Our RV Adventures

This morning started with Jan heading out about 10 am to get a pedicure. I got up about the same time and started catching up on some more computer stuff.

While Jan was gone, our daughter Brandi called to check in after her doctor’s visit at Texas Children’s Hospital. Landon’s pediatrician had suggested they take in to have the hemangioma birthmark on his forehead checked out.

Funny thing for being a birthmark is that it wasn’t there when he was born. It didn’t appear for over a month, and at first just looked like a small scratch. Now it’s almost the size of a dime.

The doctor said there was no problem and that most of these disappear by age 2, and can be treated by a pulsed dye laser if needed.

So everyone was relieved.

Now that all of Brandi’s Christmas cards have gone out, I’m now allowed to post this picture of Landon and Santa that was on their Christmas card.

Landon certainly seemed happy about the whole thing. Santa must have told him that he was getting everything he asked for.

About 5 pm we drove over to Victory Lakes to meet our friend Maria for dinner at Denny’s. Then afterwards, Maria and Jan headed down to La Marque to play Bingo.

Thought I’d reposted our visit to Homestead FL and the Coral Castle last year.

___________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

The only real purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped in the first place.

___________________________________________________________________

Unrequited Love and Turkey & Dressing…

Posted on May 14, 2009

As I said before, we’re parked at an RV community in Homestead (actually Florida City) FL called Goldcoaster RV Resort with over 400 sites, with most of them having mobile homes on the lots, but they have a lot of sites for rent.

One of the plants we’ve seen around here is a tree with large bunches of bright orange red flowers.

We were first told it was a Royal Poinsettia tree, but finally found it was a Royal Poinciana tree. These trees really stand out.

After lunch at Cracker Barrel (Thursday is Turkey & Dressing Day which is a favorite of Jan’s) we headed a few miles north to the Coral Castle.

The history behind the Coral Castle is one of unrequited love.  Edward Leedskalnin was jilted by his 16 year old fiancé the day before his wedding in Latvia.

Immigrating to American in the early 1920′s, he supposedly built the Coral Castle (then called Rock Gate) in tribute to his “Sweet Sixteen”.

The place was featured on ‘In Search of…” and “That’s Incredible” and there is some controversy how this one man, working only at night, was able to move stones as heavy as 30 tons by himself.

If you want more info, click here for a pretty good article.

Here are some pics.

My Sweet Sixteen (Actually she was 19 when we met)

Tomorrow we head down to the Florida Keys for 5 days.

Stay tuned…

dfadf

I ended up sleeping ‘til a little after 11 this morning since I didn’t sleep very well last night. For the last 4 or 5 days I’ve been hobbling around in the middle of a gout attack, which has also knocked out our walking every morning.

I think I’m on the downside of this, because I’ve got a lot of projects to work before we leave in February, and I can’t get much done limping around like this.

But a big pot of coffee and keeping my foot elevated helped after a while. Hopefully it will keep improving.

I pretty much goofed off the rest of the afternoon while Jan caught up on the laundry.

Then about 6 pm we headed over to the Olive Garden in Pearland to meet up with Sue and Gene Hofford, the owners of the Alvin Opry, and a bunch of friends. Over 20 people were there and we all had a great time.

We got home about 10 after a pretty quiet day.

More tomorrow…

Since we didn’t do much today, thought you might like this repost of one of our visits to Gulf Shores, AL.

___________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:
For those who have had to fight for it, freedom has a flavor the protected shall never know.

___________________________________________________________________

Gulf Shores – Home to the World’s Tiniest Hooters!

Posted on March 29, 2009

Get your mind out of the gutter!

Not those kind of hooters.  This kind of Hooters!

Well, on second thought, maybe we are talking about the same kind.

Anyway, Jan and I went to the Gulf Shores Hooters for dinner tonight.  And as the sign says it is the world’s tiniest Hooters!

It’s actually built on a double-wide trailer.  In fact, when we were here back in November, one of the waitresses said that if you looked underneath, you could still see the wheels.

Jan and I have always called this place ‘Hoots’ because it was too small to be a real Hooters.

We started going to Hooter’s about 9 years ago and it quickly grew to be one of our favorite places

We were eating out with our son Chris, his wife, Linda, and our then 7 year old granddaughter, Piper. We also had Trudy, Jan’s mother, with us.

We were eating something, onion rings, or fried cheese, I believe, and Piper looks at us and says” This is good, but the ones at Hooters are better”.

I looked at her and said “How would you know?”  And she said “Daddy and I go there all the time!”

Ah Ha!  Busted!

We went to the NASA Hooters with the family a week or so later and were pleasantly surprised. They don’t serve hard liquor, just beer and wine. And we really liked the chicken wings.

Almost every table in the non-smoking area had a family with kids sitting at it.  And they regularly have kid’s birthday parties there.

I mean, I would have like to have my 12th birthday party at a Hooters!

Happy Birthday!

Anyway, we hadn’t been there more than about 10 minutes when I heard someone yell “Greg!”  Suddenly someone was hugging me from behind and kissing me on the top of the head.

Without even looking, I knew Jan was giving me “The Look”.  You all know the “The Look” don’t you?

It took me a few seconds to realize this was a student I knew from the University of Houston – Clear Lake.  Well, I mean,  she wasn’t dressed like that the last time I saw her!

A few weeks before, she had come to my office at the university almost in tears.  The ZIP disk that held her only full copy of her Master’s Thesis had become corrupted and she was afraid she had lost all her work.

It took a little work, but I was able to recover the entire document, and she was apparently very grateful.

After the explanation, Jan was somewhat mollified, but she still wasn’t too happy about the big lipstick kiss that remained on the top of my bald head.

Oh well…

Besides this young lady who was finishing up her MBA, we later ran into another one who was just about ready to take her CPA exam.

She said she made enough working at Hooters for just 2 – 3 days a week to pay her way thru college.

Anyway, as I said, Hooter’s became one of our favorite places.

I used to tell people that my wife and my mother-in-law insist I take them to Hooter’s at least once a week.

Am I a lucky guy, or what?

jhg