Goodbyes

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Harlingen

Feb 27

“Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye?”  ~Author Unknown

I don’t like goodbyes.  For some reason they seem so final, almost like someone has died, and that makes me sad, and real men aren’t suppose to let their emotions show.  I do a pretty good job of doing that, hiding my emotions, as I have been doing all my life for one reason or another, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.  Someday, maybe.

At breakfast yesterday we said goodbye to the members of our group who were leaving that day.  Then last night those of us still here (about 13 of the 18 coaches) took over a local Pizza Hut, pulled a lot of tables together, stuffed ourselves on real American pizza (but drank Corona beer), retold stories, talked loudly, toasted, and laughed a lot.  It was our poor waitress’s first night back at work since having her wisdom teeth extracted a week ago and she had her hands full.  As we were paying our bills at the counter we were also trying to find those leaving today so we could say goodbye, hug, and/or shake hands.  I’m sure that the other customers and employees in the restaurant wondered what in the world was going on. 

Butch and Cathy gave out booklets containing photos of everyone along with snail mail and email addresses, and phone numbers.  I created a new Group in my Gmail contact list so that I can try and stay in touch.  You never know when or where you may cross paths.  The 18 rigs that were on the trip are from Arizona, Wisconsin, British Columbia, California, Florida, Washington, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, Iowa, Alabama, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Texas.  I intend to put all of the addresses on a map in the event our future travels take us near any those addresses.

Several of the group will be posting our photos on sites such as Picasa and Smugmug for all the others to see and download if they wish.  I have several thousand photos, even after deleting over half of them, so still have a big job ahead in order to reduce the number to something easier to handle.  I have a hard time choosing between several different shots of the same thing.  

Butch came over this morning to update us on our car.  It is drivable but the new grill has not yet arrived.  The tow hitch on the front will not be repaired because the insurance company says it is an “after market part” and was not specified on the policy (even though the Mexico policy we purchased for the car was specifically intended for a car that would be towed behind a motorhome).  With or without the grill, the car should be placed on a flatbed truck Wednesday and delivered to Matamoros, MX, probably sometime this weekend.  We will drive the rental down to Brownsville (about 30 miles), park on the US side, walk across the border into Matamoros, and hire a cab to take us to the car.  If I can’t get the tow hitch quickly repaired I’ll have rent a tow dolly in order to tow the car back to Nacogdoches.  We still don't know how much of all this will be out of pocket.  Right now we wish we could just cut our losses and go home.

“Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”  ~Garrison Keillor