Catching Up at Home Port

At home near Fort Worth, Texas...

Spring is here for sure! Our redbud trees greeted us with full blooms when we arrived from our snowbird trip to south Texas.

At the end of a trip, Phannie's final turn into her driveway precipitates a flurry of activity in the transition from RV living into  stick and brick house living. I typically park short of the RV port temporarily, to allow full access to the belly compartments; then I pull all the way in after unloading is done.

First and foremost is the offloading of Sandy's entire wardrobe, only a portion of which she probably would have worn during the trip just ended. This will not be done without her muttering about how many of her garments were unneeded or inappropriate for the trip. She had a valid point; the weather in the Rio Grande Valley was a good deal different from what we had previously experienced there. It was cool and rainy much of the time, so she hadn't needed much of the warm weather clothing she had taken.

Since she insisted on taking her entire wardrobe inside, I asked why she didn't leave on board the garments she knew she would use on the next trip, as a lazy person like me would do. Her response was no different from all the other times I've asked this question: Looking over her glasses, she said something like, "You're a guy; for you, clothing choices are simple: shorts or pants, short sleeves or long sleeves. For women, the possibilities are endless; I will just have to rethink everything before the next departure."

That's about as deep as I wanted to go into that conversation, as I don't really know much about women's wear, much less what kind of shoes and accessories are to be worn when and where and with what outfit. I do know, however, that it's a pretty big deal, so if my input is needed (which is almost never), I'm sure she'll ask. 

To be fair, Sandy has made a lot of progress in adjusting to RV travel over the years. For example, this photo shows the relatively modest wardrobe she has chosen for our next trip, which will be a relatively short one. You would have to have been around at the beginning to fully appreciate her fashion evolution.

The logistics of transferring stuff from Phannie into the house and vice versa is relatively simple and unrushed, thanks to our good fortune in having an architect design the house with an RV port and a door that leads directly from the port into the laundry room/pantry, where there is an extra refrigerator to hold any perishable food that needs to come inside.

Once the items to be laundered are brought inside, the washer and dryer get a workout. (Not by me; when I was a bachelor, Sandy observed once how I performed laundry chores and was so appalled that she banned me from the practice for life after we were married. I sheepishly admit that I offered little resistance.) We have a Splendide washer/dryer in Phannie that works fine for small loads, but our king size sheets and other heavier items come inside to the larger machines. With the little Splendide, we can be on the road for months, only occasionally visiting the laundry room at an RV park.

Then I empty out Phannie's refrigerator, transferring the contents into the laundry room fridge. After shutting it down, I leave the coach refrigerator's doors open to allow it to defrost and air out after cleaning.

We leave Phannie's canned goods and staples in her pantry when we're home. There's no need to bring them inside, as we have duplicates in the house.

The only things left are to hook up to shore power, dump the tanks and drain the fresh water, which will be refilled just before the next departure. 

There are always other things to be taken care of when we are docked at home. There's usually a visit to the doctor or dentist and refills of prescriptions, get-togethers with friends and, this time, a visit to our accountant to deliver our tax documents. That was scary; I'm pretty sure we're going to get soaked this year.

I also needed our ace electronics guy, Russ, to come out and tweak the security cameras around the house and to make a final adjustment on the new XM/Sirius radio in Phannie. This guy is a jewel, for sure.

It occurred to me that I had not serviced the coach batteries in a couple of months, so I quickly took care of that little chore using my Pro-Fil battery watering system. If you are cheap like me and don't have AGM batteries (there is a school of thought that says AGM batteries are probably overkill if you're not boondocking, which we never do), this is the best and easiest way to keep your batteries healthy. For me, it's one of those "must have" items. It takes only about a minute, and there's no fuss, no muss, and you can't overfill the batteries.

Then it became clear there would be a need for me to "mow" the yard. Yes, even though everything is xeriscaped, an occasional weed will poke its head up from underneath the mulch, requiring me to bring forth my trusty weedkiller spray bottle and dispatch the offender to an ignominious end. Yes, I could have pulled it up, but 1) I prefer to watch the weeds suffer before they perish, and 2) pulling up weeds would be too much like w**k. Spraying this weed was about as much yard w**k as I could tolerate and afterward, I had to go sit on the porch and rest a while in order to fully recover. I figure if you're going to be a part timer, your stick and brick should be as maintenance-free as possible. I think we've done a pretty good job with that.

