Winter 2020 Road Trip:  Christmas in Texas

This year we’re out in the motorhome once again for a winter trip.  Now you may ask, why would someone who lives in Tucson even think about leaving in the winter?  Well, it is a good news story.  This is an odd-numbered year, so the boys are both spending Christmas with their wife’s respective families, thus leaving us as empty holiday nesters.  It is also our 35^th anniversary.    We decided to jump in the motorhome and go spend Christmas with Jennifer’s Dad in Texas.  We also thought it would be great to get some beach time and fresh seafood while we were out and about on our Anniversary Adventure.   Since Jennifer’s Dad is in SOUTH Texas, it just seemed logical to spend some time on the Gulf coast.

Our first stop on the road trip was to Alamo TX.  We spent a few days playing cards, doing some chores, telling old stories and being in the Christmas spirit.  We stayed, once again, at our favorite RV parking spot in the Rio Grande Valley, moochdocking at Alamo Country Club.

Each time we visit, we always try to get some things done to help around the house.  This time, we cleaned bird feeders.  Otis ad Judy are enthusiastic bird lovers and their back yard is a smorgasbord of feeders, fruit and bird food.  This time of year, there are a lot of birds migrating through.  One of our favorites are the kiskadees and the green jays.  We just missed the hummingbird migration and the purple martins will not arrive until late winter/early spring. We did get to see a couple of the green jays visit the feeder

Most days and evenings found us playing cards.  While neither of us are really in the same league as Otis and Judy, we do our best. Usual games included Hand & Foot, 3’s are Wild, and May I?  It usually just depends on what we are in the mood for.  I am not going to get into the details of how things turned out, but needless to say, the guys did not get much celebrating in.

One of the more intellectual things we did was some genealogy work on Jennifer and Otis’s family linage.  We spent a couple days researching and tracing back their direct lineage to the first arrival in America.  We found that their ancestor, arrived in Massachusetts in 1634 and was one of the founders of Hingham, MA near Plymouth.  In fact, their ancestral home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Two of their direct ancestors fought in the American Revolution.  It was really great to get to do this with Otis as he learned a lot about his family he did not know.

The true highlight was getting to spend Christmas Day with them.  It has been a few years and we have never spent it in Texas before.  Out family stopped exchanging gifts years ago.  Instead, we each contribute to a family vacation fund we use periodically to take a family trip and Jennifer’s sister and husband as well.  However, this year, it seems Santa thought we need to have something small to unwrap and made a quick stop to leave a couple items under the tree.  Bonus was the giant cinnamon rolls we had for breakfast that morning. 

It was a wonderful few days and a great start to our Anniversary Adventure.  Next stop Pensacola, FL.