Monthly Archives: December 2014
Too Many Margarets . . .
Since it was spitting rain a good part of the day, Jan and I stayed inside and enjoyed our coffee and muffins in dry comfort.
Later in the morning I went online to the Post Office website to print out shipping labels for the last of our presents to be shipped out. About 2pm I drove into Columbus to drop them off at the PO. Then it was on into town to the HEB to pick up a couple of things before I headed back to the rig.
On the way back I checked out the Colorado County Oil facility. I’d passed it a number of times, but thought that this time I’d check it out. The $2.64 price for diesel was the lowest I’ve seen anywhere, or even heard about.
It looked like it was a co-op place, but I wanted to check so I stopped in on the way home. I wanted to be sure the diesel pump was open to anyone, and also to be sure this price wasn’t a ‘loss leader’ off-road diesel price. Turns out it is open to the public, and that is the real price. So I’ll plan on stopping there to fill up when we leave here next Wednesday to go back to Lake Conroe, or earlier if we get a call from Galveston Bay RV before then.
About 4pm we tagged up with Tom and Lily Christian and headed up to Ellinger for dinner at Peter’s BBQ. It was their first time, but lucky for us, they seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.
It started sprinkling again just as we got there, and a little bit later Jan and I were looking out the window at US71 when a car came by doing about 60, skidding backwards as he did several 360’s down the highway. Figure he tried to brake on the wet pavement and skidded. Kept waiting for the big ‘crash’ sound, but never heard anything, so I guess he was all right. The road is five lanes wide there so I guess that helped. Lucky for him because about 30 seconds later, a gas tanker truck came by in other direction. Glad they didn’t meet up.
Tom and Lily came over for awhile after we go home and we had a nice time, and pumpkin pie, talking about anything and everything. I know Tom has a lot of great stories about his time in the Army. Need to get him and Nick together.
Brandi sent over some more pics of Landon and Santa. As before Landon is just enthralled with Santa and won’t take his eyes off him.
Landon knows who brings his presents and he’s not taking any chances.
But these kids are a whole ‘nother story. The just want as far away as possible from the fat man in the red suit.
I think my favorite is the second one with the twin blonde little girls. The one on the left is telling her parents exactly what she thinks of the situation, and the smiling one on the right is thinking, “Boy, is she going to get in trouble, and I’m going to get all her presents.”
Finally, thanks to the number of you that corrected me that it was Margaret Mitchell that wrote Gone With The Wind, and not Margaret Mead. I certainly knew that, but I can only pled that it was almost 3am when I finished the blog, and that I met Margaret Mead in 1958 in Nashville, TN. My mother and I got to visit with her for a while, and she signed one of her books for me. So when I think of famous ‘Margaret’s’, she’s the first one that comes to mine.
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Thought for the Day:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow.
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Road Trip Wrap Up . . .
Finishing up yesterday’s road trip.
Before we left the Gone With The Wind exhibit, I discovered a rare treat in a side alcove, an original Gutenberg Bible.
Printed in 1454 or 1455, this two volume set is one of only 48 still-existing sets, and one of only 5 sets in the United States.
I was interested to learn that the red highlights were actually put in by hand, by a person called a ‘rubricator’. Gutenberg had originally tried to print each page twice, once for the red ink parts,and then for the black text. But he was never really able to perfect it, probably because of the difficulty of keeping the pages aligned.
So instead, he printed the pages in black, leaving empty areas to be filled in by hand by the ‘rubricator’, usually a priest or a monk especially hired for the task,
It was really amazing to look at these volumes on the other side of the glass case and know they were printed more than 550 years ago and handled by Johannes Gutenberg himself.
We left the GTTW exhibit and drove about 15 minutes to have lunch at Trudy’s Texas Star.
We used to eat here every time we came up to Austin to visit our daughter Brandi when she was in college here, and always really enjoyed it.
But it’s been a long time since we’ve been back, so we wanted to try it again while we’re in town. And we weren’t disappointed.
I had the Migas and Beef Fajitas
and Jan had the Beef Chile Rellenos
Jan said these were the best rellenos she’s ever eaten, beating out the previous #1, Esther’s in Placentia, CA who are renowned in California for their rellenos.
My Migas were delicious, but the Beef Fajitas were fantastic, probably the best I ever had. It seemed like that after they were cooked normally, they were coated in a rub of some sort and then put on the grill for a short time. This gave them a slight charred crust on them, making them really great.
Also really good were the Borracho Beans, cooked with bacon and onions. as well as the perfectly seasoned rice. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back soon.
Heading toward home after our great meal, we made a stop by a local Christmas Store so Jan could look for some Christmas lights she wanted and then it was back on the road home. After making a quick pitstop at Buc-ee’s, we got back to the rig a little after 6pm, another fun, but busy day.
Getting home I found a spray bottle of De-Solv-It Contractor’s Solvent sitting on the rig step.
I figured it was either left by Christmas Elves, or maybe my friend Tom Christian who thought it might remove the drill mud from the roof of our rig. And according to the label, it should remove just about anything. In fact the label warns you to test the surface you’re using it on to be sure it doesn’t dissolve it too. According to the website, it cleans stained concrete, removes silicone, caulk, putty nails, floor adhesive, water seal, wet paint (won’t harm dry paint), oil, roofing tar, wax, diesel soot, pine sap and resin, and more from virtually any surface! And apparently, according to one commenter, it will even take the skunk smell off of dogs. Who knew?
So later in the afternoon, I got the ladder out and gave it a try on the top of the front cap. But unfortunately it didn’t really touch it. I could see a slight darkening on the towel I was using, but I couldn’t see any change in the roof surface. But later I did try it on the diesel soot on the rig’s chrome exhaust pipe and it cleaned it right up.
So it’s back to the drawing board on the drill mud.
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Thought for the Day:
Merry Christmas from the Enterprise!
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