Houston, we have a chicken (and some new rodeo tickets)

Joan sleeping in

Our escape from San Antonio was a slow one today. After signing up for the Crowne Plaza rewards program they told me we could get late check out for free. So we took advantage and played lazy this morning at the hotel.

Denny and I went for a good work out at the really nice hotel fitness center and then we waited around the room while the ladies slept in and rested.

Oh, and we once again brought the rain to San Antonio today, but were thankful that it held off for our adventure yesterday.

After leaving the hotel we headed south so Diane and Denny could tour Mission Concepcion, which we had seen during our stay in San Antonio. Mission Concepcion is the best preserved of the five San Antonio missions.

Diane and Dennyat Mission Concepcion

The rain mist continued, but we were able to tour the mission. Following that we drove them through Traveler’s World so they could see where we had stayed in San Antonio. After seeing that, compared to where we are now, they may have wished they had visited us in San Antonio.

We did a drive by of Mission San Jose and then hit the rewind button for the trip home to Houston.

A quick three hours later we were back in Houston and stopped at Reliant Stadium to pick up tickets to the opening night of the Houston Rodeo tomorrow. We already saw the rodeo in San Antonio, but Diane and Denny expressed a desire to see it so we stopped and bought tickets. Alabama is the featured entertainment tomorrow night.

By the time we did that (and Denny got to use one of the porta potties outside the stadium) the afternoon rush hour traffic was pretty heavy but we made our way home.

First we stopped at Kroger to pick up a store chicken (you know one of those whole cooked chickens you can buy ready-to-eat at the grocery store) and some dinner fixins.

We finished dinner and Denny and Diane did their laundry. (Be sure to scroll down to see the post added today for yesterday's activities in case you missed it.)

Remembering the Alamo, one more time

Two lovely sisters  head to the shower

We returned to the Alamo and San Antonio yesterday so Joan’s sister and brother-in-law could visit this historic city.

One of the things we have learned in traveling is that you never know when, or if, you will return to a particular venue even if you have plans to do so. So with the family being so close to San Antonio, and with Joan and I having a free overnight hotel stay waiting at Hotels.com we decided to leave the trailer in San Leon and spend a day or two in San Antonio.

Of course before we got started we got cleaned up at the RV park and I have included a photo of Joan and Diane getting ready for the trip to the park showers. It’s hard to imagine how Denny and I can contain ourselves in the face of such lovliness.

It was a great day. We arrived in San Antonio about 12:30 p.m. were able to check into the Crowne Plaza Riverfront early and except for the minor inconvenience of finding out Hotels.com booked us two rooms instead of one were out on the street sightseeing within an hour.

Denny, Diane and Joan at the Alamo

We headed back to the Alamo, via a short section of the River Walk, and spent a couple hours touring that historic site. Diane and Denny seemed to enjoy the battle site and we enjoyed going back.

One thing I didn’t notice before was a sign in the Alamo gift store that said they were not allowed to sell any knives or toy weapons of any kind to visiting school children as the possession of such would be in violation of school rules.

While I understand and appreciate the policy it is sad to think that things have changed so much since I was a boy. At Halloween it was not uncommon for nearly every young boy to be wearing “six shooters” to school as part of their costume.

In high school I had a history teacher, Mr. Graham, who during our section on the Civil War (which was practically recent history then) wore his union uniform to school complete with his long Civil War era rifle. You know that wouldn’t happen today without setting off a lot of alarms somewhere.

Just this morning, as I write this, I am listening to news accounts of a school shooting in Cleveland. Sad, very sad.

Denny and the "whole" in the wall gang

When Jan and Norm were here they had an old-time photo taken, and in retrospect, Joan and I were sorry we had not done one with them while they were here. We had one done a number of years ago in Estes Park while visiting my Aunt Judi and Uncle Pete, so we didn’t think we needed another one.

Yesterday, we fixed that by having a group gunslinger photo taken. Like I said, just sorry we didn’t do the same with Jan and Norm. It would have been cool. Next time.

After the photo session we headed to the River Walk to have dinner, but first we took a River Boat tour, something we did not do last time we were here. Glad we did, as it showed us parts of the River Walk we would have likely never seen.

