On The Road Again . . . Again

Today was supposed to be a nice, quiet at-home day, after our 8 hour road trip yesterday, and that’s how it started out. But that changed when Jan saw the Facebook post from Bonnie Horner’s family mentioning that they were hoping friends would drop by to visit.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Bonnie’s husband Richard passed away on Wednesday, so Jan and I had decided to wait a bit before we got in touch. But once we saw the Facebook post, we got dressed and hit the road for Pearland.

Bonnie and Richard_thumb[4]

Lucky for us, today’s trip was the complete opposite of yesterday’s with the sun shining and just a few clouds, compared with pouring down rain yesterday. So with no weather or traffic slowdowns, we were there a little after 3pm.

Jan worked with Bonnie a good while back, and we’ve always gotten together over the years, and we were planning to set up a get-together for this year too when we got the news about Richard.

It was really good catching up with Bonnie and her children Jeanne, Susie, and Bob. Bonnie has several cats, so we all had a lot of cat stories to tell, talking about our pets.

After telling Bonnie we’d get back together for dinner soon, Jan and I headed out a little after 5. Since we were close, we decided to have dinner at one of our favorites, Floyd’s Cajun Seafood and Steakhouse right down the road in Friendswood.

We eaten at this location a number of times, though not near as many as the Floyd’s Cajun Seafood in Webster. But it’s all good no matter which one you visit.

I think I’ve mentioned before that the ‘Floyd’ in the name is Floyd Landry, the originator of the Landry’s seafood chain, before he sold it to Tilman Fertitta.

Jan loves the Chicken Fried Chicken here, especially the gravy that she always gets on the side. After the meal, when she was telling our waiter how much she loved the gravy, he said she wasn’t alone. And that they had changed the recipe once, thinking they would make it better. But they were immediately flooded with complaints, and quickly went back to the old recipe.

Don’t mess with success. Remember New Coke.

I had my usual Seafood Gumbo, as you can see is just loaded with shrimp,

Floyd's Seafood Gumbo_thumb[1]

and then an Shrimp & Oyster Po-Boy.

Floyd's PoBoy 2_thumb[1]

Big portions, and then only reason I was able to finish it was that I had not had breakfast or lunch today. So I had  plenty of room. But I was still stuffed afterwards.

Heading back on the way  home, we made a Wal-Mart stop for a few things. Pearland has grown so much in the last few years they now have three Wal-Mart’s. We don’t even recognize it any more.

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Finally heading for Columbus, we decided to take a detour around Brookshire on I-10. Since the heavy rains the other day, part of US90 just west of Brookshire is flooded out, forcing all of US90’s traffic onto I-10, causing a 6 mile backup on i-10 through Brookshire and almost into Katy.

So leaving Pearland we headed down US59 for a bit and then cut west through Rosenberg and then onto SR36 which brought us back onto I-10 at Sealy, bypassing all the mess.

So, with a potty stop at the TA Oasis Truck Stop, we were home by 9:30. And after two long days in a row, we are definitely staying home tomorrow and Monday.

And maybe Tuesday, too.


Thought for the Day:

“By calling attention to a well-regulated militia for the security of the Nation, and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy.

Although it is extremely unlikely that the fear of governmental tyranny, which gave rise to the 2nd amendment, will ever be a major danger to our Nation, the amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic military-civilian relationship, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country.

For that reason I believe the 2nd Amendment will always be important.” – John F. Kennedy

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