Like we described in our previous blog we had 4 great days in Panama City before we left for the USA to visit our family, friends and doctors in Texas. Before we left we experienced in both Kuna Yala and Isla Linton in Panama some of the heaviest rain both Dorothy and I have ever seen. If you take into account that Dorothy born in Indonesia, where we also lived together for some time, a country with a long and strong rain season and I spent close to 12 years in Suriname also known for its heavy rain in the wet season this means something. Several nights when I left our dinghy in the water with the drain plug in the dinghy was filled to the rim which means 1 ½ foot of rain during the night. We expected some nice Texas summer weather on arrival, but before landing in Houston we had to circle around for an hour due to the heavy rainstorms above the airport and this gave us the opportunity to see all the flooding in Texas. Due the rainstorms the flight to San Antonio was very rough and again we saw a lot of flooding. Not only had it rained a lot, the temperature was for Texas in the summer unseasonably low. Due to the late arrival in Houston we had to hurry to the terminal for our connecting flight to San Antonio. We made it, but our luggage did not, so we had to wait in San Antonio for the next flight to bring our luggage. But arriving and seeing our children and grandchildren was so heartwarming that the rain, the cold and delays were soon forgotten.

We had agreed with my son Robert that we could use his motorhome again like last year. However; after it had been for sale for a year, on the day we arrived it was finally sold, so instead Heather and Robert prepared one of their nice large bedrooms for us and after a long day of traveling we were happy to lay our heads down. Another problem was that the car that Robert had available for us was in use by our daughter Dominique, since our granddaughter Kristin just 3 weeks after getting her driver’s license had an accident with her mother’s car and it needed big repairs. So we rented a car, but could take it back after two weeks and start driving in Robert’s large BMW 745i when Dominique got her own car back.

A car is very important to us since most of the doctors we needed to visit are in San Antonio and our children live in New Braunfels which is about 35 miles from San Antonio. Our first ‘stop’ was going to the aqua center of the Resolute Fitness Center to get my temporary membership renewed so I could start swimming again at 5:30 in the morning. To our big surprise without any additional cost Dorothy also received an access card so every weekday morning we leave the house at 5:15 to swim our laps and use the great facilities to shower and get ready for the day.

The first week we spent ‘running’ from one doctor’s office to another and in-between visits we started buying all the items on our shopping list. Neither San Antonio nor Austin has a good chandlery for sailboat parts and since we did not want to delay the purchase of the important items on the list, we drove the first Saturday via Houston to Kemah the watersport center at the Houston ship channel. The marinas in that area are very beautiful and very large, so there is also a West Marine Store. We could find everything on our boat part list and survived the shock of the total price tag. Just to get the shopping done the following day, Sunday we started to work on the remainder of our shopping list for more personal items and items that are difficult to find in Panama. We also ordered many items on-line and used the office address of my son where my daughter works as his marketing manager as the shipping address. We made many trips to this office to pick-up our packages.

Our doctors were very happy with our physical condition, except for my cholesterol level, which went up quite a bit due to the fact that I stopped using all my medications after my stomach bleedings. With an endoscopy procedure in which a tube gets inserted via your mouth into your stomach, it was determined that my stomach had somewhat recovered and I can start taking some of my medications for my heart and high cholesterol again but no blood thinner like aspirin and any ibuprofen. I was very happy that my last corneal transplant is doing very well and I hope it continues doing so for many years to come.

On June 22, 1985 Dorothy and the children joined me in the USA and although I lived and worked already since February of that year in the US, we always celebrate this day as our arrival day in this great country we love so much. After working and living in many places in the world we finaly settled down in one place and lived in Texas until 2006 when Dorothy and I moved to Miami Beach, Florida. After we arrived in the USA we visited every year the Annual Texas Folklife Festival which is held on the grounds of the Institute of Texan Cultures on the UTSA Hemisfair Campus in San Antonio. This is also the location where I was sworn in as a US Citizen in 2000. Dorothy, Dominique and Robert had this honor a little later.

More than 40 different cultural groups in Texas are represented at the festival, and each year, more than 250 participants come together to celebrate their culture and heritage and that time the Dutch were also represented with a “Klompen” (Wooden Shoes) Dance group. This year was the 45th anniversary of this festival and on Saturday June 11, 2016 we visited it. We attended 9 performances from 3 European, 3 South American, 1 Middle East, an Asian and a Clogging group demonstrating a dance and music style from the Appalachian Mountains. American Clogging is associated with the predecessor to bluegrass—"old-time" music, which is based on Irish and Scots-Irish fiddle tunes. Clogging developed from aspects of English, Irish, German, and Cherokee step dances, as well as African rhythms and movement. We had a great time together with all the memories of our early years in Texas and the USA.