The early April weather was so nice one day that I decided, curiously, to give Phannie a bath! Now those who know me well may have their heads spinning around about now, as they know how seriously I am taking retirement, which I define as the absence of work--of any kind. I really don't have a good explanation for my sudden departure from indolence, but it happened. And while it was good exercise, I had an unpleasant feeling that I may have developed some areas of moisture on my glorious body that could be attributed to--dare I say it?--perspiration!

While I'm on the subject of RV washing, let me tout one of the handiest gadgets in my possession--a squeegee with a very flexible blade--perfect for big curved windshields. If you own a motorhome and you don't have one of these, I feel sorry for you: 

If you ever wanted to get a perfect gift for a motorhome owner, this is it. It's made by Surehold Industries and can be ordered here. (Be sure to order the long extension handle, too.)

Well, that's about it for now. We will be headed for a rally in Conroe at the end of the week, so look for a post from there.

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me.

Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Something Keeps Bringing Us Back to Houston Plus a Few Thoughts About Life

At Rayford Crossing RV Resort, Spring, Texas...

This has been the longest period of time--more than two months--that we have been away from our domicile near Fort Worth, and we were more than delighted to have missed all of the frozen winter weather mess that would have entrapped us there. As spring is approaching, we have made our way northbound from the Rio Grande Valley, where we stopped again in the Corpus Christi area, this time at the Colonia Del Rey RV Park. We only intended an overnight stay there, but we wound up staying almost a week to wait out some really rainy spells that kept us largely immobile. There is just nothing like being retired and untethered to the responsibilities of a job and other things that require us to be somewhere at a specific time. Since I don't like driving Phannie in the rain, I generally choose not to do so unless there is a thoroughly compelling reason. So, we wait out the weather and travel when it suits us.

We occupied our time visiting some favorite restaurants, doing some sightseeing and, of course, some shopping--inspired entirely by Mimi, as Sandy is called by her grandsons. Since I am not what you would call an avid shopper (I would rather have a rusty ice pick hammered into my temple), I pretty much served as her chauffeur. Thereby unfettered by any oversight (she says going shopping with a husband is like going hunting with a game warden), Mimi fulfilled with great energy her self-appointed role as the major purchasing agent for her grandsons. In this role, she has no equal, and she certainly doesn't tolerate well any petty little annoyances like the mention of a budget limitation. After a few missteps early on in our marriage, I have now have had enough 'guidance' to accept gracefully this inconvenient truth: It is my job to put money in our accounts, and it is her job to distribute any excess as she sees fit! 

With better weather, we continued our trek northward through the Houston traffic mess and out the North Freeway to Spring, Texas and Rayford Crossing RV Resort, which is very close to Mindy and Tyler and their boys. We're guessing the grandsons may be the reason we keep gravitating back to this place. What do you think?

We have lunch with Mason at his school.

Ever the ham, Pryce tries on a cowboy hat.

When we're here, we try to help out by cooking things the boys will like (surprise, surprise!). The Pioneer Woman's recipe for chicken spaghetti is a favorite:

Brownies are always a hit:

Sandy, who almost never bakes anything from a boxed mix (she is fearful that her mother and grandmother would look down and not approve), uses a modified brownie mix--Pillsbury Milk Chocolate--to make them, and I have to agree: Brownies made from scratch cannot possibly be this good. The modification? She uses whole milk instead of water and adds a teaspoon of vanilla.

Our time here in Houston is growing short, and we will soon be returning home to take care of taxes and medical appointments and refilling some prescriptions.  Once that is done, we will be on the road again. Oddly, our stick-and-brick house has become little more than an expensive place to store the stuff we never use, including a wardrobe that is far too excessive. I'm sure we will reach a point when we will shame ourselves into dealing with this, but that time has not yet come.

