Our RV Adventures

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We didn’t walk this morning since we had to head down to Brandi’s about 1 pm, and that’s often about the time we finish up with our walk-breakfast-walk routine.

From last night when the park was almost full, this morning it was now half empty as everyone headed home after the long holiday weekend. Now we would have our choice of sites instead of the slim pickings we had yesterday.

As I said, we headed out for Brandi’s about 1, getting there about 2:30, so that we could pick Landon up at his school, while Brandi and Lowell could attend a Parent-Teacher conference.

We headed out for Landon’s school a little after 3 to get in line to wait for the the dismissal. We drove Lowell’s truck so that we wouldn’t have to switch over Landon’s car seat, as well as the Student ID Tag that identifies the truck as being Landon’s pickup vehicle.

The way this school handles parents picking up their kids is a model of modern technology.

We lined up in the truck outside the school grounds along the street until we were waved in. As we entered, one of two ladies logged us into the computer system with an iPad, using the unique number showing on the Student ID Tag that hung from the rearview mirror, while the other lady holds up a sign directing us to the right or left lane as we queued up.

Based on our position in the line, which was tracked from the Student ID number entered earlier, the computer now knows which one of the numbered pickup stations we will stop at. At this point Landon’s teacher receives a computer message to send Landon out to, in this case, Station 6, and the teacher monitoring Station 6 also knows to expect Landon, and tracks him down if he doesn’t show up on time.

And in our case, when our line stopped,  we stopped because the vehicle in front of us stopped at Station 5, so we were sitting at Station 6, and there was Landon waiting for us.

This is much safer for the kids since they’re not running hither and yon, out into the streets as cars are zipping in and out all trying to pick up their kids and get on their way. The only possible problem I can see is what if the computer system goes down? And it will, believe me.

So, do they have a backup plan without computers, or are they just going with the chaos method?

Brandi and Lowell showed up at the house about 4:30 and then we all headed out for dinner. They were introducing us to La Finca Mexican Restaurant, a place they’d eaten at several times, but a first for us.

And now we want to know why they’ve been hiding this place from us. It was delicious.

We knew we were in for a treat with the first dip of salsa. It was thick, chunky, and just full of smoky chipotle flavor. Very good.

For our meal, Jan and I split the Combo Beef and Chicken Fajitas Poblanas for Two.

Although it was more like ‘For Four’, than Two. With Beef, Chicken, poblano peppers, red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and cheese, it was a full meal and then some. In fact we took half of it home for tomorrow.

Really, really good and we’ll go back.

Wrapping up, I thought I’d post this video of a Roadrunner/Rattlesnake Deathmatch. I had seen this a while back, but fellow gate guard JW Wilk’s reposting on Facebook made me want to pass it on to you.

Based on this video, I think the Coyote was probably lucky he never actually caught the Roadrunner. It wouldn’t have turned out well.

When we were on our very first gate back in 2012, there were roadrunners all over the place, always zipping around with a mouthful of lizard or grasshopper.

They were very curious, and seemingly not afraid of anything. One time I sitting out under the canopy on the gate, reading my Kindle, and I suddenly felt something watching me.

Looking down there was a big male roadrunner less than a foot away, just looking up at me. After we stared at each other for about 30 seconds, I guess he figure he wasn’t ‘that’ hungry, and stalked off.

Later that summer, on another gate, the landowner told my wife there were a lot of rattlesnakes in the area and wondered if we had seen any of them. Jan said we hadn’t and that there were so many roadrunners around that they were probably keeping them under control.

He looked at Jan very seriously and said, “They can’t get’em all.â€

A lesson in irony..

The Food Bank Program, administered by Social Welfare Canada, is actually proud of the fact it is distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food vouchers ever.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the Canada Parks and Natural Resources, asks us to “Please Do Not Feed the Animals.”

Their stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves

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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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