Heavy traffic

The Heavy traffic sign was at the end of the bridge. I know the traffic got heavier on the island, but I thought it was plenty heavy on the bridge! Yesterday I rode my bike downtown in the afternoon, knowing it would be busy. The streets were full of vehicles, the sidewalks and bike lanes were full of people. Some places I just walked my bike through &/or with the people until I ould get up the island aways. Decided I should ride today before noon, but it was still quite busy. I stopped at CVS and the IGA, where everyone was stocking up before they partied the rest of the day.

We know better than to cross the causeway in the afternoon or evening during Spring Break, but we had to go to Harlingen to the dentist this afternoon. Yuck!! Retreatment of my old root canal scheduled for next week. Took us 38 minutes to cross the 2 mile causeway. The red lights are on a police vehicle that came down the middle of a very crowded 2 lane bridge. He made it.

Busy beach yesterday!

Texas Week

Getting busy here at SPI. This is Texas Week, then next week will be Spring Break. Lots of people fishing on the jetty. Traffic was bumper to bumper across the causeway today. Actually, the traffic was heavier leaving SPI, which was probably because traffic cops were controlling the flow of traffic coming in so it didn't get too clogged up.

I jogged 2.6 miles this a.m. 34:10 Not very fast, but it was better than last week of 37:06. Last week I watched for shells more and found a sand dollar when I first got to the beach! That slowed me down a little. Then I had to carry it in my hand the rest of my run and my walk back home. One of my rules is to always take a plastic bag when I go to the beach, and I forgot. The sand dollar would have been better protected in my hand than bouncing in a bag anyway. Then I rode 18.8 miles this afternoon (but not as far as my sister). She is hard to keep up with.

Let's face it; I'm not a blogger. I had good intentions back in January, then I had trouble posting photos, ran out of time, had other things to do, etc. Last Friday I wanted to post on FB, but I still don't like to advertise that we are not at home. I suppose blogs can be hacked also, but it feels safer. This pic is where the road runs out going north out of South Padre Island. The gulf is to the right. Randy and I have driven here in the past (good place to find big sea shells, mainly quahogs), but Friday afternoon I rode my bike 12.9 miles from our RV site to this sign. Then I had to go back south into the wind, but not extremely bad. Have to get some miles in, trying to keep up with my biking sister. I can't let her outdo me when I have the time and weather for bike riding! This was after I jogged to and on the beach 2 miles in the morning. Fun! Also, that day I played a 116 point word in Word with Friends (yes, I can prove it; I took a pic), plus I worked on Lauren's quilt a little. What a great day!! It's hard to stay in and sew when the weather is so great. but I like to do some. The Beach Front Lots sign was on the way to the end of the road. Anyone got an extra $495,000?

Here we are at South Padre Island again, where I have the urge to share the little things in my life. We arrived at Isla Blanca Park (a county park) Thur., Jan. 5. It is good to see our TX friends, who are from MN, IL, NE, TX, IA, OK, MO, KS, CO,ME, TN, Canada, and probably some other states that I can't think of right now. I walked to the water the night we arrived, but didn't actually walk on the beach (and look for shells) until Mon. I certainly don't need anymore shells to take home, but it's always fun to look. I picked up a few, but there are activities that are more important now. Randy and I have both had colds and not felt really great. Today was the first day he has gone fishing, which says a lot for the diehard fisherman that he is. He just hasn't felt like it. I think he is improving.

I went to church Sunday. There were over 350 at the 9:30 service, probably not as many at the 8 or 11 services. They put chairs in the aisles and 70 people in the overflow room. I enjoy going to church where you have to get there early to get a seat! I have had to be in overflow once or twice in years past. On Sat. a 4p.m. service will be added for the months of Jan. and Feb. In the summer I think the attendance is about 70 for the one service that is held.

Quilting is Tue and Thurs 9-11:30 (or whenever we get finished), where we make quilts and give them to the local churches for distributing where needed. Last year we had a man come to the church where we work to ask for a quilt because he was getting cold sleeping in his car. He had a job, but no place to live. All we had that day was a pink one, but he didn't care what color it was. It was great to go to quilting yesterday and see the ladies that I spend a lot of time with while we are here. I also learned about a new pattern that I will use sometime. Fun to share with each other.

I have been riding my bike, but today was a very active day. One hour of Zumba started my day (loved my first experience with Zumba!), then this afternoon rode my bike 12.1 miles in 1:11:24 (I'm riding my old comfort bike; don't want to rust up my hybrid), then walked 1.6 miles in 30:41. Fun day! Wanted to ride farther, but was rather tired riding the last 6 miles into the wind and wanted to save some energy for walking. I had to go north first, because the water is south of us! Sometimes I ride around the perimeter of the RV park, where the wind doesn't bother as much, but it takes a lot of laps at 1.5 miles a lap to get many miles in.

It's been nearly a year since I've blogged. FB is so much quicker and easier. But while we are at South Padre, there seems to be more to blog about. This week much of the USA has had severe winter weather, including South Padre. Monday was a beautiful day, so I rode my bike 21.4 miles, knowing the weather was going downhill later in the week, but I didn't know how "downhill"!! Tuesday got cold and windy, then Wed. and Thurs were even worse. Thurs we had a few snowflakes and a little ice, then lost power before 8 p.m. Our furnace, frig, hw heater can all run on propane, so we were fine for awhile. Those things, as well as our DC lights, are good as long our RV batteries stay charged. We went to bed about 8p.m. and used our reading lights awhile. This a.m. Randy started the generator, so we could use AC power. Our neighbor didn't have a generator, so he plugged into ours. All through the night and also much of today, ice fell from a palm tree onto our RV. Sounded terrible! Hope it didn't damage our roof. The palm tree doesn't seem big enough to have that much ice on it!! Power was finally restored about 3p.m. today. The causeway between South Padre Island and Port Isabel was reopened today at noon. Don't know when it was closed, but I certainly wouldn't want to be on it in the icy, windy conditions we had. I think the temp got down to 26; nothing like KS I know, but pretty cold for here. Some records were set. After the sun came out this afternoon, the temp got above freezing and I went for a walk, but was dressed warmly. The wind was still biting. In the second pic, Randy rolled down the truck window, while the ice coating stayed intact. The first photo shows after he knocked the ice out. I tried to post them the other way. Oh well!