As I fret to fulltimer RV friends about these excesses and as I continue to tweak the worrisomely cantankerous security system at the house, they wonder why we don't just pull the plug, sell it and get rid of the security worries and upkeep expense and headaches. On the other hand, other friends who don't "get" our nomadic lifestyle scratch their heads at our wandering around, unable to imagine how anyone could contemplate such a thing. Some of these folks would even be perfectly content working, robot-like, at a job until they collapse at their desks. Or, if retired, they may be content to busy themselves with the officious rituals of housekeeping or perhaps shopping for the perfect faux flower arrangement to "freshen" their largely unused powder room. That's fine, I suppose, but for me, such things would be utterly unimaginable at this stage in our lives.

I would hope that everyone could eventually gain at least a partial realization of the almost incomprehensible miracle of God's gift of life. It is infinitely more likely that you shouldn't have existed at all, except for an impossibly offchance and fleeting union of two cells that would grow, under difficult circumstances, to become you and all that your life has meant to yourself and others. Whether you consider such a thing God-inspired, as I do, or mere blind chance, it is still a miracle, and life should be treated as precious until the last breath leaves the body, in my view. If you accept such a premise, then the look of the faux flowers in your powder room achieves a little less significance, in my way of thinking.

Now that we have both retired, we have become quite introspective about what will be important in our remaining years. There is nothing quite like the contemplation of your own mortality to bring into focus the need to identify those things that we know we will regret not doing while we're able. The conclusion I have reached is that any day when I choose to be confined without purpose within the four walls of a house is a precious and irretrievable day I will regret wasting. Any day that I spend enjoying friends and family or being out on the road observing the magnificence of God's creation or going to church or merely relaxing with a good book, is a day that I will never regret. And the urgency of going, seeing and doing is driven by the realization that we are not guaranteed tomorrow or even the rest of today, for that matter. The time is now; the day is here. Carpe diem!

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Spring's Around the Corner - Must be Time to Head North

At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...

As we watch on TV the demolition derby taking place on the icy roads of north Texas, we feel almost guilty for having enjoyed the mild weather among the palm trees here in the Rio Grande Valley. (Notice I said, almost guilty.) Since the first day of spring is only two weeks away, we will soon be making our way northbound again, hopeful that ol' man winter has gasped his last blast. But what a blast it was, with record snowfalls in some areas back home.

We had a nice visit with old friends in Mission, lunching at the Thai Red Chili restaurant with Ed and Marilyn, Mike and Marian and Chuck and Coletta, all fine folks with whom we shared a great deal of laughter along with the good food.

Coletta, Chuck, Mike, Marian and Marilyn at Thai Red Chili;
Ed and Sandy didn't make it into the frame. My bad!

We also made some new friends, John and Bobbie Jo, who hail from a small town near Dallas and who were also parked in Llano Grande. We ran into them at Salazar's, a popular burger joint in Weslaco, and we enjoyed greatly their company at a number of restaurants in the area after our initial meeting. We now feel we've known this friendly couple forever.

John and Bobbie Jo

Salazar's, a great burger dive where we met John and Bobbie Jo

This is not an unusual occurrence in the RV community, gladly. Most of us are retired or nearly so and enjoying life on the road, and our common interests are already established to a degree.

We thought the replacement of Phannie's potty in Rockport would fulfill our quota of her maintenance issues on this trip, but we were wrong. While we were watching TV one evening, we heard a pop and began to smell electrical smoke. I raced outside and opened one of the belly cargo doors to be greeted by a good deal of smoke wafting out. It appeared to be coming from the water heater, so I quickly returned to the cabin and checked the water heater's circuit breaker, which was indeed tripped. The smoke dissipated in a few minutes, and the next morning I phoned Dennis, whose name was given to me by the park management. He is a fulltimer who spends each winter in Llano Grande and keeps busy seeing to the needs of the many RVs in the resort. He quickly found the culprit: The electrical receptacle into which the heater was plugged had failed and was heavily charred along with the plug on the end of the power cable. We were glad it didn't catch fire! We also had Dennis replace the electrical heating element that had become encrusted with minerals over time.

We also noticed a van on a nearby street advertising carpet cleaning, so we contracted with them to give Phannie's carpets a good cleaning. All About Floors (956) 463-2484 did a fine job, and we highly recommend them. Lee, the owner, was very friendly and professional.  (FYI: All About Floors also does RV floor replacements.)



Lee and his helper cleaning Phannie's Carpet

Here are a few comments about eatin' joints we've tried:

Salazar's in Weslaco - Great burgers. Don't bother to order a double meat; the patties are huge.

