Retama Village, Mission, Tx…

Our Tuesday morning move over to Retama Village started off a bit rocky. When we got the motorhome all ready to go I put the key into the ignition only to hear the telltale sound of an engine trying to start on a dead battery. Crappers! Well last time this happened I simply fired up the generator to charge the battery but that didn't work this time. As dead as the battery was it appeared this was perhaps going to take longer than we were allowed to stay in our site since someone else was due to arrive at noon right after we were to leave.

Then I remembered a switch on the console labeled “Aux Start” which I thought might help my cause. Only problem was I had never used it before so I had to search the internet to find out how to use it. Now I know exactly what it does and how to use it. The Aux Start button uses the house batteries instead of the engine batteries to start the RV. To use it you simple hold the button down while simultaneously turning the key to start the engine. It worked like a charm… We have been on the road nearly two years and I am still learning new things about this rig.

Well once we got settled in at our space at Retama Village we let the front office know we were available for the guided tour offered as part of our free stay.  Our guide was a developer/sales associate for the park named Eddie. Eddie was a nice and friendly fellow who originally hailed from Arkansas.Our tour began with the large,elegantly decorated clubhouse as well as the large outdoor grill and party plaza.  Next we saw the fabulous pool and hot tub, Adjacent to the pool we were shown the fitness room, craft room, laundry facility and mailboxes.  He then drove us around the development and described what the community had to offer.

Retama Village is located within the 2,500-acre Bentsen Palm Development Master Planned Community in Mission, Texas. It is a member owned park but members are allowed to rent out their sites.  Some of the owners have their sites up for sale or have sold sites back to the community planners to sell. Also within the community are one and two bedroom stucco homes with large RV carports as well as conventional homes without the RV garages for those who have decided to give up RV’ing but still want to be around those who do. The pool, hot tub, fitness room and club house are all great facilities. Eddie graciously gave us a tour of his two bedroom home with the RV carport.

The footprint of the home was about 1100 square feet and to us it looked huge. If nothing else we now know that we could easily live in a much smaller house than we once lived in. Eddie's tour was a very low key, low pressure tour and took less than an hour. We still don’t know what our future plans will be but can see ourselves in a setting similar to Retama Village. Now we are free to enjoy the five free nights that we have here. On Sunday we will head onward to Rockport, our next home for one month…