Alabama

Our winter season has arrived, which means I'll try to be diligent in posting monthly blogs for the next few months.

After voting early and celebrating our grandson's 5th birthday, we hitched up the buggy and headed to Gulf Shores AL.  Not a whole lot of difference in pleasant temperatures the 1st part of the month between here and Illinois, but has sure been nice to just sit on the beach and take it all in.

Have been to the Flora-Bama a couple times this month.  Tom really enjoys going to the Frank Brown International Songwriter's Festival and listening to up and coming songwriters perform.  We also enjoy listening to the local bands on any given day.

Had a great day on the 11th at the Pensacola Naval Air Station Air Show featuring the Blue Angels.

This is their home base and that was the last weekend they were to perform here until next Spring.  Lots of other planes (military and private) to watch, but those blue birds are amazing!

Thanks to Valerie and Kim, I was able to get my Christmas shopping done and delivered by the time we went to Bloomington for Thanksgiving.  We hadn't celebrated that holiday with the young Brockman's for the past 7 years so enjoyed a couple days back home with family and friends since we won't be able to go home for Christmas this year.  Too far between IL and AZ.

Here's hoping everyone enjoyed your "turkey day" and that you'll all stay healthy and safe throughout the rest of the holiday season.

11 States in 14 Days!

See the difference in these 2 pictures?

Since we were heading to the June 6-10 SOITC Rally in Gettysburg, PA, Tom decided he wanted to add some of the New England states to our map.  A big grueling adventure was in store with most of the states being "one nighters" but, by golly, we did it!

Our favorite sightseeing adventures included the Canadian side of the Niagra Falls plus the boat ride on the "Maid of the Mist";

Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in ME;

seeing the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia PA up close and personal

and, finally, a whole lot of battlefields in a 25 square mile area around Gettysburg

and a Chocolate History Trolley Tour in Hershey!

Grateful to God that we had a healthy and safe "excellent adventure".  Happy that we're back home and getting back to our "normal" routine spending time w/family and friends.

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE

OK, one last blog until next winter. It was nice getting back mid-April to spend some time w/our IL kids and grandkids. As our granddaughter, 6-year old Kenley, said when she spent an evening w/us...April showers bring May flowers.  How true it is.  Busted her plans to have fun at the playground and jumpy pillow or even go on a golf cart ride because of the rain.  Chase's turn was a little better since he was able to take a ride on the golf cart to play at the playground.  All in all, we still had a fun time at Grandpa & Grandma's camper.

Before getting back here to Central IL, when we left TX we headed straight to Gulf Shores for a week of sun, sand and surf.  Sunshine and pleasant temps were great that week, but there were a couple days when it was so windy that we couldn't get over to the beach w/o getting "sand blasted".  Overall, a very nice R&R.

After leaving AL, we stopped near Memphis TN for a couple days.  SO enjoyed watching the duck parade in the lobby of The Peabody and seeing their high-end penthouse on top of the hotel.

Made it back in time for the 1st camp-out of the season w/the Sangamon Valley Campers Club.  It was great playing "catch up" with the other 5 families who joined us at Jim Edgar's Site M campground.

We just returned from spending some time in FL w/our VA granddaughters and Grandpa was a happy camper spending a couple days at a nearby beach.  There's also a pool at the complex we stayed at so the girls and Tom had lots of water playtime in sunny FL.

A pretty ambitious trip has been planned starting tomorrow, May 23, through the 1st part of June as we make our way to the Annual Suites Owners Rally to be held near Hershey, PA.  I thought we were only going to pick up 3-4 of the New England states to put on our travel map this trip but Mr. B has worked really hard on plotting a path to possibly pick up 11 states. WOW! If we manage to accomplish this feat, that only leaves 5 states (in the upper NW quadrant) that we'll need to spend a night or two in to "legally" put on our map.  The reason I say that is because I still contend that we should be able to put Hawaii on there but Tom and others in our camping club disagree since we didn't actually camp there.

Anyway, as you can see, we are still enjoying our "excellent adventures" going here, there and everywhere and hope all of you have a fun and interesting summer planned. Stay healthy and happy and we'll catch ya' next winter where we plan to spend January-March in AZ.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Well, not really in the heart of TX but rather in the deep South! Weslaco is so close to the border that it only takes us about 20 minutes to cross into Mexico.  And, Nuevo Progreso is only 1 of a very few "safe" crossings left in this state.  I'm OK with going down there once or twice when we winter in TX and, since nothing's really changed from 4 years ago, I'm satisfied w/our 2 trips.

I didn't realize that Tim & Trish and Tom and I had pretty much seen all of the historical sites and battlefields back when we were down here in 2012.  So, we're doing some repeats for things to do through the end of March.

Some of our activities have included the RV Show in Mercedes (none of us 3 couples found anything we liked better than our own campers); going to see the Iwo Jima statue in Harlingen,

taking a dolphin eco-cruise at South Padre Island where we saw an old oil platform that was being dismantled to become a ride at the Schlitterbahn Water Park on South Padre Island,

listening to a great talk about the "Orphan Train" at the Weslaco Museum (interesting stories about orphans coming over to the U.S. and being sent by train to families all over the country to be raised and educated); and going back over to South Padre Island for their Kite Festival

after we all checked out a couple museums in Port Isabel.

And, of course, we've had some "Movie Madness" going on with some of the better ones (in our opinion) being Star Wars, Daddy's Home, The Big Short, The Heart of the Sea and The Finest Hour.




Tom and Tim fly their drones on not-too-windy days

(which are few and far between as it's always windy here in Texas) and Tom, Tim, Trish and Pat play golf occasionally.

Aunt Ada and Uncle Don stopped by one afternoon following her DDS appointment in Mexico. It was so wonderful to visit with them after not seeing each other for 6 years.

 They live in Iowa but are wintering in Aransas Pass, TX and they both look great.  I hope it won't be another long spell before we see each other again.

Except for the wild winds down here (even snapped our flag pole in half one day so we now have a metal pole), we really are enjoying this weather.  For the most part, temps have been running from the low 70s to 80s for the highs to lows in the upper 40s to low 50s at night.  We have heard that family and friends back up north and to the east are experiencing snow, ice and really cold temps. Brrr.  We sure do NOT miss that and are so very grateful that we are able to put some miles behind us and go far enough south to throw on our shorts, sandals and/or flip-flops, grab our glass of iced tea and soak up some rays.  As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I'm getting ready to do!  Catch ya' later!