Our RV Adventures

But Well Worth It!

Today was the big birthday celebration down in Galveston. Our granddaughter Piper’s was on September 7th and our daughter Brandi’s was yesterday, the 15th. And also thrown in here was Landon’s 7th birthday last month.

His big party for all his friends got hurricane-cancelled, so he was in on this too.

So Jan and I were on the road by 6:30, more than 30 minutes before sunrise, way too early for anyone, especially me. The one positive thing to all this was there was no traffic, even through downtown Houston. It was just 70mph all the way.

We got to our son Chris’ about 8am where we were all rendezvousing. Brandi, Lowell, and Landon showed up a few minutes later, and in turn, we were all on the road with Jan and I riding with Chris and Linda, and Miss Piper riding with Brandi, et. al.

Our destination, the Sunflower Café, has been a favorite of ours for a number of years, since Brandi and Lowell introduced us to the place. It’s always been a great place for breakfast , brunch, and lunch, with a wide array of specialty dishes, like Fried Quail and Grits, Crab Cakes and Eggs, and Eggs Benedict Surf and Turf.

Of course, with all these wonderful selections, Jan got Eggs, Bacon, Potatoes, and Toast.

For me, I branched out a little with the Hatch Green Chile Omelet, stuffed full with Hatch Chiles, and Havarti Cheese, along with Potatoes and Jalapeno Toast.

The Hatch Chilies were very hot, and really good.

And it was all topped off with a large carafe of OJ and a bottle of Cook’s Champagne for breakfast mimosas.

It’s always hard to get this ragtag bunch to all smile at the same time. In fact a couple of them are downright surly.

But I get other photos when they’re not paying attention.

Leaving breakfast we all headed over to Moody Gardens to check out the newly-remodeled Aquarium Pyramid, and the da Vinci exhibit.

We started off with the penguins, always everyone’s favorite.

They’ve really got a great habitat here and they seem to be very happy.

Here’s Miss Piper and Landon trying to get a shot of a baby penquin who was very curious and kept coming right up to the glass.

And the many reef and coral displays are just beautiful.

One of my favorites, the Lionfish.

And they had a number of tanks filled with jellies.

Finishing up the Aquarium, we next headed over to the da Vinci exhibit in the Discovery Museum, but I’ll save that for tomorrow since this is running long.

Since we’d eaten early, by the time we got back to the Clear Lake area, we were all hungry for Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, one of our favorite places since the 90’s.

This is Jan and I finishing up a dozen raw oysters, with chile sauce and a lot of horseradish mixed in.

Jan got her favorite CFS, gravy on the side,

while I just had a bowl of their Shrimp Gumbo, chock full of shrimp.

All really good, and the perfect way to end a wonderful family get-together.

We finally got back to the rig about 5:45, and both immediately took naps. An even better way to end a really great day.

Finally I want to thank everyone for their many kind words about the blog. It’s much appreciated.

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With another Clear Lake work day on tap, I was on the way south about 9:45, getting there about 11pm

I spent most of the day catching up on long-missed product/price corrections to the paper catalog and online website that had been neglected for months. Then I got back searching through the computer’s folders one at a time, cataloging and renaming them. For some reason the ex-guy just stashed critical files all over, in folders called Temp, New Folder, Stuff, etc. So one folder at a time, I’m gradually finding what I need.

I was on my way back home by 3:45, hoping to get ahead of the traffic, but today the traffic got ahead of me. Don’t know if there had been an earlier wreck, or it was just Friday, but it was bumper-to-bumper, stop and start, from Fuqua all the way into the I-69/US59 split. But after taking 59, it was full speed around to the Hardy Toll Road and on up to I-45. Even with speedup, the 1:15 trip took me 2 hours.

But it did have a nice ending, because our friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt had picked Jan up at our rig, and then we all met up at El Bosque Mexican Restaurant for dinner about 5:45pm.

Jan tried something new this time, the Pollo Mar, a chicken breast topped with shrimp, mushrooms tomatoes, cilantro, and jalapeno cheese.

She said it was really good and she’ll definitely have it again.

I went back with my favorite Beef Fajitas Poblanos.

It’s Beef Fajitas with bacon-grilled onions, poblano peppers, mushrooms,    tomatoes, and two white cheeses. Again really good, as usual.

We always have a great time with Debi and Ed, and it’s amazing how much we all have in common. Just really great friends.

Tomorrow we’ve got another day-trip in store, first down to our son Chris’ in Friendswood, and then on down to Galveston to have breakfast at the Sunflower Café before heading over to Moody Gardens to check out their new Aquarium Pyramid and their da Vinci exhibit.. This is actually a dual birthday celebration, for our granddaughter Piper’s 24th birthday on September 7th, and our daughter Brandi’s . . .  well,she’s one year older today, the 15th.

The only downside to all this is that we have to be on the road by 6:30am, way too early.

Finally, under the heading I Could Have Told You That.

The University of Pennsylvania just released the results of a study showing bald really is beautiful. The UP study was composed of three major tests given to students on campus. Male and female students were asked to rate photos of men according to attractiveness, confidence, and dominance.

And bald men won out in all categories. What else were you expecting?

For my part, very soon after Jan and I got serious, I told her I was almost certainly going to be bald by the time I was 25. And the reason I knew this can be seen in this photo of three of my mother’s four brothers. And the fourth one was bald too.

They say the baldness gene comes down the mother’s side. And it did.

Luckily for me, it turns out that Jan liked bald guys.

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