Pink Flamingo GTG - 2d Day (Fredricksburg)

Today started out great.  We all had breakfast in our RVs and then gathered at the Rec Hall for morning coffee. Our plan was to visit Fredricksburg today.  After we got the cars and riders straightened out, we headed out about 10 AM.  Fredricksburg is an interesting town to visit.  I've been there many times and still enjoy it every trip.  The atmosphere is German as there were many German settlers in this area.  Highway 290 goes right down Main Street with angle parking.  With so many RVs visiting the area, the long pickup trucks stick pretty far out in the road on each side but everything always seems to work.  We all parked at the Visitor's Center which is a block off Main Street behind the Museum of the Pacific.  They have a great parking lot with room for smaller RVs as well.

A couple in the group wanted to visit the National Museum of the Pacific War which is the only institution in the United States dedicated exclusively to telling the story of the Pacific and Asiatic Theaters in World War II. It was founded with the mission to honor the eight million Americans who served in the war against Japan and the more than 100,000 who gave their lives. A couple headed off to get haircuts.  Diana and Carolyn headed out to walk to the far end of town taking pictures as they went.  The rest of us visited shops along Main St.

One of the things visitors enjoy when they walk down Main St are the flowers.  Many of the shops have window boxes, big pots, or even bathtubs filled with growing flowers.

After spending several hours window shopping, we went to der Lindenbaum for lunch.  Here we are before lunch, happy right?

 As you can see, there were 6 of us at this table.

Four more came in and sat at a different table.

And, about 10 minutes after that, Carolyn and Diana arrived and sat at a third table.

 The waiter was not very personable.  Someone asked him about the two specials listed on the door and he told us what they were but didn't give any prices.  He told us they didn't take MasterCard or Visa and said they wouldn't do separate checks for parties larger than seven.  I said okay, that's fine because there are only 6 of us at this table.  We each put in our order.  The food was delivered separately to each table.  Everyone said their choice was good.

 Wiener Schnitzel

The special:  Frank and Sausage

Goulash

Somehow I missed a photo of Pat's Jagger Schnitzel but it was basically the Wiener Schnitzel with mushrooms in a wine sauce on top.  All included hot German potato salad with either red cabbage or sauerkraut.  Sounds good so far, right.  The food was very good.  The service was lackadaisical.  But then the bill came.  And I said bill--he did not give us separate checks as requested AND there were two totals on the bill.  We went up to the register to pay and things continued to go downhill.  They refused to break out the orders.  He told us there were two totals because he put both tables on the bill.  He said he could give us a calculator and a menu and we could break the bill out ourselves and figure out what we each needed to pay because they didn't do separate checks for 7 or more--it was on the door.  When I said there were only 6 at our table, he said we all "knew each other" so he put us on the same bill.  What logic!  I guess if people from Fredricksburg come in at the same time, he must put them all on the same bill too.  When we asked for the manager, another waitress said she wasn't there and would not be back for hours.  It finally took me mentioning that we were some of the many RVers in town, some of whom wrote blogs of their travels, before this waitress finally decided she could give us each our own total although still very grudgingly.  We each paid.  She remarked that they had been stiffed with a group before (seems like separate checks would do more to prevent that) so I made sure I asked if she had cleared the total amounts before we left.  So, would any of us eat at der Lindenbaum again--NO.  Should you?  Probably not unless there are only two of you and you would like decent service in addition to good food.  Three others from our group arrived after we had gone out the door.  The table they were given wouldn't really accommodate Ronnie's wheelchair and one of the staff commented that they had had enough drama for one day so these three people got up and left and went down the street to another fine German restaurant where they had great food AND great service.  Please don't take this as a negative comment on a visit to Fredricksburg because I have been coming to this town for years and have never had the staff in stores or restaurants act in this manner.

After we did a little more walking around, we stopped at the Fredericksburg General Store which is really a combined sandwich shop, bakery, and ice cream parlor with gifts.  By the way, service was fast and friendly.

Once back at the Peach Country RV park, we met on the porch for happy hour.

The owner stopped by to meet us and chat.  Another group of park residents also stopped by.  The parents live in the park and their grown children were all there to celebrate their Dad's 87th birthday Saturday night.  He still rides his motorcycle trike with his wife on back.  He wasn't with the group so his wife invited us all to come over to the party, have a drink to celebrate, and sing happy birthday to him.  So we are going to adjust our potluck and bingo party long enough to accommodate that.  Life is good in spite of little mishaps along the way.

