had a stent placed in one his arteries that showed a 99.5% blockage.  All went well.  In August, Rick had a colonoscopy and we discovered colon cancer.  Removal of half of the large intestine ensued.   Chemo therapy began in October and will continue until April 2011.  During the testing for the cancer, two masses were found in his left lung.  We assumed that these were either related to the colon cancer or a new primary lung cancer, which would be really bad news.  We were unable to probe these masses until December when the cardiologist allowed temporary stoppage of his Plavix.

In addition to these downers, Rick lost his mother in November.  She was a wonderful woman and we will miss her terribly.

We are now confident that 2011 will be better because we just returned from the doctor where he told us that the lung nodules were not cancer.  Yeah!!  Samples were sent to a micro-biologist to examine and grow cultures to figure out what the lumps are.  Probably some fungus or some kind of bacteria.  We’ll know more in about a month.  With no transfer of the colon cancer to the liver, we’re looking forward to a clean bill of health by April, upon completion of the chemo.

We generally don’t comment on health issues because it can get boring to most readers.  You can tell by the statistics below that obviously most readers are not personal acquaintances.

Readership of our blog continues to increase.  We promise a more interesting entries for 2011.  Our 2010 statistics were quite impressive. We had an 85% increase over 2009.  Visitors went from 200,126 to 370,865.

Geography of the visitors was all over the globe.  You can click on the chart below to enlarge.

Of the 93 countries reported, 82% were from the US, followed by Mexico and then Canada.

Our most visited articles remain those from Mexico and life there.

We look forward to continuing our travels this year with another trip toward Florida and the east coast and perhaps northern California and the northwest.

Thank you all for visiting.  Don’t feel shy about visiting our sponsor links on the right side of the blog.