A rodeo, a boardwalk, a Challenger 7 Memorial and killer mosquitoes, but not in that order

Kemah Boardwalk

OK, I’m officially sick of rain and yuck. On Tuesday we had planned to visit Kemah Boardwalk and ride the rides and see the sights. Denny and I had our heart set on riding the Boardwalk Bullet wooden roller coaster and when we arrived there was a big sign that it was down for maintenance.

“Enjoy the other rides,” the sign said. The other rides were pretty lame (well, there was that tall ride that drops you at a zillion miles an hour, but I’m not doing that).

(This post is actually a day behind time. By the time I got home Tuesday night I was too tired to write, so this went up a day late. Ditto for Wednesday’s post, which will go up sometime Thursday. Plus there are bonus photos from Tuesday's adventures below this post)

The other problem with Kemah on Tuesday was that the only rides really being used were us by the mosquitoes, which were relentless. Even one park worker asked us if we were being ‘bitten.’

Sistas on a walk

Later, at a nearby visitor’s center we were told that these were “hawk” mosquitoes. Well, hawk or not, we were tired of them and abandoned Kemah pretty quickly. We may try to go there again on Thursday if the weather is better and the mosquitoes don’t carry us off.

So we punted.

We drove to a designated bird watching area where we did see an egret and three Roseate Spoonbills and had a nice walk, but eventually the mosquitoes found us again and we had to escape from a venue for the second time.

After that we ate lunch in the car as the heavy rain mist filled the air along with the mosquitoes.

We saw a sign for the “Challenger 7 Memorial Park” and decided to go pay a visit. It was a disappointment as it was basically a small city park with just a marble block in honor of the tragic Shuttle Mission.

Bird watching

Once again we made an attempt to visit the headquarters of the 75^th Division, but were turned away by a locked door at the visitor’s center. I appealed to an Air Force sergeant, who was very nice, but couldn’t help us. A member of the visitor’s center returned a call I made to their afterhours number, but then didn’t return the call as promised. So, for now at least, we have given up on visiting Red’s old division.

Diane and Denny and the Vomit Comet

I took a photo of Diane and Denny under the “Vomit Comet” outside Ellington Airport. So with all that done, we decided to head to the rodeo.

Traffic was starting to pick up and we arrived at the parking lot about 4:30 p.m., more than two hours before the scheduled start of the rodeo. Fortunately, because the paid parking lot was in the next zip code from Reliant Stadium we took full advantage of the free shuttle from the parking lot to the activities outside the stadium.

We wandered around outside the stadium looking at the hundreds of vendors and then took a rest watching the cow and bull judging in an auxiliary building at the Reliant Plaza.

My favorite line was the bull judge who was evaluating the championship bulls and said “I like this bull, but I would like to see better definition in the testicles.” For the rest of the night I was annoying my wife and sister-in-law with my observation of bull testicles at the rodeo.

Bull judging at the rodeo

Finally it was time to enter the arena and get ready for the rodeo, which began promptly at 6:45 p.m. There was an impressive entrance by dozens of horses and riders and suddenly it was time for the rodeo to begin.

The format was similar, but not identical to the rodeo we saw in San Antonio. Both rodeos had points we preferred, but we certainly enjoyed both.

Mutton bustin’, which is a bunch of kids trying to ride a sheep for 8 seconds was not as successful in Houston as it was in San Antonio, but still fun to watch.

One event that was different and enjoyable was the chuck wagon races, which pitted wagons pulled by four-horse teams in a race around the arena floor. It was really exciting and I really enjoyed it.

Chuck wagon racing

Very soon, the events were done and it was time for “Alabama” the country and western group. We were at first worried that we would be blasted out of the stadium as we were in San Antonio, but the music was loud, but not oppressively so and we stayed for about the first 45 minutes of the concert.

Alabama

We did bail while the concert was still going on to beat the traffic out of the arena so we could get home at a semi-reasonable hour, which turned out to be 11:10 p.m. Even with the early departure we ran into some moderate traffic including a bicycle taxi that was driving in the left lane despite the heavy traffic.

Despite the bad weather, the mosquitoes and the disappointment of not getting into the 75^th Division we had a pretty good day.

More pictures from a gloomy Tuesday

Joan and Diane at Kemah Boardwalk

Kemah Boardwalk

Egret and two Roseate Spoonbills

Challenger 7 Memorial Park

Shopping at the rodeo

Opening night ceremonies at Houston Rodeo

A really nice Ford truck

Food Court

Denny and Diane at the Rodeo

Time to go into the rodeo

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.

Some chores and a nice drive



Dickinson Bay this morning

I was up early again. I guess I simply can’t sleep when it is too quiet. After clearing my e-mails and checking my Facebook, I headed out for another 3-mile walk. This time I took my camera so I could show you the effects of a lack of zoning restrictions here in San Leon, Texas.

You can also see how wet it has been here as one building site (see photo of this and other residences in a post below this post) is pretty much underwater and it appears no one has been working on it for some time.

Because it was hard to see if anyone was looking out the windows, I had to snap my photos quickly so as not to offend anyone as to the reasons I was taking pictures of their house.

Just a little muddy

Back at the trailer we had our “cookie” breakfast and then headed to the showers. Following the showers, Joan went back to the Laundromat and got our clothes caught up and I worked under the trailer organizing it again so we could store the small picnic table we recently purchased. The reason for the purchase is that we have suddenly run into a few campgrounds that do not provide a picnic table at each site.

After Joan’s soap opera, which was quite entertaining today, we headed north on I-45 to see if there was a way we could visit the headquarters of the U.S. Army’s 75^th Division. Well, the GPS put us close, but once we got there we found that the road we were headed on dead ended into a fence with barbed wire on top.

