On the road again–Houston, TX

Thursday

Wednesday afternoon we filled the fresh water tank and dumped the others and unhooked all connections except for the electric. So this morning it only took a few minutes to hook up and leave.

The drive was uneventful except for the condition of the roads. They are extremely rough in this part of the country. I remember I-80 going through Omaha as being extremely rough last year and these roads are in the same condition. It makes one wonder where the road tax dollars are being spent, I don’t believe it is on the roads.

We are in San Jacinto Riverfront RV Park, Highlands, TX. This is a big park, they even have about twenty or so sites with hot tubs, no I didn’t get one because I didn’t want to pay the price. We are here for a week, $189 rate, and have a very nice site in the first row. The park is along the San Jacinta river so we took a walk through the park and went down to the river, they have some nice places to sit and read or just enjoy the view.

Friday

Shopping day at Wal-Mart and fuel for the truck. I averaged 8.9 mpg coming over from Louisiana, I had a wind from the side but I doubt it had anything to do with my mpg. I decided early on if I got 8-9 mpg I would be very happy. We also wanted to find a post office so I asked the GPS to find the nearest one. It found several and the nearest one it found was about 8 miles away, so we took off for it. The directions took us through some industrial area and they a town called Channelview, TX. We returned to the campground and on the way we saw a Catholic church a block from the entrance to the campground, we will attend mass there Sunday. I like seeing how what the architecture of the different churches is like. This afternoon we met with an Air Force buddy, we served in Vietnam together at the 366th USAF Disp at DaNang. As we were leaving to go to their home we discovered a post office next to the entrance to the RV park, neither of us had seen it before. Powers of observation we are lacking.

We went to Sylvester and Joyce Rios’ home, I hadn’t seen Sylvester since 1968 so we had a bit of catching up to do. He had a photo album of pictures it brought back a lot of memories. I don’t have many pictures from that time, I have thrown them away. We went to the Monument Inn for dinner and continued our visit, thank you for dinner it was very good and great conversation. Sarah and I our time with Sylvester and Joyce immensely, we took a couple of pictures and bid them farewell until the next time we are in town. Sylvester found my name on a veteran’s website, I am so glad he did.

When we left the restaurant we took a ferry across the river, it cut our return trip down to about three miles.

Saturday turned out to be a warm and very nice day, but what is with the wind down here in Texas. I don’t believe we have had a day yet where it wasn’t windy and we haven’t been here that long.

We met Becky and Ken Murray, newly weds, at a restaurant named Lola, the restaurant was very nice and the food was good, but the parking is sparse and nothing for the truck we have. We found a parking lot a block away next to a park so it wasn’t bad, besides I needed to walk after eating. We had a great visit. Ken just retired from the Air Force after 25 years as a navigator on a KC135. Becky is an anesthesiologist here in Houston. We decided we had not seen Becky since she became a doctor. Oh how time flies.

Sunday

Talking about time flying we went to see Jose and Emma Llana. I met Jose the year I attended St Ambrose College, 1962, he had come to the USA from Cuba the year before. At that time he had no family in the area and spent thanksgiving of 1962 alone on the campus, so I told mom he had no place to go and she said to have him come home with me at Christmas, he did and spent most holidays at our house. In fact I told him he probably took my place when I left for the Air Force in 1964, I told mom that and she said yes he did. We had a great visit, they took us to The Galleria, it is a huge mall with over 375 stores in it, Sarah did manage to find something to buy and it was worth it she looks great in it. On our way to eat we stopped at The Williams Wall of Water, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_D._Hines_Waterwall_Park

This is quite a structure, it can be a be disorienting standing and looking up at the water, for an old person it can also lead to other things.

Jose and Emma took us to the Goode Company Seafood restaurant for dinner and introduced us to Campechana, here is a link for more information on the dish, http://blogs.chron.com/forkandcork/2009/10/chef_secrets_goode_co_seafoods.html.

It was great, Sarah ate one by herself, half of one and then most of another, plus some of my flounder. Everything was delicious. It was a great meal with great conversation. We had a great visit, it was so good to see Jose and Emma.

What a weekend, today it is raining so we are spending the day catching up on reading and other things. This retirement gig is great.

Until later, Dreams Do Come True.