Pink Flamingo GTG - 1st Day

Finally, the RV is on the road again. After a couple of days of reorganizing, reshuffling, and dewinterizing the RV, my friend Loretta arrived and we headed out to the Pink Flamingo GTG at the Peach Country RV Park in Stonewall, TX. It was only an hour’s drive but we enjoyed the wildflowers along the roads. When we arrived, Birdie, Martha, Pat, and Vickie and Ronnie were already there. It’s a nice park but we were all laughing because the office seemed to be having a little difficulty getting people into the right spots. One of the ladies was in training with the office software and it was not easy going. The park is nice with wide roads. By suppertime, everyone we expected to arrive today had made it in.
We gathered in the Rec Hall for a light dinner (lol) of finger foods. The hall is large with a real nice kitchen set-up. Of course, we all did our “fixing” in our RVs and just gathered in the hall to eat.  I didn't get the pics until after we had eaten.  Just in case you are wondering, all the food was up on the counter.

After dinner, we all sat out on the front porch.  It got dark before I could get too many pictures.

So far our GTG is off to a great start!

Easter Sunday

It's great to wake up on Easter Sunday morning.  You know what a wonderful day it is.  You know what a great gift we have all been given.  Something to contemplate no matter what your beliefs are.

And how wonderful it is that we get to spend it with our oldest son and our two youngest grandchildren.  Of course, we are missing our daughter-in-law Helen who graciously sent Steve off to be with his kids and parents.  She is pretty special.  Next year Helen!

And, of course, we miss our youngest son Brian, wife Lorri, and granddaughter Zoe plus older grandchildren Mike and Kirsten who are off at college.

So what else happened today.  Well, the kids and Steve did another campout in the living room.  You may remember their first campout.  It wasn't long ago.  Willy and Harley were thrilled because they get to campout too.  Gretchen, not so much!  She was very confused about the whole event.  She needs her beauty sleep so she went in her crate and was upset no one came to shut the door.  Poor baby.  On the other hand, no one likes an RV campout better than Gretchen.

Anyway, Grandma got up when she heard the kids in the morning.  Steve was desperately trying to catch a few zzzzzzz's since he missed so many during the night of the campout.

I told the kids we were having hard boiled eggs for breakfast.   Cameron said "I'll take mine boiled pleased." I told him they were already cooked but I could heat them up with some butter or he could have them cold with salt and pepper.  He had one each way.  Morgan had hers cold with salt and pepper.  Steve got up and had eggs too.


There was one final egg hunt left for the weekend.  The two grandkids and three furry kids gathered in the backyard to hunt down the eggs their Dad and Grandpa hid out there.

" Okay kids, here are the rules."

There are 28 small eggs and two big eggs so I don't think you found them all yet.  Keep looking!

How many do you have Morgan?

These are really good Dad.

Sometimes Morgan just can't help being silly!  Cameron is protesting the picture taking.

Cameron also got a styrofoam airplane.  See the plane Steve is throwing.  And Morgan got a foam book to put design and put together.

Great throw Cameron!

It was a great weekend.  Dinner will be served in a little while and later on we will have to take the kids back to Marble Falls to meet their Mom.  But we all had a great weekend.  I hope your Easter was a good one too.

A Harley Bunny?

The next event was a trip to Cowboy's Alamo City Harley-Davidson.  DH told us that he saw a poster saying that the Easter Bunny would be there.  So, of course, we had to find out.

Well, we were haven't much luck when we first arrived.  This was the only bunny we could find.  But we saw a sign saying they had Easter eggs.  Turned out they were at the cash register and came with a little paper with a %-off coupon.

Just when we thought all was lost and we were ready to give up and leave, a customer told us they were gathering for an Easter Egg hunt outside!  Okay guys, can you see the Harley bunnies?  They even had cotton tails!  All the kids lined up and off they went around the building to a little area on the side.

There were lots of eggs but they were doing a hunt every hour so they asked the kids to each pick up only 10 eggs which was just fine.  The fun is in the hunt anyway and they had some nice little bags of candy in each egg.

Cameron carefully checked his pile of eggs and then he put two eggs back out for the next hunter.

