April Fools.....

 Sign on the clubhouse door...

April showers down here water the March flowers...

we don't have to wait until May!

Pickleball at 8:30 a.m. every morning

Dennis, Wendy, Diane, and Bob "distancing"

Wendy and I go to the pool early to beat the crowd. 
We are lucky that our pb courts and pool are still open!

Bunny cake is a tradition on the funny farm :-)

The Easter Bunny came to our house in Texas.

Nancy, Wendy, and I pot-lucked for Easter....
no one goes away hungry.

Cecelia, Claire, and Lydia....
Why are all the eggs in one basket????

Trina, Caiden, Ari, Jett, Tom, and Anni
dressed up for their Easter photo.

RJ and Julia "social distancing"

Andrew, Matthew, Grace, and Luke...

nice touch with the Easter Mass on the TV

The gang's all here for Easter--Zoomed in :-)

Heading home:  The man from Enterprise
brought the van we rented over to our park

 

Temp the day we packed up the van

April 23rd

Inside the van: we look like the Beverly Hillbillies. 
On the 24th we headed north on 77 to US 35
north of San Antonio. This highway actually runs
all the way from Laredo, Texas, to Minneapolis!

 First stop: Gainesville, Texas (596 miles)

First Gold Star Memorial we have seen...

Names of the deceased.....

 are etched in stone

Just five minutes from Gainesville

Highway 35 crosses the state for 235 miles.

Almost right on the border 

is the famous WinStar Casino

Ohio might be the Mother of Presidents, 

but Oklahoma is the Mother of Casinos.

Kansas was not as "corn-y" as I thought.

I wish we could have stopped to visit 
my high school friends who live in Lawrence
and Basehor, KS, but we were definitely
"social distancing" here!  236 miles later, we were in

Highway 35  runs just over 100 miles here,

but we did see lots of these pretty trees along the way.

Just into Iowa, 

we saw Leon where some of our friends from Texas live. 
We couldn't visit Tom, Trina, and the kids in Cedar Rapids, 
so we kept going.  That day we drove 671 miles 
and stopped in West Des Moines overnight.

On Sunday, the 26th, Minnesota welcomed us
and we made it to Buffalo where Corey and Ana live.

Corey and Bob transferred our "stuff"

to our the pickup that we left there after Christmas...

and it was really packed!

 We brought them a loon, but Bob sanitized first!

 We had a great visit with Corey, Claire,
Cecelia, Ana, and Lydia,

 but had to keep our distance....
 So they got "virtual hugs"

On Monday we were back to our

Home Sweet Farm :-)

"March" ing On....

Map of the Rio Grande Valley

 We traveled west of Edinburg to visit Mike
who grows sunflowers for the same company 
in Minnesota where we sold ours.  

 Sunflowers just coming through

another field...they have wind towers, too...

One Sunday, we went to the Don-Wes Flea Market

(it's between Donna and Weslaco), 

and caught the car show, some music,

and saw a lot of "fleas" (meaning junk).

This was kinda cool

Old Mercedes--probably worth a lot of money

I thought this pink car was unique...

it would never get down our gravel roads!

Kathy came to visit, so the gang went to Mexico.
The siblings: Jerry, Bob, and Kathy at the "Alley Bar" 

Kathy after she sold her 5th wheel trailer

Kathy with Dennis and Nancy
just before she went back to North Dakota

Kathy, Bob, and Jerry at the Mc Allen airport

Getting to work on my jigsaw puzzle

 FRAMED!!!

Special puzzle pieces--for Buddy 
and UNC fans (Andrew???)

FINISHED!!!   I had to do the crossword puzzle
 before I started the jigsaw puzzle.

 The Vietnam Memorial Wall was in Mission,  Texas,
the weekend of March 13th-15th

 We did some rubbings of our friends names
before heading to Rio Grande City

We saw three of these surveillance drones

controlled by the Border Patrol along the way

 The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rio Grande City 
was modeled after the original one in France. 
 Bob and I met on a trip to the one in France.

Father Gollbach, a German priest, built this Grotto

Angels and flowers in the Grotto courtyard

Grotto courtyard with Stations of the Cross

The Grotto is next to the church.

We met Juan and Elva at the motel in Grand Forks 
where we stayed during UND hockey season.
They were working on a sugar beet farm,
but their home was near Rio Grande City, Texas.
They met us at the Grotto with two of their
grandchildren, and later we had supper at the DQ.

Border Patrol station on the way back

Bob wanted to see the the ferry that crosses the Rio Grande.
This is the only ferry in the US that is pulled 
across the river by hand--six men do the work.
Hundreds of workers cross the border every day
using this ferry. The closest bridge is 60 miles away.
Three vehicles can also "ride" this ferry.

Well, the County Judge ordered everyone 
to remain in place...we can go out for groceries.
As long as we stay six feet apart, we can play pickleball

  Can you find the yellow ball?

We usually "bump" paddle handles at the end of a game,
saying "good game" to everyone, but here 
Dennis, Bob, Wendy, and Rob demonstrate 
"social distancing."

 Dennis wanted to learn how to make "hooch,"
so Bob gave him instructions. Note the Everclear
on the counter and sugar in the background.

 Nancy came along to make a video
for their kids.

 After caramelizing the sugar, 

they mixed it with boiling water.

 Dennis sampled the mixture.....

 The bottling process....

 and the final test.

A great way to drive away "March Sadness...."