Vomit comet, I think

That was not unusual because we were outside a military base and Ellington Field. So we went to the Visitor’s Center which had a sign on it that said they had served the required number of visitors for the day and were now closed. It was 3 p.m.

So we walked to the security gate for the base and were told it was not possible for a civilian without proper authorization to come on the base or visit any of the commands. I’m going to work the phones tomorrow morning and see what it might take for Joan and her sister to visit the headquarters of their late father’s former division.

Am I brave, or what?

There was a very interesting display outside the gate of a large airplane, that according to what I read on the plaque (again see the photos below to read the plaque) this particular airplane was used to train astronauts on operating in weightlessness. I think this may be one of the famous vomit comets, but my father will let me know for sure after he views the photos and reads the plaque.

Once done with our photo taking we piled back into the Tahoe and headed back to camp, but not before stopping and making appointments to get my hair cut and Joan’s nails done tomorrow afternoon. We also did a last minute shopping at Kroger.

Before we returned to the trailer we drove a little farther down the road where we are staying to see what is at the end of the road. Not much, but there are a couple dumpy looking restaurants and bars. I may walk that way tomorrow to get a closer look.

We're here too soon

Then tomorrow afternoon we will head to nearby Hobby Airport to pick up Joan’s sister and brother-in-law for their visit with us for the next week.

A couple notes from today: So many times on recent trips we have seen emergency road signs erected on highways and freeways warning "Damaged guardrail ahead."

One of those damaged guardrail signs and the damaged guardrail (in Oklahoma) was still there three months after we first saw it when traveling west this fall.

Yesterday, we passed a police car and a utility truck in front of a freshly damaged guardrail on a local highway near our campsite. The utility company was erecting the "Damaged guardrail ahead" sign when we were driving by.

Well today we drove by the same spot and lo, and behold, the sign was gone and a new guardrail was erected. We felt good that at least in one place they actually fix the guardrails instead of just erecting signs warning about broken ones.

The other end of my walk today

Also we passed a new subdivision north of here and there was a big sign that said "No MUD tax." Wow, we thought, they tax mud down here? 

A little research tonight showed that MUD taxes are actually a big deal in some communities, but it doesn't stand for what you are thinking. MUD stands for Municipal Utility District and in some communities you have to pay an extra tax for sewer and water if you are not part of the original sewer and water district.

A strange mix of rich and poor and a few bonus photos from an afternoon drive

A nice house next to a trailer lot

People actually live here, no paint for a long, long time

One of the well-maintained units in our park

Someone needs a roof repair

Not sure what this is, but someone is living in the trailer

These are two residences side-by-side

Very nice houses on a canal next the above

On the Bay, nice home

Everything is on stilts in hurricane country

Another view of the third photo

My favorite home in the area

Just down the road from the beautiful house

Galveston, oh Galveston, we still hear your sea winds blowin......

With literally nothing to do today, I still arose early, like 6:30 a.m. early, and set about the day. So Joan could sleep in a little I left the trailer about 7 a.m. and walked to both bays (see yesterday’s post for photos) and a total of about 3.5 miles for my work out today.

Joan doing the booga-booga at the center

I’m hoping to take my camera on my walk tomorrow so I can get some photos of some of the beautiful homes, and the not so beautiful homes along my exercise route. The difference is amazing.

The park mowed today, which improved the look of the park quite a bit.

After we cleaned up, we watched Joan’s soap opera, “Days of Our Lives,” and then decided to go and do a little reconnaissance in preparation for the visit of our family starting Friday. By driving to the Galveston Visitor’s Center today we will save some valuable time for Diane and Denny when they arrive.

After we picked up some suggestions for things to do we used a map given to us at the center and drove around the island a little to get acquainted with the layout of things.

We found some historic home tours, a tall ship, a ferry boat ride, a boat ride and several other potential things to do in Galveston when Diane and Denny are here. Because of the large choice of things, we will likely leave it to them to decide which events they would like to do as we will be here for 10 days after they leave and can go back and do things that maybe they don’t care so much to do.

Galveston had cleaned up pretty well after yesterday’s Mardi Gras activities on Tuesday. Joan did find a statue in the middle of Broadway that someone had put beads in the hand of so I walked out in the middle of the busy intersection to get a photo. (Scroll down after this post to see more photos including the one with the beads).

Visitor's center with Hurrican Hike high water mark from 2008

The 2008 Hurricane Ike left its mark on the area as there are still many buildings boarded up, boats left high and dry and high water marks on some buildings.

For a moment, which passed quickly, we thought about taking a short walk on the Galveston beach, but the winds were blowing hard and there was a lot of sand in the air and that plays havoc with Joan's contact lenses.

We finally picked up Joan’s prescription drugs, though it was not without a little difficulty. Once again when Joan went to pay for the drugs, because the insurance company declined to cover these drugs for a reasons way too long to explain here she again ran into a situation where the credit card company flagged her card

This is now the third time this has happened even though we have called and informed them we are traveling. What is really weird is that it never happens to my card. Joan plans an angry call to the credit card company tonight and then to the medical insurance carrier when we get home.

The Broadway  statue and her Mardi Gras beads

The only good thing was that the purchase of the drugs put us in the 20-cents off per gallon category at the Kroger gas pump. So I saved $4 on the tank of gas, which offset a $131 prescription drug purchase. Not a great deal, I have to admit.

Back at the trailer about 5 p.m. Joan whipped up a really good taco salad and we settled in for a night of whatever channels we can get on the antenna. Sort of channel roulette, if you will.

Tomorrow we plan to investigate a couple things for us to do with Diane and Denny around the Houston area. We are getting very excited about their arrival.