The Ray Adventures: Rockport Nov. 16-Dec. 2

We can't believe that we've been in Rockport a month already. It seems like we're always busy, Gary has been volunteering on the Lexington twice a week. I've been a good girl going to Snap Fitness three times a week plus a I just started a Yoga class. Gary rides his bike 12 miles as often as weather permits. Of course many happy hours and dinners here at the park.

The weather until this week has been pretty nice, mid 70's to 80's. We do our Fulton Beach Road walk several times a week, spotting the usual birds but one morning we saw an osprey sitting on a fishing pier.

We've watched our Seahawks and Ducks get past their "slumps" winning games again. Looks like the Ducks will get a bowl game and maybe the Seahawks will get a playoff berth. Last year both teams finished second, the Ducks losing to Ohio State in the National Championship game and of course the ill fated Super Bowl, ( We still don't talk about that game)

Gary needed some cargo pants to wear while volunteering on the Lex., it seems they need lots of pockets for "stuff" We drove to Corpus Christi to La Palmera Mall, first stopping at Bed Bath and Beyond for some new area rugs, success we found some we liked. After lunch at TGIF's we first went to Dillards, Macy's and Beall's (pronounced Bells) with no luck. At Penney's we scored, he got $48.00 pants and a $100.00 jacket for $67. I love sales.

Bob and Sharon (from St. Louis) arrived from frozen Denver, they had been helping out with a new arrival and couldn't leave until the 21st, they had ice, snow and 80 mph winds. The day they got here it was about 80. AHHHHHH! That night we had Panjo's Pizza with Bob & Sharon, RJ & Gail and Bill and Arlene, who met B & S this year in their travels.

Thanksgiving was a beautiful day here, we wore shorts to dinner. I helped decorate while Gary peeled potatoes and carved turkey. The birds, potatoes, gravy and stuffing were supplied, the rest was a pot luck, what a bounty with over 100 people attending we had a wide variety of choices. Chef Betty asked me to help serve, Gary was so nice, he waited for me to finish to eat with me. Bad idea, we ran out of stuffing so we went without but needless to say we didn't starve.

We play Pegs and Jokers twice a week, the men versus the women, it gets quite cutthroat and sometimes harsh words are spoken. But it's only a game. Right? Right. Almost every night you can play different games at the Clubhouse. I've asked the activity director about forming a pinochle group, I miss my weekly games with the "girls".

Earlier this week Gary, Luci and I took a drive to the Aransas Ferry, stopping just before the landing to look at an offshore oil rig in dry dock, it looked to us that the huge rig was on land. I did a little investigating, it is actually in water. The rig was towed from the Louisiana coast in July to the Canyon Port Harbor Island facility, a private deep-water port complex at the entrance to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. Oil rigs are leased for a certain time frame, if they are not being used they either abandon them to decay or dry dock. Due to the low oil prices it was not being use so the oil company towed it to the Port Aransas dry dock facility, in this case they figure for a couple of years. It's less expensive to move the rig to dry dock than to build a new rig that costs billions. We stopped at a nearby geo cache on the way back to Rockport just as an osprey took flight with a fish in it's talons. Cool!

That's it for now, we do have some pictures this week,

TTFN

Gary and Pam