Diane and Den on the boat ride

Strolling along the River Walk we read the various menus and settled on Salt Grass Steakhouse and were not disappointed. Good food and good times. Diane had her favorite drink – a “virgin” daiquiri – but we didn’t get the usual sugar high results from here this time.

After dinner we went in search of a little goodie to eat and the girls found a sweet shop and Diane bought a large fresh strawberry dipped in chocolate, Joan bought a large peanut butter cup and I got two small sugar free peanut butter cups.

Joan and me on the boat

Denny held out for ice cream but balked when the gelato store wanted more than $8 for a cone. We found an ice cream freezer in a store on the River Walk but they wanted $5 for a Butterfinger ice cream on a stick treat.
Back at the hotel, Denny found the same ice cream treat for $3, still high, but better than $5.

We arrived back at our hotel room about 8 p.m. and most of us were asleep by 9 p.m.

Photos from San Antonio today

River Walk boat ride

On the River Walk

Back at the Alamo

More tomorrow

A quiet day in the Houston hood

Freshly watched car with rain all over it

Today started out with a brisk walk for my brother-in-law Denny and me. Brisk for a couple reasons, the temperatures were in the low 50s and the wind was blowing about 15 mph which was fine when it was at our backs, no so fine when we were walking straight into it.

Diane connected with a high school friend from Buffalo and we made arrangements, which  turned out to be a little more complicated than they sounded on the phone, to drop off Denny and Diane so they could spend a good part of the day with Diane’s friend Karen who now lives in Houston.

It took about 15 minutes to make the rendezvous, but we finally made it. Joan stayed home at the trailer while I did this.

Karen and Diane

On the way back I ran into a really long freeway funeral procession which brought traffic to a near standstill for about 15 minutes. Eventually, the procession got off the freeway and the traffic cleared up very quickly.

After yesterday’s fiasco in getting the car wash I took a different route home and found a u-wash place along another road that leads to our campground. After $5 in quarters the car looked pretty good again.

Within an hour after I arrived back at the trailer and after I washed all the windows – it rained. So much for the car wash.

Joan spent the afternoon reading and preparing our dinner because we picked Diane and Denny up at 5:30 p.m. at the same place I dropped them off this morning.

Dinner was a really good chicken and noodle dish Joan found somewhere, but which is really, really good. If you want the recipe, let us know. We spent the evening in the trailer catching up again.

Tomorrow we head back to San Antonio for an overnight with Diane and Denny who would like to see the River Walk and the Alamo.

Welcome to Texas, Denny and Diane!

Just a short post today as our company has safely arrived in Houston.

Two sister chicks in a barbeque place

First, a Maine license plate showed up in the park today. Skipped my walk this morning as the winds were blowing a gale here today. Last night gusts were up to about 40 mph which woke me up several times during the night.

This morning we did some more laundry and made up the guest bed and cleaned the trailer.

On the way to the airport we stopped to see what the cost and fun was at the Johnson Space Center and it is something that we will likely do while Diane and Denny are here.

After that I went on the great search for a car wash. Literally all we could find were detail shops with lots of folks who would happily detail my car for $50, but no place just to wash the dust and grime off the outside.

Guess which restaurant we didn't eat at?

When I did find a drive through car wash, a nice, but persistent Mexican man wouldn’t take no for an answer when I told him I didn’t want him to hand wash my car and so I just drove off. The next, and only other drive through car wash, was broken. So I picked up my sister-in-law and brother-in-law in a very dirty car.

Everyone was hungry so we stopped at Pappa’s Barbeque which was on our way home. It was right next to a Hooter’s, which had my sister-in-law worried for a minute when I pulled in the driveway.

Back at the trailer we spent the evening catching up. Good times ahead.

Another IKE video from San Leon, Texas

This video is longer than the previous one (and no less shaky - trying to figure out why the driver didn't hand the video camera to his passenger to shoot the video instead of trying to shoot video and drive, by oh, well) but shows the storm surge quite well.

What Hurricane Ike did to our current city

The images from the amateur video may help explain why there are still so many dumpy looking places here in San Leon. Clearly, this video, which was shot a couple weeks after Hurricane Ike show how devastated this hurricane was to this area. At about 5:30 into the video the car passes a gas station on the left and just before he makes a left turn onto a side street you can see our RV park in the right of the video.