Archive for the ‘Texas’ Category

Winter 2024, Starts in Houston!

Friday, February 16th, 2024

Flew in to Houston to catch up with Paul and Teddy. Spent the weekend with Karol and her family. Very nice and quiet. Took a drive to Galvaston, where we dined on the water and enjoyed watching a cruise ship depart. We had a fire all day until the wind got to much and on Sunday I got to go and see Jeremy’s new home that he and his family were in escrow to purchase.

Pearl River, Slidell LA
Crossing the Mississippi River, heading East
Swamps! You see alot of these along I10 thru LA, Mississippi, Alabama

Monday we departed to get to Atlanta Motorspeed way for the Nascar races.

Texas Hill Country

Sunday, February 5th, 2023

I made it to San Antonio, a day late but I only missed the freeze! Paul and Teddy spent two days inside the RV with a 1/2 inch of ICE!!! Glad I waited, it was 70 degrees the day after I arrived.

This is what Paul had the day I was suppose to arrive!
Too cold for me

Glad the weather in Texas decided to get back to normal so I could join Paul and get on our way to another adventure~~

Great weather to get out and enjoy Hill Country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimberley,_Texas, Wimberley is just outside of Austin and we had not been there yet. Hoping for some exercise but we mostly found some cute boutiques, boots and of course BBQ! Paul had his first taste of Texas BBQ from a food truck that was really good. I had Brisket Taco’s and they were definitely not on the diet but soooo good.

These Boots….
Or just lazing about!

Wimberley is kind of an art community and the public art was lots of fun to find. Just outside of town is Jacobs pond but after driving there it was closed and no pets allowed. So we tried another spot. Old Baldy Park, said to be 250 steps to the highest point in Hill Country. Ok,

The base of the staircase
The top, view of Hill Country
Going down

Time to move east! Next stop Houston, dinner with my sister and her family and then we are off to Louisiana!

More Texas Touring

Sunday, May 2nd, 2021

Sunday was very windy again so my sister headed home before lunch and Paul and I were just going to relax but I decided we should ride the ferry to Galveston. Its free so why not!  The wait was not too long and the ride over was very exciting.

Lots of Seagulls, they announce to only feed them off the back of the ferry. The seagulls didn’t get the memo, they followed us the whole way

We drove around Galveston a little bit but there were more people in Galveston than I had seen anywhere in over a year so we just took a drive, found some to go food and headed back to the ferry line.  The return trip took a little longer waiting in line but we had a picnic and the weather had finally cooperated and we had a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine.

Tomorrow we head further east, the humidity is killing me!

 

 

Texas coast

Saturday, May 1st, 2021

Man is it humid here!   and then our air conditioner stopped cooling while we were visiting a dealer in Katy!  The good news is we were at the dealer who had one and warranty took care of the money.  They replaced it while Paul worked and we didn’t have to change our plans at all.

We were off to Crystal Beach across the bay from Galveston to meet my sister and her husband who live outside of Houston.  We met them at a very quaint RV park right across the street from the beach.  The location is perfect, away from the crowds and the beach is right there, unfortunately it was so windy we couldn’t really sit outside much.  They have a small room that they are adding to the park and we were the only ones there basically so we had plenty of space to hang out, visit, eat and play some cards.

My view from in front of our site. I can see the waves from my kitchen table

 

Any storm at all and the water will be over the road.  Houses are all on stilts, some higher than others.  We speculated about why some are low and some high; I’m pretty sure it has to do with wealth, the more money you have the better your ability to protect your stuff.

Its pretty humid here and the wind is blowing like crazy but the people are out and living life; some face masks some not! We had dinner out Saturday, great seafood and even grilled was an option (usually you get near the south and everything is fried).  The restaurant was right on the gulf so we had a nice view for dinner at  Stingaree Restaurant.   The dinner was great but the atmosphere was wonderful.

Stingaree, Crystal Beach TX

These were a couple tables on the deck leading up to the restaurant; you better be ready to get your toes wet!

The beach was beautiful and they let people drive on.  We walked as it was only about 50 yards away.  We found a few shells, mostly broken oyster shells but its fun bending over, flipping them to see if its a good one.

Sunset was behind the road but the sky was still beautiful.

