Home Sweet Home! Back to Retama Village

Hi all, Dianne here.  Just a quick blog update on our return to our winter home at Retama Village in Mission, Texas.  One of the reasons we've not updated is illustrated above.  Not many people are back to their winter home yet, so Roger and I have often had the pool all to ourselves.  

Roger has gone over to swim laps several times.  When it cools off a little, we'll start biking in the state park next door for exercise.

We spent the first week or so getting all settled in, moving the grill and furniture back to the patio...

We ordered a bike rack 
and Roger assembled it:

Planting my tomatoes, herbs, and new cactus...

  

Our roses and back yard plantings are doing well...

This year I'm attempting to grow morning glories and moon flowers in my vining pots.  I worried that the wind and baking sun might be too harsh for them, but so far they are thriving!  I'll post another photo once they are big enough to bloom.  The plan is to have morning glories blooming during the day, and when they close up the moon flowers will open up in the evening with their heavenly scent.  

While you all are enjoying the crisp weather of fall, our thermometer still registers in the mid 90s every day (another reason we've spent time at the pool).  Today it's forecast to reach 100!  Evenings and mornings are pleasant, though, and I'll trade shorts all winter for a little afternoon heat now.

Other activities we've done since our return include planning next summer's trip to the Pacific Northwest (Roger), catching up on Quicken with our bills and receipts (me, with Charlie the cat's help as shown above), playing librarian in the clubhouse (me), gearing up for the fall neighborhood activities (Roger), and most of all,

I like to carry my own favorite toy!

 walking Bandido and Tequila over to their beloved doggie park next door for their morning romp and play.  Here's a few more photos of the fun:

Ahhhh!   I could have used this water tub in Moab this summer!!

Ready to rumble!

I LOVE my blue ball!

If you haven't gotten enough of doggie park fun, I made a movie of some of the action, set to music:

Rather than close with more photos of Bandido, Tequila, or Charlie, here are a few night time shots captured by my wildlife cam, both here and at our final stop at Choke Canyon State Park:

Racoon visitors at Choke Canyon

Big ole' Javelina passing through our site at Choke Canyon S.P.

Not to be outdone, soon after we returned to Retama, my wildlife cam caught this large coyote just behind our back fence:

                                                  

There must be a large pack of coyotes nearby, because we can often hear them at night yip-yip-yipping and it sounds like there are hundreds of them in our back yard! 

Once again, I'll point out that we might not update for a while.  Today's blog pretty well sums up our activities since we've been home.  We'll write again if and when there's blog-worthy activity!  For those readers just interested in the travel info, check back next April/May when we set out again for another  five-month-long road trip.