Monthly Archives: August 2014
Counting Down to the Gate . . .
After we had our coffee this morning, I got on the phone to Jamie of Gate Guard Services to see if he had any gates available now, or maybe in the next few days. But he said he didn’t have anything on the horizon right now, but that of course things could change every day. I told Jamie that I was going to check with Diane down at the Whitsett office and that I would call him one last time before we did anything.
When I checked with Diane, she said that they had sites coming up pretty much every day, and to come on down. So as it stands right now, we’ll leave here Thursday morning, going either east or west.
I’ll call Jamie Thursday morning to see if anything’s come available. If so, we’ll head east and north to Buffalo, TX, about 200 miles away where Jamie’s yard is. If Jamie still doesn’t have anything coming up, we’ll head west and south to Whitsett about 175 miles away.
Since we now have a leave date, this Thursday, about 12:30 I went down to the park office to re-up for 3 more days. We were originally going to be here until the 30th of August, but I cut it back when we got here. But just in case I have two weeks booked at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails starting the 30th, to be sure we had somewhere to be for the Labor Day weekend, in case the gate guard thing got delayed.
Lowell send over some photos that Landon’s grandmother Sonja had taken of Landon at Katy Mills Mall yesterday.
This is another favorite of his, the Inflatable Bouncy Crocodile Slide.
Although that Croc looks pretty realistic to be inflatable.
A few months ago Brandi and Lowell moved Landon to a new school. The Goddard School is highly rated, and talking to Landon it’s easy to see why.
While we were at Rainforest Café yesterday afternoon, Landon started talking about the large animated butterflies (about 3ft across) in the trees around our table.
He told us that butterflies are insects, and how insects, like a lot of other animals, use their colors to ‘camouflage’ themselves from things that want to eat them.
So here’s a 4 year old that knows all about butterflies, insects, and camouflage. A 4 year old (just barely) that knows the word ‘camouflage’ and knows what it means.
That’s just scary.
Tomorrow I’ve got some stuff I want to do around the rig before we head out on Thursday. Luckily, most of it is inside, out of the heat.
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Thought for the Day:
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.” — Groucho Marx
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A Playdate . . .
On today’s schedule was a playdate with Lowell’s parents, Sonja and Lendel, and our mutual grandson, Landon.
But before we left for Katy and our get-together, we got a call from our friends, Al and Adrienne. Right now they’re in Alamogordo, NM, getting a problem with their Allison transmission checked out. Hopefully it won’t be something serious.
We first met them when we spent 5 months in Fairbanks, AK during the summer of 2008. We were workkamping at Chena Marina RV Park, and Al and Adrienne were working for Holland America cruise lines, and staying at Chena Marina. We struck up a friendship that’s lasted ever since. When they’re not on the road, they live in Tucson and we always get together when we’re in the area. We’ve also visited them in Cody, WY, and Westport, WA, both places they were workkamping at the time.
We told them we plan to be in Tucson next March for the Escapade, so hopefully we’ll be able to meet up then.
We got to Brandi’s about 1:45 and found that Landon had just woke up from his nap. And he wasn’t happy. Brandi and Lowell had gone to Costco so they weren’t home, so Landon was upset. But he calmed down in a few minutes and we all headed out to Katy Mills Mall, right down the road.
This mall is huge, and has a little bit of everything, especially play areas for the kids. One of the biggest ones is called TILT.
But Landon’s favorite here is bowling. And he’s pretty good at it.
For dinner we walked around the mall to the Rainforest Café, one of Landon’s favorite places. In fact, Landon was just here with his parents for his birthday dinner this past Wednesday.
We’ve eaten at a Rainforest Café several times, but it’s been a good while. The last time was probably 10-15 years ago when we took our granddaughter Piper to the one in Galveston. When she was growing up it was one of her favorite places too. I guess it runs in the family.
Jan and I decided to just have a couple of appetizers, the Lava Nachos,
and the Chicken Fingers, both very good.
After dinner, Landon had one last ride. These are electric and steer like a motorcycle, and are one of Landon’s favorite.
Getting back to Brandi and Lowell’s, we rested up for a while, before heading back to the rig a little after 7.
Tomorrow I’ll get back in touch with Jamie at Gate Guard Services to see about getting a gate with him. Otherwise we’ll talk to the office down in Whitsett to see what they have.
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Thought for the Day:
“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876
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