Our RV Adventures

Jan and I were up about 7am, wanting to wrap up our pre-travel chores early. I had already done a lot yesterday afternoon, but I still needed to take care of the satellite stuff outside and stow away the TV/DVR inside before we headed out for breakfast.

With everything else done, the last thing I did right before we left was to shut down the computer. I’ve learned to do this ahead of time since often I find there’s a bunch of updates waiting to be installed, And so it was today.

Please Do Not Turn Off or Unplug Your Computer
Installing 1 of 18 Updates

But I figured it would all be finished up by the time we got back.

Jan and I headed into Columbus about 8:15 am, meeting up at Schobel’s Restaurant with Randy Lazarine and Jim and Perri Dean, where we were all looking forward to partaking of their great Sunday breakfast buffet.

And as in our past get-togethers, between the good food and the great company, we didn’t get back to the park until about 10:15. Normally by then we’d already be on the road, so we scrambled to get going, only to find things coming to a screeching halt.

The computer updates was only up to 5 of 18. And it took two hours to get there!

Having worked on several computers that had been turned off while they were updating, I was loathed to inflict this on me and mine. So since we weren’t really in any hurry to get to Lake Conroe, I decided to wait. And by 11, it had progressed all the way up to 7 of 18.

At this rate it looked like we’d still be waiting here tomorrow, so I said a prayer, bit the bullet, and turned the computer off. I’d know in a few hours how that was going to work out.

Finally we were hitched up and out on the Interstate by 11:30 heading for Conroe. But before we even made it to I-10 it was quickly evident that this was going to be a windy trip. Of course that’s pretty much the norm for this time of year in Texas. It was windy the last several times we drove into Houston in the truck, and also when we daytripped to Fredericksburg last week. So it’s not like you can wait a day for the wind to die down. It won’t.

But there was something new this trip – traffic. Normally, traveling on Sunday like we do, it’s pretty light, but today was definitely different. Starting just the other side of Brookshire, it really thickened up. Not enough to slow things down, but noticeably more.

At first I thought it might be the Houston Rodeo, but as I found out, it doesn’t start until March 1st. So I guess it was just the Two Holiday Weekend, but it seems like that Friday and Monday should be the busy days, not Sunday.

We pulled into the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails about 1:30. Kim, the head Ranger, said it had been really crazy this weekend, and last night the park was almost completely full.

And we quickly found out that tonight was probably going to be the same. Both ‘E’ and ‘G’ were entirely full, and we know that because we drove up and down every row. We finally found a spot in one of the side by side, shared pedestal sites in ‘F’, F-48 to be exact. Not our favorite area, but as Jan said, “Hey, it’s a site.”

And I was very happy to see my computer boot right up with seemingly no problem what so ever, so I really lucked out. Tomorrow I’ll try to restart the updates manually to get caught up.

After we got everything set up, we both took a nap until about 5, before heading out to the Whataburger over in Willis. Normally we’d do something a little fancier on Valentine’s Day, but since we had a big breakfast, and didn’t want to fight the crowds, Jan decided a Whataburger was what she wanted.

Ok, Karma is officially a weird cat. She is crazy about potato chips, pecans, as well as saltines and Townhouse crackers. We did have a cat when we were first married that liked peanut butter and crackers, but pecans?

“Damn!  A Card!”

That’s what Jan said this morning when she found the Valentine’s Day card I’d left out for her. Since she hadn’t gotten me one, she was a little ‘fake’ upset that I got her one. But if I’ve learned anything after over 48 years of marriage, it’s to never believe your wife when she tells you not to get her anything for her birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc.

But in her defense, since we’re pretty much together all the time, it is hard to buy something for one of us with out the other one knowing about it.

Tomorrow about 1pm, we’ll head down to Brandi’s in Katy so we can pick Landon up from school while Lowell and Brandi are both otherwise engaged. Really looking forward to it.

Thought for the Day:

ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY “THOMAS COOK VACATIONS” FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:

“We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”

“The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”

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Well, we were back to our standard 1.5 mile two-part walk this morning. But before we headed out I did another coat of paint on the screen door hinge that I picked up yesterday.

Now it looks pretty good. Black paint can cover a lot of ugly.

Then as we were starting out, Allen, a blog reader, came by to say ‘Hi”. I didn’t get his last name, but he’s also friends with another friend of ours, Bill Joyce, who we last saw back in 2011 at Long Beach, WA

On the way back from our second loop we ran into our friend Randy who was out walking Sherlock. We mentioned we were meeting Jim and Perri Dean tomorrow morning for the breakfast buffet at Schobel’s Restaurant before we head out for Lake Conroe, and asked him to join us.

Later in the afternoon I started prepping for tomorrow’s trip, beginning by putting away the water and sewer hoses, and then stowing away the deck chairs in the toad. Then I started up the rig engine for a few minutes, just long enough to bring up the levelers, so I could go ahead and pack away the leveler pads as well.

Next up was to try out my new hinge. So after attaching the hinge to the door, with Jan’s help to hold it in place, I re-attached the door to the hinge points on the door frame. So after about a month sans screen door, we got it back.

At least now we don’t have to worry so much about Karma darting out.

But that hasn’t been the problem we thought it might be. Although she now sometimes sits on the dashboard and watch everyone go by, but she normally runs when she hears the door open

I was glad to see that she didn’t panic this afternoon when I started up the rig engine, but we’ll see how she does tomorrow when we actually travel.

If you look carefully at the red tag on her collar, you’ll see it says “Emma’, our cat that died back in 2013 while we were on a gate. We had a couple of extra tags, so we put one on Karma, since it’s the phone number that’s important if she gets lost. We’ll get her her own tag soon.

One thing we’ve found is that Karma loves whipped cream. Whenever we have some in our coffee, she begs for some too. In fact she runs over when she hears the “Ssquack” sound of the can. Or also when I make the sound myself. And now she also wants some of the International Delight Hazelnut Coffee Creamer that we use. She watches me take the bottles out of the fridge and then runs over to her bowl and waits for me to pour out about a tablespoon for her.

Tomorrow we’ll leave for the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails about 10am, making the 120 mile trip where we’ll be for the next two weeks.

Thought for the Day:

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”

A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

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