Phannie

Phannie
Photo taken near Monument Valley, Utah

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

We Meet Steve and Debbie; Sandy's Drinking Problem

At Rayford Crossing RV Resort, Spring, Texas (near Houston)...

We are always excited when we have the good fortune to meet in person some of the RV bloggers we follow. Such was the case this evening, when we arranged to meet Steve and Debbie of Down the Road.  They joined us at El Palenque, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in Houston and, during a fine meal, we talked and laughed until the place closed. Meeting them for the first time was not like a first time at all, for we all knew a lot about each other from our blogs. We recognized them right away, and fell right into a conversation that would seem to an observer as that of old friends. As usual, they reinforced my belief that RVers are great people to be around and that RV bloggers are the cream of the crop.

Steve and Debbie

This is another couple who got the itch to go fulltime and had the gumption to go through all of the daunting changes necessary to make it happen. They are clearly happy with their new lifestyle, and they have the smiles to prove it. They are in the final legs of a daunting maiden journey around the perimeter of the U. S., covering about 20,000 miles in their first year on the road!

They have the added benefit of starting this exciting adventure when they are still quite young, by fulltimer standards. They will have many memories to record in their very readable blog.

We made tentative plans to try to meet up next January at Quartzsite, hoping the organizers of Blogger Fest (which we regrettably missed this year) will reprise that gathering. Hear that, Sandie?

As promised in the last post, I thought I would make good on my intention of including another "inquiring minds want to know" vignette, this time involving the lovely Sandy. We all have little obsessions, and these tend to make us more interesting, I think. (By the way, Sandy is aware of this little expose', so this blog could go dark at any time, along with my view through the lid of my casket.)


Those who know her are keenly aware of her beverage of choice, which is unsweetened iced tea. And I do mean ICED tea. She must have a glass first thing in the morning, and she is a fierce defender of the southern tradition of pouring it into a glass completely full of ice. At restaurants, in fact, the ratio of ice to tea must fully meet her standard, or the offending waitperson will be admonished for this faux pas and sent scurrying for another glass containing only ice, so that Sandy can remix the drinks and correct the atrocity herself. This usually causes her to give voice to her long-simmering scorn for restaurants outside the South, whose waiters typically pour a glass of tea with only two or three small pieces of ice floating on the top. She sees this as an indignation not too different from Sherman's march to the sea in the Civil War, and someone (usually me) must, by golly, make it right. I cannot tell you the number of times I have scrounged around in restaurant service areas looking for the ice machine when a waiter failed to correct the deficiency within a reasonable time. For Sandy, this reasonable time is defined as approximately 45 seconds.

Although Sandy is a purist when it comes to iced tea, I have mentioned to her before that her insistence on drinking only unsweetened iced tea is not exactly in keeping with the usual southern tradition of serving sweet tea in glasses full of ice. She insisted this devilish corruption of the beverage was not in wide use before Sherman's march. She opined that southerners were so traumatized by the devastation of this nefarious deed that they simply lost their minds.

I see no reason at all to dispute this claim (see the casket remark above).

7 comments:

  1. 'through the lid of your casket?'..now that's funny! thanks for the smile this morning..made my day!
    sounds like your first 'meet and greet' with Steve and Debbie was a huge success! I will have to check out their blog, I could do with some new material to read!

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  2. We'll be checking Steve and Debbie's blog out as soon as we notify the authorities to be looking for a freshly dug grave in your area. Hopefully they'll find you in time so we can read further posts.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  3. Mike, I'm sure hoping you're still with us today. This was just a hoot to read. Sorry Sandy, but Mike really can write a great story. Aren't Steve and Debbie just wonderful. So young and reaching for their dreams. Sure wish we would have started sooner.

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  4. Oh Mike you are so kind. It was a pleasure to meet both of you last night! The food was great and we were so ready for Mexican after all the seafood we've been devouring over the last couple of months. We have been learning a lot along the way through our blogger friends. I have to agree with Sandy that there must be the proper ice to tea ratio. Hopefully we'll both be in Q next year.

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  5. So happy to read that you hope to attend Bloggerfest next year! I predict that the attendance will, at least, double. Maybe even be a two day event. Only time will tell.

    I'm with Sandy, iced tea in the morning is great......as long as it is not a cold morning. Then my drink of choice is hot chocolate followed, a few hours later, by my iced tea.

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  6. We hope you will be at the Bloggerfest next year. Ice Tea is my drink of choice too, but lots of lemon slices too. Glad you got to meet up with with another blogger couple. Sounds like you had a great time.

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  7. So funny! Tyler still refers to mom's glass as her "tea snow cone" lol!

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