Living the Dream with Joyce

Monday, February 18th, 2013; Our Valentine's dinner performance was well received - Rob and I MCed, as well as siuging 2 duets - Some Enchanted Evening and Get Me to the Church on Time, and our resident celebrity, Susan Slaughter (retired principle trumpet of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra) wowed us with her renditions of various valentine songs ( My Funny Valentine, Memory, Shall We Dance, You Made Me Love You) and we finished with an audience participation number - When the Saints Go Marching In. It was great fun, and was followed by a fabulous sitdown dinner provided by Dora, Ron, and family. In what other RV park does this sort of thing happen?!
On Friday, Rob washed my awning - using a method he recently learned: first, he spread hydrogen peroxide all over it, then rolled it up and left it for half an hour, then rinsed it with water and left it to dry. It looks great - mildew spots gone!
On Saturday, Rob washed the rest of my RV - using RV roof cleaner (from Walmart) for the roof, applied with a brush (just a broom on the end of an extendible pole). For the rest of the body, he used baby shampoo diluted in water and applied with a lambswool pad, then Molly Moppins Advantage to get rid of some of the black streaks. My rig is all shiny again! I'm going to hire Rob to reseal my roof - not that it actually needs it yet, but a lot of the caulking is starting to crack a bit, and I know that Rob will do a great job.
Sunday, I took my RV out for a spin - went to Krogers and loaded up with groceries (it's still pretty cool to go grocery shopping and put away the groceries immediately - don't have to worry about frozen stuff - it just goes straight into the freezer), then off to Walmart for various and sundry items (like Gorilla Glue to afix my awning pole to its velcro fastener). I do love driving my rig!
Today, Monday, Susan and Joan and Wilma (Rob's mom) went out to the Pleasure Pier (an amusement park built on a pier jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico) to walk around and check it out. None of us wanted to go on the rides . . .
After that, we went to lunch at the Golden Corral, a buffet style, extremely reasonably priced restaurant with excellent food! We took Joan and Wilma back to the park to nap, and Susan and I spent the next three hours finding the sculptures dotted around the inner city. When, in 2008, Hurricane Ike devestated the island, hundreds of beautiful spreading red oak trees were destroyed -and the residents, instead of hauling away the remnants, carved the remaining trunks into different designs. Actually, these sculptures are the reason I chose to come to Galveston - Murph sent me pictures of them and I wanted to see them. So - it was a great afternoon!

The after shot - I know - wrong order.

Peroxide - ing the awning

. . . and the cleaning continues!

Yep - I had to work too

The Pleasure Pier from the road

The Gulf of Mexico from the pier

Explaining the history of the pier - used to be a very expensive hotel, but Ike wrecked it and the owner decided to build an amusement park!

The carousel near the entrance

Brave surfers (the ocean was very rough today)

The road from the pier

One of those crazy rides you would never catch me dead on!

Towards the end of the pier

These were once docks used for unloading supplies for the hotel

Ferris wheel

Typical snack stand!!

Life is like a box of chocklits!

Carved cranes

Carved into the wood of the trunk, too

Looks like the figurehead of a ship - but the tree's roots are still in the ground.

The tree had actually grown around the fence at the spot where the paws grip the fence

Little dolphin peeking out of the stump

Mermaid and pod of dolphins

As above

Squirrel with a nut

Explanation of the process!

Two crested herons - beautifully carved!

A guitar carved by the homeowner himself.

More herons

Two angels

Angels from another angle

A golden Lab

In a school yard - a really lovely sculpture of a woman reading to children, with fantasy figures above. There are two benches across from this tree sculpture