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November 12, 2017
Well we now begin our last week in Texas. I'm really sorry to leaving, it's been such a wonderful visit with old friends and family but it will be good to be home for Thanksgiving and catching up with family and friends in Missouri. Then we will be headed up to Rhode Island, the state of my birth for the month of December.
We found out what happens when you ignore the sensor on the grey tanks. The water bubbles up and stays in the sink. I was in the middle of cooking and we planned to get to the dumping when we finished breakfast. Nope, I was using the kitchen sink and it gurgled and wouldn't go down. Kind of like a clogged sink at home. I yelled at Richard to "empty the grey tanks," which he immediately did. Sure a lot easier that clearing a clogged sink at home.
We've done some fun things and learned some new things about RVing. We were having problems with the wifi and while streaming Netflix and HBO it was taking lots of waiting time. We went to Best Buy and Walmart and they were no help. Everyone wanted to sell us a booster but we don't have a modem that is hooked into an internet connection. That much I knew. We called the AT&T store to see if they had something and they were clueless as well but did direct us to call the AT&T technical assistance. Finally we got some answers. Without buying very expensive roving Wifi equipment she said if we just want to stream off our HotSpot, turn off the wifi from the RV Park, which is what we were using. Just stream from the HotSpot and see if that didn't work. That's what we have done and we've had no problems since. Mind you we are 45 minutes for Houston so we're in a pretty good covered cell area. Not sure how this would work in the woods or some parks. We'll have to see. But we have Dish Satellite, cable through the park and now streaming with the Hot Spot. I think we'll survive. I don't even much like TV but Richard is definitely addicted and it is nice to go to bed and watch a movie now and then. I'd rather be listening to my audio books and as long as I have electricity and can charge my phone or IPAD I'm set.
I continue to enjoy cooking everyday and trying new recipes something I never had time to do. I made a delicious homemade easy chicken pot pie and a quinoa chili the was vegan and magnificent. I was so proud!!
We walked all over the boardwalk in Kemah, Texas which is on the gulf and it was awesome. It's all lit up at night with lots of restaurants and shops and amusement parks. I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel but we didn't. We ate a an awesome seafood restaurant, Landrys, and it was to die for. I had fried oysters for the first time. Not as good as calamari but almost. I had stuffed crab and fried shrimp. It's a wonder my gout hasn't flared up but I've been drinking gallons of water to keep it away.
On the way back to the RV park from Kemah, which was a 2 and 1/2 hour trek due to the traffic,(man I don't miss the traffic here. It is horrendous) we drove past the hospital that both my kids were born in 45 and 47 years ago. It's in the middle of downtown Houston and it took us 25 minutes to get there 47 years ago. Now it would have taken us an hour and 45 minutes to get there. But now they have a huge hospital every 30 miles it seems here. We pass more hospitals than we do schools. Houston is truly a medical center. Anyway the hospital still looks the same, just bigger. It brought back so many memories and of course we talked about them all as we were still over an hour from home. I was 17 and 19 years old. What was I thinking? The first one, Sherry, the doctor barely made it. The second one, Ty, the doctor didn't make it. But I was given "gas" back then so I was out of it. Yes it was in the way olden days when they did things like that. And even though I begged for them to let Richard in, husbands were to allowed into the "birthing rooms."
The weather has been perfect. Low 70's in the day and 50's at night. I hear it's freezing at home. While I prefer cold over heat, this weather has been the best and allowed us to eat out at night and enjoy the outdoor TV.
And then yesterday was Veteran's Day so we went to breakfast with a friend who was a Veteran at Denny's. And I let everyone I know how proud I am of my Veteran father. We were always so proud of him as you can see in the picture below. This picture is a day when his ship returned home after many months without him and we were so happy to welcome him home. I was holding his hand and he was holding my baby brother Brett. My mother, Brett and my sister Robin all celebrated in heaven on Veteran's day I hope, because they are all gone. But they are together!! I miss them everyday and especially miss them on days like this. But I'm so thankful to still have my 89 year old father with me.
So we're relaxing today and expecting Richard's brother to come for a visit. Plan to enjoy the rest of our time in Texas. It's so different knowing and visiting so many people while we're camping. When we have a busy day, it makes me long for the lazy days we've gotten use to.
I finally understand why old people get a rap for being nosey. I can't tell you how much we just observe and watch people now. We are curious about whatever anyone around us is doing. Sometimes Richard embarrasses me and heads over to find out what our neighbors are doing, where they are from, how long they've been doing this. It's amazing how much complete strangers tell each other or maybe we all just understand each other. But one day we were eating lunch and watching the family next to us. They were all dressed up and loading picnic stuff in their car. We were making up all kind of scenarios of what they were up to and that's when I told Richard, "we are turning into nosey old people. We need to stop this." But honestly people are so interesting and for the first time we have the time and energy to actually observe and create cool stories about them. We eventually found out that they were going to a wedding and then a picnic and had a change of clothes in their car. We were so relieved to find out the true story!!!!
To next week!!!!!
NOVEMBER 7, 2017
I don't know what happened with my last blog. It was much longer but I'm having a hard time figuring this crazy thing out so I must not have saved it right. Too much lost. Sorry but I'm not going to redo it and that's so cool because if this was work I would have to but guess what? IT's not work so I'm letting it stand the way it is. As you can see by this blog I am learning. I can now add pictures!! Yea!!!