We took a ride along the beach after dinner and these guys were fishing for something with fishing line attached to plastic water bottles!  The women were on the seawall waiting to cook em dinner with a 5 gal propane tank, a single burner a pot and some vegetable oil!  They had a group of at least 10 so hopefully soon they catch something.

And here is my last photo of our day

            Drive thru coffee!  They were closed or I would                   have had to stop!

 

Paul works, I play

Thursday, April 29th, 2021

Today while Paul solves the problems of the RV dealers I ventured into Houston to see an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, MfaH  of David Hockney – Van Gogh: The joy of Nature.  I had an entry ticket for 11 am as they are being COVID safe even here and I was a bit early so I was able to wander around the museum district a bit finding a very interesting sculpture garden.

                        Running man

               1 Bird in the foreground
               2 Stainless Cloud Column in the                                  background

                                         Just fun!

                                         Just weird!!!

It was a beautiful museum and the exhibit was fascinating.  Only a few of Van Gogh’s works but a couple that I had seen in Amsterdam and a few I knew nothing about.  David Hockney does some pretty cool stuff also.

These are created with an Ipad! Not my Ipad!!! and really big.

He did a lot of watercolor painting, sketching and of course oil.  Not Van Gogh but creative none the less.

The rest of the museum had a nice variety of art works.

This is based on a fairy tale and was very scary to me!

And I’ll save the best (worse of last)  I am always drawn to the contemporary art mostly because it does make you think but sometimes it is just too strange! The artist was making a statement but it just seems strange. I read the title and description and I’m not seeing it.

   Black tulle and iron structure on wheels,                                  A negra

I guess that is why it’s displayed in a museum exhibit and I have yet to be displayed.

 

 

 

on the road again

Tuesday, April 27th, 2021

We are off again.  I flew into Phoenix Friday am where Paul met me after working this past week in Southern CA.  We will hit the interstate to make it to Houston TX by Sunday evening.  The weather is beautiful and our first night we made it to the New Mexico welcome center where it was quiet so we spent the night

The rock formations in Easter Arizona are beautiful and a welcome site to the dessert scape along Interstate 10

Saturday was another full day of Interstate driving, only to stop for fuel and to stretch the bodies!  Teddy isn’t sure this is the most fun he has had in his short life!!!

Sunday, I opted to find a better way than trudging along I-10 thru San Antonio and Houston so we headed to a few byways, a few missed turns but some beautiful scenery thru Texas Hill Country along US-190.  The weather was beautiful and we made a couple quick stops to rest.

A beautiful park in a tiny town near Killeen, TX.

This bird had just finished a morsel he had gotten from the stream. He was watching me but unwilling to fly away

A happy little family

We made it to our destination by dinner and will be in North Houston for a couple days of work before moving to Katy, TX for more work.

I’ll say it again…. El Paso to Houston takes a REALLY long time!

Tuesday, January 15th, 2019

You can’t do it in one day,  and there isn’t much to see.  Sunday was a very long day;  we started near Buckeye Arizona at 7:45 am and finally stopped somewhere in west Texas about 11:30 pm.  The good news is we lost an hour entering central time so we were only in our seats about 14 hours.  We never even left the van through New Mexico.  I did manage a few photos.

And we get 5 cents per gallon discount with our Flying Jay card, plus our cc gives us money back

Welcome to Texas! I missed the others.

 

Walmart, Fort Stockton, Texas

Now that’s an RV.  A fire truck with an 18 wheeler cab with a car and towing a 25 ft trailer.  I guess you use what you have.

 

Buc ees has so many billboards and all are creative

We always stop into Buc ee’s when in Texas-  you can get gas, buy mom a gift and have lunch in under an hour !

We made it to my sister Karol home east of Houston in time for a wonderful dinner and some catching up.  Tuesday we are driving again.  We will be in New Smyrna Beach Wednesday for some well earned beach time as well as some golf !  I’m hoping I get to put the shorts and sandals on!

Summer again!

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

The most interesting part about this life we live is that we change time zones often and weather patterns.  We hadn’t had much summer other than a day here and a day there but we hit Texas on Sunday and it seems that summer is in full swing!  90 on Monday with 95 percent humidity!  Ouch!

Sunday morning!