One of the other great memories we had was when we visited the weekly waterski show held by the “Ski Bees” on Lake McQueeney. Our grandson Jack started a summer job as a boat driver/ski instructor for the waterski school on this lake. Part of the job is that he performs during the show. This is exactly a repetition of the start of the great water skiing career of his dad (our son Robert) and we remembered the first time we attended this show in 1988 in which Robert participated. Jack’s frozen yoghurt stand did not produce the results he had hoped for and after we could enjoy as one of his last customers the very tasty products he closed the business.

Jack is a great wakeboarder and he is a two time World Champion in his division. Now he competes weekly in the Point Chase Competition at the Texas Ski Ranch. Points gathered during this competition can qualify the participants to the Nationals held annually at the end of the season. Both Jack and Max have made it several times to the Nationals. Last week our grandson Max, 13 years old, was promoted to the Professional Division in the Point Chase Competition at the Texas Ski Ranch. He is now in the same division as his older brother Jack. I posted a video on Facebook of his first competition in which he finished in fourth (4) place. We cannot be more proud of him and happy to be in Texas when he made this big step in his wakeboarding career.

Our youngest granddaughter Katelynn had her 12th birthday during our visit and we celebrated this during the competition at the Texas Ski Ranch with a late dinner afterwards at a local restaurant that has a playground for small children and although Katelynn feels that she is now a real teenager she was playing with other children in the playground. We bought her an Ezyroller which is sort of low rider that allows you to wiggle the front wheel which creates the forward motion and the fact she wanted to have this toy vehicle proves to me that she is not ready to be a teenager

Our son became after his successful professional waterski career a very dedicated fisherman. From his weekend base in Port Aransas where he has a very nice condo he fishes either with his bay boat or his offshore fishing vessel. Port Aransas is the only town on Mustang Island and it is located north of Padre Island and is one of the longest barrier islands along the Texas coast. Corpus Christi Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, the Lydia Ann Ship Channel and the Corpus Christi Ship Channel make up the surrounding waters. The winter population is about 3,480 but it grows in the summer to about 60,000 with people living in one of the many rental condominiums. The island and town are about 180 miles away from San Antonio and can be reached with very busy, but free ferry or a large bridge over the intra-coastal waterway.

Dorothy and I spent a couple of days in Port Aransas using Robert and Heather’s condo and this time we enjoyed the open sea from the shore. We walked over the beach after finding a nice location on the beach to drive our car. Yes in Texas it is allowed to drive a car on the beach and park it or even take your RV, Motorhome etc. and camp out on the beach. Robert’s boat captain took us out on the ship channel when he needed to pump-out and fill the fuel tanks of Robert’s new fishing boat in preparation for the weekend fishing trip. We drove along Ingleside which is an old navy base now used to build and repair very large oil rigs that has the largest crane in the world for this purpose. We saw how fast the oil transfer is done in the Corpus Christy oil refineries. On Sunday night we saw the tanker “Eagle Kuantan” nearly fully loaded entering the shipping channel and on Tuesday it was leaving empty (see our pictures). From Port Aransas we took a nice circle tour to the City of Corpus Christi leaving Port Aransas with the ferry and driving along the coast of Corpus Christi Bay, visiting the city and its revitalized coastal area, the “Lexington Aircraft Museum” and back over the bridge to South Padre Island and Mustang Island.

The enormous amount of rain Texas had over the last months caused many rivers to overflow resulting in a lot of flooding. Medina Lake, the lake we lived on for many years was for the first time in 10 years full and water was going over the spillway. The gates on Canyon Dam are wide open allowing a lot of water to go into the Guadalupe River. Although the Blanco River was flowing very fast it did not flood like it did last year when many houses were destroyed and an entire family lost their lives. One of my pictures in our related album shows broken tree trunks about 20 feet above the current water level. Texas hill country was as beautiful as it can be after so much rain. The hills are green, the creeks and rivers are streaming fast and the lakes are full. Although we were too late to see the famous spring Texas wild flowers the remaining flowers are reminding us how beautiful spring was this year. We made several trips through Texas Hill Country and although we left Texas in 2006 nearly 10 years ago it is still the place where not only our family lives but our hearts still are.

Our bags are packed the boarding cards printed and we will leave tomorrow June 29 back to Panama after a great time with family and friends. Thank you all for making us feel so welcome and at home again.