Bacon Chefs
Friday morning we were treated to Frank’s Breakfast Extravaganza! Frank provides bacon and sausage and he and Ted cook it up. The rest of us that attended brought side dishes – eggs w/jalapeno & cheese, breakfast potatoes, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, danish, french toast bake, etc. Everything was really good and it was a fun way to kick of the rally and start the day.
Socializing…
We did some visiting over at Jay and Stella’s rig that afternoon. Nancy and Dave were there as well and then a few other people stopped by sporadically.
Fried catfish, shrimp and crab cake
Friday afternoon, Jay and Stella took us and Dave and Nancy to Jumbo Seafood and Grill for dinner. We ordered a variety of dishes (shrimp po’ boys, seafood platters, grilled chicken, fried shrimp). Everyone was very happy with their dishes and we all agreed we’d go back. The owner is originally from New Orleans and came up this way when Katrina hit and just never went back. It’s easy to tell that he knows his stuff!
I scream, You scream…
That evening we had our first official rally event…a Meet & Greet! After introductions were made the club provided several different kinds of Blue Bell ice cream, as well as toppings. We had a good time chatting but we were both pretty well worn out from out trip to First Monday the day before so we opted out of game play and went home to relax.
Nice sized group for a fun activity!
Saturday morning a fairly large group of ladies got together at the rally hall and Barbara W led us in another fun crafting activity. We were each asked to bring a roll of toilet paper and two Walmart bags (or Gucci bags as Debbie B calls them!)
It’s the great pumpkins!
Barbara donated some pre-cut fabric in about 4 or 5 different patterns and combined with the supplies that we each brought we made the cutest little fall pumpkins! The craft was super easy and super fast to do which gave us plenty of time for visiting after we were all done!
So many delicious dishes to choose from…
Saturday evening is almost always potluck time…this time was no different. Before digging in Bob C rounded everyone up and took a group photo…it’s NOT easy to round up 60+ people and get them all squeezed into a picture…but Bob’s pretty darn good at it.
…plenty for everyone and then some…
The club provided brisket, sausage and turkey (all were very good!) while the members all brought side dishes and desserts to accompany the meal. We had pea salad, cole slaw (several kinds), green beans, a couple of fruit salads, 3 different baked bean dishes, 2 different offerings of deviled eggs, three bean salad, four or so different potato salads, brownies, poke cake, several cobblers, etc, etc etc. You never go hungry at a Heartland potluck!
Good to the last drop!?!
I contributed a pot of baked beans that I made in the Instant Pot. When I saw that there were two other large pots of baked beans I was a bit concerned that Michael and I were going to be eating beans for the next few weeks. To my relief the pot was completely empty by the time everyone had their share! Whew!
After dinner there was a White Elephant exchange for those that chose to participate. We had planned on participating but couldn’t find the item we were going to ‘donate’. (we later on remembered that we had sold it at Dan and Amanda’s garage sale in May) We had a good time giggling at some of the items people received as there were a couple of doozies. There were also a couple of pretty nice gifts too!
There happened to be one bag left over and everyone that brought a White Elephant claimed they’d gotten one in return…so we ended up with the last one. We were blessed with 4 chalk blocks, a wireless antenna, magnetic knife holder, brass pressure regulator, 30 to 110 adapter, stick on bubble level and a battery-powered lantern.
Erika & Tony came from west Texas to join in on the festivities and were good enough to bring the t-shirts we’d had Erika design for our south Texas rally…which is next weekend! We spent a good portion of Sunday morning sorting the shirts and getting them packaged so that we don’t have to worry about it later.
Last get together for this rally
We had several rigs leave Sunday but a good portion stayed over until Monday. We had an after the rally potluck using all of the leftovers from the rally for dinner Sunday night. Since I didn’t have anything leftover I brought a bowl of watermelon and 3/4 of a 9×13 inch pan of baked ravioli, which worked out great!
We had dinner in the outdoor pavilion moved all of the tables under into the shade. The temp was pretty near 90 so it was still pretty warm in the shade. We enjoyed our dinner and visited with new and old friends before we gathered our empty dishes and headed home to the air conditioning.
We still had some work to do in order to head out in the morning so we kinda ate and ran. Tomorrow we head further south to Elmendorf, Texas which is just south of San Antonio. We’ll be there a week for the South Texas Chapter rally…OUR rally! EEK!