Rain, rain.... go away!!!

Right now we are in the middle of a helluva thunderstorm.  sigh.  Never fails, right?!? 

The girls tell us that the weather here has been beautiful the last few days.  Right up until yesterday.  When we arrived here in Galveston, it was cloudy and windy.  Same thing this morning.  But we did manage to get a walk on the beach in this morning.

We found 5 or 6 dead birds.......

And one dead fish......

And a really pretty shell for me.  But no sea beans on this walk.  Darn.  

Apparently we walked quite a ways because poor Ginger pooped out. 

Fortunately Dad is always willing to carry her along.  :)

So now we are waiting for the rain to pass so that we can get out and do something.  It is actually pretty cozy here in the trailer, so I'm not complaining too much.  Grin.

A sister bearing gifts.... Sweet!

We spent this evening at the twins (Kaitlyn and Caroline) apartment for dinner and, as it turns out, gifts!  Nice.

The girls fixed us a yummy pasta dinner, complete with salad and crusty bread.  It was very good.  I mentioned earlier that we are here for Kaitlyn's college graduation.  This was a display on the top of one of the chests in the girl's apartment.  Kaityn did a great customization job on her mortarboard, I think.  Notice that the "T" in the Texas A&M logo is an anchor.  The A&M folks in Galveston are known as the Sea Aggies.  Cool, huh?

And then my sister (Rochelle) had gifts for everyone.  She just got back from a 4 month tour of duty in India.  Of course, being that we have the same shopping genes, she couldn't resist picking up a few (or a whole bunch!) of things.  Among the many awesome gifts were these very cool gauze scarves.  They are twisted up so nicely that I hate to undo them.  But take my word for it, they turn into some big and beautiful scarves. 

Even Remington (Caroline's kitty) got into the act.  Rochelle had a big bag of sarees that Remy decided that he needed to investigate.  Apparently any random bag is cause for serious interior investigations.  Grin.

And of course, I can't get by without showing you the view from the back window of our fifth wheel.  Nice, huh?  :)

Actually it is pretty windy and stormy looking here today (we passed through several rain showers on the drive from Denton), so the Gulf looks pretty angry.  And when we got home from dinner this evening, you could see the lights from the ships on the horizon -- lined up to come into the port to unload.  They go as far as the eye can see.  It is amazing.

Random sightings along the way.....

We are on I45 south, headed towards Galveston. Just passed Huntsville, TX and what I believe is THE prison in Texas. It is pretty darned big.  The sign on the entrance monument said something like Huntsville State Prison and then "The Holiday Unit". I'm guessing that the men living there don't think of it as a holiday. Just sayin'.

We just passed a humongo statue of Sam Houston.  It is positioned right along the freeway. Would have taken a pic, but we are barreling along at 70 MPH. Oh well. 

This is really very pretty hilly country that we are driving thru. No longhorn cattle, but lots of forested areas and then wheat fields. It is a surprise to see wheat already maturing and turning gold this early in the summer.  Back home it is just a few inches out of the ground. 

Another couple of hours and we will be on the beach in Galveston. Sweet!

Love the drive....

We love the drive...... But we love stopping for the night even better. Grin. Even though it says Dallas, we are actually just north of Dallas, in Denton. This place is part of a chain.  It is about half way between Wichita and Galveston, so it breaks up the trip nicely. And the park is very nice.

And the lady who rungs the place recommended a great Mexican restaurant for dinner.  So after a few bazillion calories, I'm ready to roll off to bed. Sigh. Traveling is such hard work. ;)

On to Galveston tomorrow!

Let's Go!

Okay, let's go! Oh, no....wait....damn, I have to go back.... I broke a nail!

Well, it was almost like that. I spent a couple of hours yesterday at the nail salon -- getting pampered with a pedicure and manicure. Then yesterday evening at Walmart..... yes, I know. We haven't even gotten on the road yet and we are already at Walmart. Go figure. Anyway, we were at Walmart, checking out the plastic storage boxes and I managed to snap the corner of my nail off while trying to get one of the clasps on the box to work. Argh!!!! Of course by that time of the evening, the nail place was already closed. Sigh. So I had resigned myself to picking at the darned thing for the next couple of days while we are on the road.

But my wonderful husband gets me. Too well, sometimes. When he heard the the salon opens at 9am, he suggested that I get my nail fixed before we left. Thank you, babe. All better now. :)

So we were a little later getting started this morning than anticipated. Partly because of the nail debacle. And partly because of the rain. Max washed his truck yesterday, so you just know it had to rain! It actually started about 3am this morning. How do I know that? Well, Miss Gabi was very vocal about the fact that she doesn't like thunder. So after a trip outside, she and Ginger joined us in the big bed. But I digress.

We had planned on leaving about 9 this morning, but finally got away about 10. Oh well, when you are retired and traveling in a fifth wheel, who cares what time?!?

So now we are on the highway headed south and into Oklahoma. Summer has grudgingly decided to make an appearance and we are seeing something that is blooming REALLY yellow in some if the fields. .l

No idea what crop it is ... Or perhaps, it is just a really good stand of flowering weeds. :)

So where are we headed now? Galveston, of course! Kaitlyn is graduating from Texas A&M on Saturday and we wouldn't miss that for anything!

On The Road Again and Back to Work.... Kinda

It's a dreary day here in Kakeland (yes, only the Wichitans will get that reference -- sorry). This is what "on the road again" looks like today..... Somewhere northeast of Emporia. Been raining since we left the house.

And yes, I DO still work..... Kinda. As many of you know, I serve on the Board of Meritrust.... Something I've enjoyed doing for many years. And even though I enjoy it, well, it IS still work -- albeit done for free!

Anyway, once a year we spend some time away from the day-to-day in order to plot and plan the future of the organization. Tomorrow is our chosen day for that activity this year. And the chosen place is Overland Park (a suburb of Kansas City). And of course, we decided that was a good opportunity to get the fifth wheel out of storage. To be truthful, we pretty much think that any opportunity to get the fifth wheel out of storage is a good thing. :) and our fifth wheel is Actually more comfortable than most hotels.

So we are on our way to a little RV park in Merriam, a little suburb of Overland Park, for the weekend. Hopefully the rain will have moved through by the time we get there. Not looking forward to setting up in the rain!

Cheers!

Pizza pizza!

One of the great things about this warranty checkout trip is that we are seeing Max's family. We got to see great-nieces and nephews that we hadn't yet met. Time does fly...... I mentioned that the whole gang went out to dinner on Saturday. You can see just how large the crowd was! :)

On Sunday, Dave and Patsy came into town for a visit. Of course, any visit isn't complete without food!

Hideaway pizza, as you can see, is voted the best pizza in OKC. We can attest to the fact that it is really good pizza.

The RV park that we stayed at in OKC was actually very nice. Although we were sandwiched between I44 on the north and 63rd street and Remington Park on the south. We discovered that on the weekends, Remington Park leaves their humongo lights on all night. Not really a problem tho' as it gave us plenty of lighting when we had to get up at 4am with the dogs. grin. We were far enough from the freeway that the traffic didn't really matter -- at least until early this morning (Monday). Holy cow, there is a LOT of traffic zooming down that freeway starting very early in the morning. No doubt, folks headed into town for work. Sure glad that isn't us!

We loaded up this morning and are now headed home. A short, but very enjoyable trip!

Cheers!