Casa de Mariscos in Weslaco - Wildly popular among locals, probably because the servings are enormous. This place is in cahoots with Salazar's burger joint across the street...probably owned by the same family. I recommend the seafood over the Mexican dishes; I had some outstanding shrimp tacos, and our companion had the garlic grilled shrimp, which was also very good. Did I say portions were huge? One entrée is plenty for two people.

Don Beto's in Mercedes - A café favored by locals. Everything is homemade, tasty and cheap.

Lin's Chinese Buffet in Weslaco - One of the best we've tried for freshness and variety.

Nana's in Weslaco - Great taco joint that occupies what was once a house. Everything we've had here was terrific.

Milano's in Weslaco - Good Italian food in another restaurant fashioned from a former house. Great service and friendly staff also.

Lone Star Barbeque in McAllen - We must have been there on an off day. The brisket was dry and not very smoky, and the ribs were way overcooked and had a peculiar flavor. The fried catfish, however, was quite good.

Thai Red Chili in McAllen - This was our second visit and, unfortunately, we were a bit disappointed in comparison with our first visit. The food was fairly good, but it had been allowed to cool too much before serving, and the service was confused and slow. Maybe next time, they'll have it more together. The company was what was important, however; that, as always, was superb. 

 

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me;

please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.

Running From Winter; Fixing Stuff in Phannie

At Llano Grande RV Resort, Mercedes, Texas...

Doc said it was okay to drive Phannie, and my busted foot doesn't have much pain now, so it didn't take us long to break camp in Rockport and get to an even more pleasant winter location here in Mercedes, not far from Padre Island. Llano Grande has become a favorite upscale south Texas resort, our having discovered it through friends Ed and Marilyn, who made it their winter hangout for several years.

Typical spaces at Llano Grande

A couple of maintenance issues appeared toward the end of our stay at Rockport. I am hesitant to mention that we had to replace our potty (potty seems a more innocuous term than toilet or commode), but this is one of the more essential and popular fixtures in any RV, and they don't last forever. When we bought Phannie, we had the original potty replaced with an upgraded porcelain, high-rise model, and it had served us well for four years. Of late, however, we felt the "end was near." (Please pardon that awful pun; I just couldn't help it.) It was having problems holding water, and we stopped an RV technician's van there in the Lagoons RV Resort to get him to check it out. He said the repairs would be half the cost of a replacement, so we elected to order a new one, which he installed in a couple of days. I would include a photo of the new potty, but somehow that strikes me as being even more peculiar than writing this post about a potty, which seems pretty doggone peculiar itself.

The other maintenance problem involved the refrigerator icemaker's water supply. The supply line fits onto the fill valve using a hose-type coupling with a neoprene washer. While we were out, this coupling began to leak and soaked the carpet in the dining area. Installing a new washer was an easy fix, but it has taken three days with a fan blowing on the carpet to dry it out. These repairs came on top of other earlier ones that involved replacing a windshield wiper arm assembly and blade (Tiffin had it in stock in Red Bay and got it to me in a couple of days) and a faucet at the bedroom sink. Both chores were expertly done by S.I.L. Tyler, when we were still in Houston. Thanks again, Ty!

I include the mention of these occurrences especially for readers who may be considering purchasing an RV. They illustrate typical problems that will be encountered when you are operating a complicated vehicle that is also a house. Things are going to break or wear out rather frequently, and you will have to deal with getting them fixed. It helps to be handy at this sort of thing, but it's not necessary. I am only minimally mechanically minded, but I am actually able to deal, however clumsily, with most of the minor discrepancies that come along. The major ones can always be fixed by professionals, but you usually need to have a well stocked wallet when you use them.

This brings up a question about extended warranties. I bought one with Phannie, but I wouldn't do it again. Since that warranty is about to expire, having had almost no claims on it, I'm not going to renew it. I have instead funded a maintenance account that I will add to at about $300 per month. Besides using it for repairs, I will also pay for routine service out of that fund. I know several RVers who have done this, and they agree it's a better deal for them than the extended warranty. They have even had their funds build up enough to buy extras for their rigs that they wouldn't otherwise have been able to justify. There's always the risk, of course, that something very expensive could go haywire before the fund is fully built up, but it only means we would have to tap other reserves that we wouldn't normally need to access.