But lots of things have been going on. First, a really neat thing happened. We decided to take a ride up Hwy 75 just to see the sights. We headed North and ended up in Huntsville, Texas. We stopped for lunch and Richard was wearing his KC Chiefs tee shirt. The manager came up and asked if we were from KC. We said "yes." He informed us that he spent several years in KC. He managed a Chipotle up near the airport and he loved KC. We talked for awhile and we told him we were from around Lees Summit and he said "oh wow, those stores do very well." We said we knew that because everybody loves Chipotle. We chatted and then got in line to get our meal. When we went to pay, the cashier said, "your lunch has been taken care of." We were so shocked and so excited. Things like that don't usually happen to us. When we left I went up and thanked him and gave him a big hug. Great day!!!!
That night I came home and was reading in bed. I looked over to plug in my phone and saw a box. I opened it and found a beautiful ruby heart neckless!!! It was such a surprise. What a true love my Richard is. Always full of surprises!! I was very nice to him. :)
Before the Astros won the World Series, this city was going out of their minds. We have some awesome friends and one of them, Eve Pena, a child I've known since she was a year old, lives in downtown Houston in a gorgeous high rise on the 32nd floor. I was a bit scared out on her deck. I couldn't look down but it was beautiful. We watched one of the Penant games and it was amazing. Such a treat!!
Of course everyone knows now that the Astros took the World Series. OMG, I was so excited.
The morning of the parade I made Richard stop at Academy to buy tee shirts. I got in line with a woman and started talking. I'm getting as bad as Richard. She was from Panama and was getting hats for her employees back home. That's the country of Panama, not Panama City. Anyway, she said that her son managed the store and he was up all night getting ready for the day. You can imagine how crazy it was. Then we headed to the parade. Can't even begin to describe it. Literally, a million people showed up. There was no way to see any of the players but I told Richard it wasn't about seeing anyone, it was about just being there in the moment. Needless to say we left immediately. When I went to the Royals parade in 2015 I didn't get home until 9PM. I knew we wouldn't get home until midnight in Houston if we stayed, and we really don't know the roads in Houston anymore. But it was a memorable day!!!
Sunday was the church shooting so that was a terrible day. It really rocked Texas and we didn't feel like doing anything. It was so heartbreaking wasn't it? I just think we have to be prepared to go at any minute because there are more crazies out there everyday. You just never know and there is no safe place. I am learning to live in the moment and be grateful everyday. Enough sadness. It's not healthy to dwell and yet I'm conscientious that the sadness for those families will be long lived.
I think we again brought the heat with us. It has been up in the 80's every day. That means we have the air-conditioners on but I'm grateful it's cool inside. But outside, ugh. We spent yesterday at the pool and that was actually pretty nice. I heard it was in the 30's in KC.
My girlfriend has been in the hospital so we have learned our way to and from Tomball hospital which is 45 minutes away. But we got our new TX TAG so we can take the toll roads and we feel so special. No stopping to pay. You just slide right by. We love it. We now have an EZ PASS for North East part of the country, TX Tag which works in Texas and Oklahoma and we have the SUN Pass which gets us around the Southeast, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. Next year we will get one for the West coast.
WE continue to learn the secrets of RVing. We just found out that we have to pull our slides in at least once a week so the plan is to do that on Monday's (cleaning day). That is also black water dump day and I am fascinated by that. Richard said I'm "Poop Obsessed," because I won't let him do it unless I'm watching. We have something in it, TST, that eats everything and so it's just brown water. It is amazing to me!!!
Then I also learned that you cannot put melamine dishes in the microwave. I was heating some enchiladas up in the microwave and the dish burned and cracked. I went to Amazon to reorder the dishes. They were so cute. They had trailers on them and I was reading the info on them and there it was, clear as could be, "not suitable for microwave use." I really ought to read these things. Camp Casual (CC-001) 12 piece Dish set from Amazon.
I had a friend over Saturday and I fixed a new recipe. I was chicken breasts topped with cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and sherry. It was TERRIBLE. I really mean TERRIBLE. I had made enough to have it another day for dinner but there was no way Richard could have gotten it down. My friend Linda suggested I wash the chicken off and make a homemade pot pie. So that's what I did. I'm making it tonight so we'll see if it's palatable. There are really some recipes in these books that are not good!!
But that hasn't stopped me from making my pies. I have done a homemade apple pie as well as a coconut custard pie and they were perfect!!
Well after my chicken failure that night I told Linda we'd go out to a Mexican restaurant that I was told was the best in Willis Texas. We went and it was packed, I mean packed. I was so excited because I love, love, love Mexican food. OMG, it was awful. The meat on the taco was nasty and the tortilla shell was stale. The enchilada was even worse and it didn't even come with beans and rice, however I'm so glad it didn't. I bet it would have been nasty. So if you are ever in Willis, Texas do not, I repeat do not go to Los Perilgos!!!
So Saturday was a flop as far as food goes but Linda and I had a great time laughing about it.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow and then it will be in the 60's the rest of the time we are here. Now that's what I'm talkin about!!!! Can't wait. On Friday's they have a food truck and a band that comes to the part. Everyone meets up at the front and listens and eats around a huge fire pit. It's awesome and we are meeting some really great people that are living the dream with us. Until then we are enjoying the beautiful pool. Why do we get so excited about this. I mean we have a pool at home but man this is fun!!
I still have dreams that I'm at work but I always wake up as soon as it starts to get stressful in the dream so I'm slowing down in that area. Still sleeping in till 9 or 10. I'm not taking naps but my hubby is. He's asleep now but he's up half the night and guess what......no one cares :)
So we've gotten to spend time with friends and family from years ago. We haven't lived in Houston since 1980 but we were here from 1970 to 1980 and they were special years because my two babies were born here. The town has changed but the friends have not!!!
Here's to our last 10 days in Texas!!!!!!!!!