Morgan did the same thing.  The blue egg on the left was one of Cameron's so she was right at 10 and a very happy hunter.

Thanks Alamo Harley-Davidson for doing this for the kids.  They had a great time.  Our next stop was Barnes and Noble for some coffee and relaxation checking out some books.  The kids enjoy this as much as we do.  They have a great kids area.

The Hunt Is On--Eggs That Is

Thank goodness, Steve was feeling better this morning.  The kids and I were up and they had their breakfast which can be a time-consuming event on some days.  Steve got ready quickly and we were off to the Easter Egg Hunt put on by the Schertz Lions Club.

We arrived in plenty of time to get signed in and then we started to look around.

There were all kinds of booths with games sponsored by local merchants. First up was tossing bean bags.

The best part was that everyone got a prize.  Now that is the way to run kids games.

Would you look at the concentration on those faces?  I never would have believed they could stay still enough to walk these eggs on a spoon across the required line.  They both did great!  For those who had trouble with it, the eggs were wooden so "no real eggs were harmed in the process!"  Ha!

This one required a wooden disk to travel down through the pins and land in the right slot.

Ring toss was ahead.  The lines were based on level of skill not just age so there were no losers here.

Cameron had better luck with his last toss but he was having fun the whole time.

Every little girl likes make-up.  Morgan opted to the bunny rabbit look and she sat still for the whole process.

 Little boys like face paint too.  Well, let's face it.  Age doesn't really matter when faces are getting painted in a fun booth.  I didn't hear what Cameron asked for as his design.

Yup, definitely a bunny with a little pink nose and whiskers.

Okay, too bad I didn't hear right?  Cameron asked for a spider and a web--aka spiderman.  Well, I don't think the young artist has ever seen a real spider web or even a fake one because this one was an octagon with criss-crossed lines and that mark on one side was a "spider".  A spiderman fan she was not.  Cameron was okay with it though so that is all that counted.

And here is the picture with the Easter bunny and Cameron aka spiderman.

And here were the other two "bunnies" hanging around together.

 The Egg Hunts started with a line up past this sign.  They did it by age group starting with crawlers (they did it on a mat), 1 - 3 year olds, 2 - 4 year olds, 5 - 7 year olds, and 8 - 10 year olds, so Morgan and Cameron were each the youngest in their age groups being 5 and 8.

And they are off!!!!

Some of the parents didn't get the idea that the kids 5 and up were supposed to do this on their own.  But Morgan had no problems with that and loaded up her basket.

See the little boy in the dark shirt?  That is Cameron hunting for the prize egg.

The kids had to open all of the eggs they found because there were grand prize winners in each age group---and---Cameron found the grand prize egg for his group.  He won a game just like the one that so many RVers have--Ladder Ball only his is inflatable instead of pvc pipe.  He was thrilled.

It was a great morning so many thanks to the Schertz Lions Club for the great job they did in putting this event together for the kids.

Easter Eggs

Spring is here so it must be time for Easter!  Steve arrived on Wednesday and we picked up the kids Thursday night!  They were really excited to see their Dad as always.  We stopped for burgers at a Dairy Queen on the way home.  Turned out that was not the best stop we ever made.  Steve woke up about 1:00AM and didn't get much sleep after that as he was really sick.  Morning didn't bring much relief so I took the kids off to the park to play.  He finally began to feel better later much later in the afternoon.  He ate a little supper and then said he was up to the next event.   I

So, the eggs were cooked and the kids were ready.  Looks like someone else was ready too.

We had lots of cups of colors to choose from and plastic covering the wood table so let the fun begin!

DH has always been the artist so he had to add in some magic marker work too.

Of course, that meant that "others" felt that their work would not be complete without use of the magic marker.

Morgan took her time and got some real good colors on hers--my kind of Easter eggs, simple, pretty colors.

There was a lot of discussion on design elements and appropriate colors and how bright they should be.

Check out the concentration required to get things just right.  This takes me right back to when Steve and his brother Brian used to color eggs.  I think we did it until Brian was in high school.  Fun times.

This was a "Grandpa Special" exhibited by Cameron.  He is still honing his artistic skills  but he has a couple of fine role models, his Grandpa and his Dad, so I expect he'll do just fine.

You can see that his Dad learned his skills from his Dad too.

Guess what kids?  Now you have to eat these too you know.  You'll be seeing them often over the next few days.