Texas is NOT California

OK, on the surface that seems like a pretty dumb thing to say, but let me explain. This week we had a managers meeting in Odessa, Texas. About a four and a half hour drive from El Paso. Like we usually do, we take off with a half tank of gas, some snacks and the plan is to stop along the way to fill up our tank and tummies at the same time.

The Trip…

We plugged the address into the GPS, turned on the book on tape (really a CD) and happily motored down the road. The GPS is set to take us the quickest route, which in this case is across the plains and rolling hills of Texas. Texas has a nice system of roads, most better than in California, the scenery is impressive and maybe even a little majestic. The mile markers roll by and we see the destination signs… 56 miles to some small town. We get there and it’s an abandoned motel, a gas station in the same condition and a bar. Now I'm curious why the bar can survive, but not the motel and gas station, but I shouldn’t get sidetracked.

You know our optimism – no problem, we still have a quarter tank and the next town is only 60 or so miles down the road - press on. Next town… same story! Now if I'm in California, at every bend in the road there's a gas station with a c-store [for you not so savvy travelers, a c-store is a convenience store like a 7-eleven or AM-PM]. Even in the middle of nowhere, in California there's a gas station.

Ding, the gas tank warning light goes off. Now here's where I realize that we’re in Texas. Nothing but open roads with abandoned motels and gas stations. We’re starting to get worried. I'm checking the cell phone – no service. MB is searching the GPS for the nearest gas station – no results. The miles roll on. Ding, ding, ding – the final warning. We turn off the CD as it’s making us even more nervous and reduce our speed to conserve gas.

To add to the pressure of the moment, we’re a little snug on time. Us? It’s our first meeting, new job, the boss doesn’t know us that well and we want to impress him. As usual we had to accomplish one more thing as we headed out the door and then get on the road, later than is prudent. There's a dinner and we need to meet in the lobby of the hotel at 6:30 pm.

Finally, we see a billboard – Pecos… gas, food, lodging. We’re ecstatic. I check the miles and calculate the gas… it’s dicey. Slow down a little more. Cars and even trucks passing.

Texans are a friendly lot. They wave as we pass and they pass us. I'm hoping that the friendliness translates to helpfulness, because when we run out of gas somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, we hope someone will help.

We see the town in the distance, I'm stressing… it’s uphill. Finally we pull into a gas station, breathe a sigh of relief and say a little thank you to our guardian angels. The 15 gallon tank took 14 ½ gallons of gas.

The meeting…

Great meeting! The interesting part is that we were at a recently remodeled Holiday community. It’s a historic, 8-story hotel in the middle of downtown that has been converted into a retirement home, Lincoln Towers. The pool area with its surrounding ‘cabanas’ are enclosed and attached with access from the lobby. The community is impressive. There's a bar fixed up in an old west cowboy theme complete with a false stage that they use for special community gatherings. You can just picture some outlaw playing poker and can-can girls dancing to the honky-tonk piano playing in the background. We loved it.

There is a bit of history also with some intrigue. The couple that runs it, Don and Teresa are fun and tell a couple of stories about some ghosts. After spending that night there, I'm sorry to report no sightings or inexplicable happenings.

On the way home, we did a short side trip and went to see another Holiday community about a half hour away in Midland, Texas. We seem to enjoy stopping at other communities and snooping around for ideas and such.

By the way, we made sure we took the interstate home and started out with a full tank of gas!!!

Las Cruces Weekend

We’re starting to explore the area around El Paso. Another part of the “market” at least in a broadcast TV sense is Las Cruces, New Mexico. Las Cruses is a great little town only about an hour away and among other things, we share TV stations. They even have a Holiday Retirement Corporation community [we spent the night]. The best part… they have a small but enjoyable wine country.

We couldn’t help try some…
















There happened to be an art & wine festival at one of the vineyards. Of course we had to check it out, but as usual MB most enjoyed the… shopping!
















Nearby is a little town called Mesilla. They’ve kept it just like it was in the days of the old west [assuming they used asphalt for the streets in the 1850's].





















Their claim to fame is that Mesilla was the state capital of Arizona AND New Mexico in that era and as such the court house was there. Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang. And to commemorate the auspicious event they’ve turned in into… a gift shop.




















And how do you end a great weekend of wine tasting, touring and relaxing? By shopping at the outlet mall

Halloween Party

We have a special safe-house trick or treat in the community for the 31st so we had our party on the 30th. The party was complete with a costume contest. We couldn’t participate in the contest, but that didn’t stop us from participating in the fun.

















OK that was scary now what our costumes looked like…





















Our other managers were into it as well [btw, their dog was a ‘hot dog’].





















At dinner one of the residents stopped by the table for a bite.

Okoberfest - Rio Norte Style

Now that we have the Oktoberfest bug, we just can't stop, so we had the Rio Norte version. We have a German resident who helped our chef with the menu, so it was authentic [and yummy]. Even though the bier was root beer, some of our residents who had lived in Germany enjoyed the memories and the rest of us enjoyed the party.
















Of course we had to have the obligatory chicken dance…
















MB in her dirndl and our authentic 35 piece German band. Yeah, it’s just a one-man band [Burt], but he did know the chicken dance …

Photos of our new home

As promised, here are some photos of our new community, we are quite proud.


The entrance …














Looking down the driveway…














A view of the building…














The lobby & atrium …














The Dining Room [decorated for fall]…














And one of my favorites, the Rose Garden…

El Paso City Tour

It’s good to get to know a new city that you live in, so we did what a good tourist would do… we booked a city tour. The van pulled up to Rio Norte and whisked us away to see the sights of El Paso.

El Paso has a rich history dating back to the days of the conquistadors. At the crossing of the Rio Grand the first horses entered into what is now the US. We saw the original Fort Bliss as well as the current version. Quite impressive! As they are soon to add 30,000 more troops, the base is thriving.

We toured the border [so close the Border Patrol checked us out], downtown shopping area, but our favorite… Rosa’s Cantina.

For you non-country music buffs, Marty Robbins recorded a song back in the day that mentions a now famous dance hall called Rosa’s Cantina. Our tour took us there. It’s off the beaten track now, but still thrives with the locals and occasional tourist.



Here's us at Rosa's Cantina. (Yes, that's our guide's finger in front of the lens).

It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks!

First, we got promoted. Yes, we are now managers of our own retirement community, but here's the rub… we got transferred to El Paso, Texas.

We have a beautiful community on the east side of El Paso. The community name is Rio Norte. For those of you that don’t know, El Paso is on the Rio Grande in the corner of Texas bordered by New Mexico and Mexico. We’re north of the river, hence Rio Norte. We've been very impressed with the cosmopolitan nature of the town. We have 110 apartments on two stories and 9 cottages. The grounds are beautifully sculpted; we’re just so impressed and enjoy the much cooler weather!

We were offered the community on the 5th, confirmed that it was a go on the 8th and had to be here on the 14th to replace the temporary managers that left on the 15th. We reserved the U-Haul, packed in two days, drove to Phoenix to get the rest of our stuff, stopped in Tucson for the night and drove on into El Paso the next day. Whew!!!

We’re keeping our cell numbers for now to keep the confusion to a minimum. Y’all come visit us some time!

[PS As soon as we can figure out how to post photos, we'll show you our new home.]