Sunday morning!

Wide open roads

                     Wide open roads

This was a train of mowers,  about every 1/4 mile was one of these trying to stay to the right.  I think we counted 10 of them.  But when you are in a 40 ft. RV you can’t squeeze past when cars are assuming they can come from the other direction!  It wasn’t too bad because of course we are not in a hurry and part of the time we had a passing lane.

texasroad2

texasroad1

Just some of the things we see on the highways across America.  There wasn’t much to see other than several run down towns, lots of oil drilling rigs and fields of cotton and other crops we could not identify.

We arrived Sunday afternoon in New Braunfels, TX.  We will be here for 2 weeks at Landa Park RV.  It is a very cozy park with a spring fed river running right through the park.  The small town is only 3 blocks away so I will be doing a lot of wandering around while Paul saturates San Antonio with visiting customers.

Not sure what he wants

Not sure what he wants

Every once in awhile Duke does this.  It is usually when we are just chillin’ and watching TV.  Not sure what he wants other than our attention.  I am pretty sure he thinks that throwing the ball would be a better activity than watching TV.  Maybe he is right but Monday night Football or The Voice seems pretty interesting to me!

So it isn’t a total!

Monday, April 7th, 2014

The shiny red golfball is not a total loss!  Only $6,000 to fix the dents!

Holy Cow!

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Someone pissed GOD off!  As the neighbors said “Welcome to Springtime in Dallas”.

We are staying for a couple of days near Denton, TX where they had a storm (click on this link!) that I hope we never experience again!   It was like being bombed for about 10 minutes straight after watching the weather for about an hour before.  It all started when my phone gave us a weather alert to take shelter NOW!

We are staying with Leslie & Jeff, Nick’s parents (Nick is Amy’s fiancee) in their driveway and having a lovely time.  We arrived on Wednesday night and enjoyed cocktails by the pool.

Enjoying life

Enjoying life

Thursday, everyone went to work and I took a nice walk around their neighborhood before lunching with a friend from Preschool days, Becky.  It is so nice being able to connect with people while we are on the road although it makes me homesick sometimes.  Becky and I had a nice lunch and then she headed back home, actually to look at homes as they have just sold their home near Dallas and will be moving soon.

Paul arrived home about 4 and the weather was perfect, we sat out and enjoyed Jeff & Leslie’s yard although the sky had started churning but it was just a low rumble and not very often.  Leslie & Jeff arrived home about 5:15 and while we were talking and showing off our new home on wheels my phone starts blaring!  The message was “severe weather, take shelter now!”  OK,  It didn’t look like bad weather but the neighbors opened their new shelter and Leslie & I went inside to turn on the TV.  A crazy phenomenon – perfectly nice weather, no rain, no wind but you have to take shelter and watch the TV.  The storm was about 10 miles from us and heading east about 15 miles per hour and the projection was to be about 2 miles north of us!  Great, it will get windy but we will miss the brunt.

We wait and after about 20 minutes we get a tiny bit of hail and a little wind, nothing big.  The sky clears up some although the TV was saying there is another storm coming at 25 miles per hour but same route and not as crazy!  So we take our wine and snacks out on the patio and are having a perfectly nice conversation and all of a sudden the sky turns dark and the hail starts!  Leslie and I run for the house but the guys hang out, it didn’t look bad.

Paul got Hail Storm Video and you can hear how loud it was.  He shut off the video just as it was really kicking in but you get the idea.

The pool is boiling

The pool is boiling

They are getting bigger

They are getting bigger

By now, the guys are stuck in the breeze way and we are retreating from the windows!

By now, the guys are stuck in the breeze way and we are retreating from the windows!

My poor perfect, new home!

My poor perfect, new home!

stormcar

Most of the car has these little divets!

Most of the car has these little divets!

 

I call it my shiny red golf ball!

I call it my shiny red golf ball!

Well – It Was!!!    The car got the most damage!  The only place we can see there are no dents is the driver side doors!  Not sure what we will do about that. It was so loud and almost white.  The hail was coming in sheets.  It looked like they were golfball size but when they hit the windows of the house I was sure one was going to shatter!

Glad we got that experience behind us!  We are off to Oklahoma today.  Hopefully we can avoid anymore events.