DEC 2010

As mentioned in the previous Blog, Dec was spent getting ready for Christmas and packing for our trip south to TX for the winter, along with tying up any loose ends that tend to jump up and bite you in the ass at the last minute. One loose end that just about bit us last year was our Drivers Licence. As you probably know,we in AB have a 5 yr licence and the licence Bereau advise you one month in advance that your licence is about to expire. However,our birthdays are Jan and Mar so we would not be notified until Dec and we left on 1 Dec so the notice had not arrived yet. For some unknown reason Carroll thought to check our expirery dates and sure enough they would have expired while we would have been sitting on the beach in MX, slurping on a cool one. There are two things that can spoil your vacation while in a foriegn country and one is a lost PassPort and the other is an expired drivers Licence. A friend of ours was advised by the Custom agent that his licence was expire, as he was travling by car from MX to Belize. He did finally get his re-newed licence sent fron AB to MX but it took about 3 weeks and a lot of " Butt Kissing " and a very co-operative courier company. Anyway, that is only one loose end one must consider.
Well, all the Christmas gifts were wrapped so that was one huge job completed. We had to do some "winter" packing as we where going to Clark's place in Ft. McMurray for Christmas from 23 DEc to 26 Dec. As they say in Ft. Mac, they have 2 seasons: Ski Doo Season and Tough Sleding, so we had to be prepared. As it turned out, the weather was great.
However, our preparation turned a little sour. Our plans were to leave from Todd's place after on the 27 th Dec and our very close friends, Al and Doreen Ludwars were leaving from their son's place in Cranbrook, BC on the same day so we would have met somewhere in MT and tailgated each other on the way to TX as they have a winter home there. On 12 Dec the Ludwars called to invited us for supper which we accepted. around 9 PM we departed for home and said our goodbyes , hoping to meet them as pre-arranged. We had to leave home on the 21 DEc to go to Todd's and then to Clark's on the 23th. The next day at 8:30 (13 Dec) Doreen called to say that AL had passed away during the night for no apparent reason. Needless to say disbleif, shock and panic set in but we managed to rush to Doreen's side to see what we could do. The Ludwars have a son in Scotland so the funeral was delayed until Friday so he would have tome to get Medicine Hat. Not to belabour the point but this week was a whirlwind for us as we had to leave on the tues (21 Dec ) for our trip to Ft. Mac.
Our Christmas trip to Ft. Mac was great as we have not had Christmas with them for a few years, mainly because we leave around 1 Dec. On the 26 th we returned to Todd's house and his family opened our gifts on the 27th. It was delightful to see them open gifts, especially the 18 month old Twins as they were too young last year. We gave the Twins and Rhett a battery driven quad for a present so we spent the 27 th watching them power around the basement, sometimes running into the pool Table.
On the 28 th we left for TX, albeit a very heavy heart since the much anticipated trip with the Ludwars was not to be. Our trip took 3 night's and 4 days but foretunately it was uneventful as we were one day ahead of the snow storms that were chasing us. On 31 Dec we thought we would stop in San Antonio and take in the New Years festivities, assuming they would have a big party on the River Walk. After searching the Web , we could not find anything except a family type party in a Park in the late afternoon so we deferred. Our next option was to go to our Rental Accn in Weslaco at the RV park which was about 4 hours away which would get us there around 3 or 4 PM. However after leaving San Antonio Carroll recalled that our friends, the Meakins, who are Winter Texans from Med Hat, had invited us to join them in South Padre Island for New Years Eve. We had declined the offer as we did not know our plans at that time, which was about mid Dec. Since we now had a recently acquired Cell phone ( called a Tracfone ), a WalMart special for 10.00 USD , we called the Meakins to see if the invite was still valid and it was, so we diverted to South Padre Island and went out for a Se food supper with the Meakins and met there friends Ron and Mel from Ottawa. cheers. The next Blog starts on 1 jan 2011. T and C