Our RV Adventures

We had really gotten used to the beginnings of Fall while we were in Elkhart.

You remember Fall, you know, highs in the 70’s, low’s in the 40’s.

Well, not down here in Houston. When we got here yesterday it was 97 degrees. Today it was 93 degrees with a humidity “Feels Like” of 100 degrees.

And the low tonight is 75.

You know you’re back in Texas when the water from the cold water faucet is hot!

But there are some redeeming factors.

Here is our site here at Galveston Bay RV Park.

And here is the view out our front window from site 73. This is Dickinson Bayou which leads into Galveston Bay.

This is the slightly different view from site 80, where we’ve parked the previous two years. Jan likes this view better because the small island attracts a lot of birds and wildlife  If and when our old site becomes available, we’ll probably move down the street.

Jan always puts out a bird feeder to keep the local avians from starving. We’ve gone thru as much as 50# of bird seed a week.

These are Monk’s Parakeets. There are large flocks of them in this area, although they are not native to here, but originally come from South America. They’re very hardy, and colonies are found as far north as Connecticut, and as far west as Washington state. The colonies are generally thought to have originated from escaped pets over the years.

But here’s the main reason for being here. This was my first chance to hold baby Landon. It’s really hard to imagine how small he is. The last time I held a grandchild this small was 17 years ago, with our granddaughter Piper.

About 11 am our son Chris came over to drop off a dead laptop for me to work on, and after talking for a while we headed out for lunch at Berryhill Baja Grill. They have great sandwiches, tacos, and tortilla soup, and we always enjoy it.

Coming home we stopped off at Kroger’s for some groceries, and then we were in for the day.

We’ll probably spend the next few days just jelling before we jump back in the swing of things.

More tomorrow…

Quote of the Day:
“Every morning, I get up and look through the ‘Forbes’ list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.”

sdsds

As we were getting ready to pull out this morning, Emma and Mister started jockeying for position in Jan’s chair. Note the glare that Emma’s giving Mister, and Mister couldn’t care less.

We left Poche’s RV Park  about 10:30 headed for Houston with a quick stop-over at Mulate’s for lunch before we left.

One thing we haven’t seen in a while since we’ve been out west and up north is sugar cane. From a distance it looks kind of like corn, but when you look closer, there’s no ears of corn.

The sugar cane stalk itself looks a stick of bamboo, but the inside is sweet and juicy.

We went back to Mulate’s for lunch for two reasons, the great gumbo and bread pudding, of course, but also to see Tracey.

Mulate’s – plain on the outside.

Very nice on the inside.

As I said yesterday, I’ve been eating at Mulate’s for over 15 years, and it seems like Tracey’s been waiting on me for most of that time. Here’s Tracey on the left, and Sheila on the right, Sheila’s also waited on me many times when Tracey wasn’t there.

Luckily, Mulate’s has a nice big parking lot that makes for an easy in and out.

We left Mulate’s about noon heading for Galveston Bay RV Park in Dickinson, TX.

I thought I’d include these bridge shots along the way to see if I could make Nick snivel.

The first one is the I-10 bridge over the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles. And Nick would want you to know that it’s148 feet above the water.

And this is the Fred Hartman Bridge on State Highway 146 southeast of Houston, and it’s 178 feet above the water.

On top of that it’s a really beautiful bridge in its own right.

SNIVEL, SNIVEL, SNIVEL

We did have a couple of milestones yesterday and today. Yesterday we hit 37,000 miles since we hit the road in February of 2008, and today, right before we got into Houston, we crossed 100,000 miles on the coach itself.

And Beauty is still going strong and running great. And with a partial new paint job to boot..

We saw this sign for our favorite gas station/market store just past Lake Charles. It’s referring to the Buc-ee’s on I-10 in Luling, TX. Luckily we didn’t have to wait that long to visit a Buc-ee’s, since we always stop at the one in League City, TX, which is about 5 miles from the RV park where we’ll spend the winter.

They always have great prices on fuel, in today’s case, $2.70 a gallon for diesel, which is a nice change from the prices up north.

When we’re parked for a long time, in this case several months, I always fill the tank first to cut down on any condensation forming in the fuel tank. Diesel and water don’t mix well.

131.9 gallons later we pulled into site 73 at the park and got plugged in. We didn’t do anything else beside plugging in power, because we only had about 15 minutes to meet the kids at Monterey’s Little Mexico, one of our favorite Mexican places in Dickinson. I love their Chicken Tortilla Soup.

We had a great time seeing everyone, and the best thing is, I finally got to hold little Landon.

Getting back to the rig I got the sat dish set up while Jan let out the slide and got things put out inside.

We’re here until at least the middle of January, although we may move if our old site becomes available.

More from Houston tomorrow…

Quote of the Day:
"Government is not eloquence. Government is not reason. Government is force." George Washington.

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