Monthly Archives: December 2015

Old Friends, New Friends, and Chinese . . .

Jan and I headed our for our inaugural walk here at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails. Since they don’t seem to have a real designated walking path like Colorado River, I used Google Satellite View to map out a 1 mile route, which is pretty just the circumference of the park.

RunKeeper Conroe Route

About a quarter of the way around, we ran into our old friend’s Garland and Valencia Scott. We first met them last winter when we were parked near each other here at Lake Conroe.

Since we were both out walking, we ended up making the circle together as we caught up on our travels this last year, and talked over our travels to be for the next year.

Garland and Valencia Scott

Garland and Valencia are the couple closest to the camera, and behind them are Gordon and Merlyn Pendergast, also new RV’ers.

Garland and Valencia are leaving for a week starting tomorrow, but they’ll be back while we are still here, so we’ll get together then. Really looking forward to it.

A little before 4pm, Jan and I headed out to meet Ed and Debi Hurlburt at the nearby China Delight Chinese Restaurant. Ed is the moderator of two popular Facebook RV groups, RV Tips and RV Chat. And not to be outdone, his wife Debi has her own Facebook group, Debi’s RV Cooking. Jan says she’s gotten some really good recipes from there, so check them all out.

Ed and Debi have been eating here for years, and after trying the food, it’s easy to see why. We’ll definitely go back.

That’s Ed in the blue shirt and Debi to his right.

China Delight Group

Along with themselves, Ed and Debi also brought two other RV’ing couples for us to meet. That’s Jim and Claudia Horak on the right, and Jack and Lynette Starwalt behind Jan.

We all had a great time comparing places we’ve been and places we’d like to go around the country, and talking about all the things RV’ers talk about when they get together.

Leaving the restaurant, we stopped off at Kroger’s to pick up the last of the needed Christmas food supplies, as well as some Christmas gift cards. This should wrap it up, except for the Coconut Cream Pie we’ll pick up from the Fish Pond Restaurant tomorrow evening, and the Cornbread Dressing and Turkey Gravy we’ll pick up from Cracker Barrel Thursday morning on our way to our daughter Brandi’s down in Katy.

Tomorrow we’re driving over to Livingston to visit Dennis and Carol Hill at the Escapees park there, and having sampled his past culinary delights, we’re really looking forward to whatever Dennis pulls out of the smoker.

My good friend Nick Russell’s new book just came out yesterday, and it’s already #32 on Amazon’s Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense list.

This one is not part of his very popular Big Lake series, but it’s another stand-alone book, like his Dog’s Run. Set in the Titsuville, Florida area, it’s sure to be another best seller for him. So get your copy before they run out.

Black Friday

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Thought for the Day:

This is kind of unusual for a TOTD, but this is really a big deal.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company achieved a real milestone today when one of their Falcon 9 rockets launched 11 satellites into Low Earth Orbit and then returned to Cape Canaveral to land vertically on its tail, just like in the movies.

Being able to reuse the complete rocket could reduce the cost of going into space by a factor of 100 and pave the way for lunar and Mars colonies.

You can see the launch and landing here.

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Back in Conroe . . .

Jan and I were up about 7:30 this morning. early for me since this in a travel day. But since we weren’t leaving until around 10am, we relaxed for a while, with Jan fixing us egg and cheese biscuits to have with our coffee, Really good.

I started up the rig about 9:40 and raised the levelers so I could get the pads out from under the rig. About this time Bonnie and Vance Clegg, our next  door neighbors and new friends, came over to say goodbye. They’ll still be here when we come back in two weeks so we made plans to get together then.

We were hooked up and pulling out of the park by about 10:15. Getting out on I-10E we found it had become a very windy day, and stayed that way all the way to Conroe. Not windy enough to be a real problem, but enough that I had to stay on top of it.

We pulled into the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails a little after 1pm, and Kim, the head ranger got us checked in. She said that there were no 50amp open sites in the ‘E’ ring where we normally like to stay, but there were some in the newly-remodeled ‘G’ area. So after we got unhitched, we drove over through that area and quickly found a prime site.

So nice in fact, I kind of wondered why it was empty. But we quickly got backed in and parked. But when I went to get power, water, and sewer hooked up, it quickly became obvious why the site was empty. Probably 95% of 40ft Class A’s couldn’t hook up here.

When the rig is far enough toward the rear of the site so that you can park your toad out in front, the power pedestal is actually about a foot out in front of the rig. In fact I doubt anyone with a standard length power cord could hook up at all. The first owner of our American Eagle ordered it with the optional extra-long power cord, and a couple of times I’ve been able to connect to the power pedestal at the site next to ours during power problems.

But even with my long cord, I was just barely able to connect to power. In addition I had to use two sections of sewer hose because the sewer connection is also way forward. But since we can hook up here, and most rigs probably can’t, maybe this will be our spot from now on.

After goofing off for a while we headed about 3pm. First up was ‘linner’ at one of our new favorite places, Raisin’ Cane’s Chicken Fingers. We first ate at one on last year’s gate near Bryan/College Station, and a few more times since then.

Raisin Cane's Chicken

And it’s always really good.

Then it was next door to the Home Depot to pick up a 5/8” countersink for my next project that I’ll talk about tomorrow. After that we made a stop at an HEB to pick up a few things, including a couple of their oven-roasted turkey breasts to have for our family Christmas dinner on Friday.

We’re really looking forward to getting together with everyone.

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Thought for the Day:

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” – Thomas Jefferson

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