Since I tend to treat Phannie like a baby and carefully follow the manufacturers' service schedule, I think the odds are pretty good that the near-perfect reliability of the engine, drive train and chassis will continue. I do think that a roadside service contract is a good value, however, so I rely on Coach Net for that.

We enjoyed our stay in the Corpus Christi area, especially since we missed the snow and ice that snarled everything near our Fort Worth area home. And yes, it's hard not to be smug as we enjoy the warm sunny days here in the Rio Grande Valley.

On the beach at South Padre Island. No snow here!

 

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me. Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Yes, We Eat Out a Lot

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

I suppose it's time to catch up on restaurant reviews. Yes, I do a lot of these in this blog, and there have been a number of commenters who wonder if all we do is eat out. Well, while we do other things, we also tend to eat regularly and, admittedly, most often at restaurants. We usually eat a light breakfast in Phannie, but at lunchtime and dinnertime, we are often sightseeing or otherwise roaming around, so we usually grab something to eat at a restaurant that has been recommended by others or that has good reviews on Yelp, Urbanspoon, Local Eats, Trip Advisor or TV Food Maps. Sometimes we just stop somewhere and take our chances. We tend to avoid expensive venues and chain restaurants in favor of places where the locals go for a good meal. Ferreting those out is sometimes an adventure in itself, because it may take us off the beaten path to a discovery that would be missed by the tourists. Another benefit is that we have a permanent record of the places we like (and don't like) in case we find ourselves in the area again.

We really see no need to apologize for this, as cooking meals for just the two of us is time consuming and messy. We try to mitigate some of the expense of eating out by choosing more modest restaurants, sharing an entrée, skipping adult beverages and, of course, taking advantage of senior discounts. By doing this, we don't think it's too much more expensive. Did I mention there is nothing to clean up?

There's also the potential for people watching. Many of my inspirations for posts come from observations of restaurant patrons or workers. It's a slice of life that shouldn't be ignored, and I exploit it when I can. There's also the matter of my bum foot; I am somewhat circumscribed in my activities at the moment, so going out to eat is a welcome diversion from the confines of Phannie. Fortunately, we have previously toured most of the tourist attractions in this area and posted about them on the blog, so my temporary lack of mobility is not causing us to miss any sightseeing.

Following are comments about some more of the restaurants we've sampled here in Rockport. You will notice that most are seafood restaurants, of which there are many in this area. We are very fond of fresh seafood and, since it doesn't get much fresher than that which comes in on the boats each day, we indulge ourselves.

The Bleu Crab Cafe. A new restaurant that is trying too hard to be something it isn't. It has a promising chef who is--I never thought I would say this--too heavy handed in using butter. (Yes, Paula Deen, there is such a thing as too much butter.) Its offerings are too expensive and esoteric for an inelegant café in a strip shopping center. They'll need a lot of luck, I'm afraid.  Three and a half stars for food, but two and a half overall because of the identity crisis.

Jalisco's. A somewhat tired but inexplicably popular Mexican restaurant where the food is just serviceable at best. The enchilada sauce is likely out of a can. Although there were few patrons in the restaurant when we visited, there was no place to sit, as every empty table needed bussing. Only 2 stars for this one; don't bother.

The Shack Smokehouse. A typical BBQ joint that is definitely a hangout for the locals. The service is good, and the staff is friendly. We liked the barbeque, but while the ribs had a good smoky flavor, they were way overcooked. The meat on a perfectly cooked rib should adhere to the bone just slightly as you take a bite. These ribs fell apart when I lifted them from the plate. Sandy tried a hamburger, which was quite good. The meat patty was hand formed and generous, the bun was toasted and, thankfully, the burger was served fully assembled. (If there is a pet peeve of mine, it is a hamburger that is served dismantled. This irks me because the purpose of coming to a restaurant is to have a meal prepared for me. If they leave some of the job for me to do, I may as well have stayed home. Such an error would be fatal in my book, and I would not darken their door again.) Three and a half stars, though, for the Shack; it's worth a visit.

Sandy's burger at The Shack. Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

Charlotte Plummer's. This well-known restaurant overlooking the Fulton waterfront is one that can be counted on for good food and good value. We ate here three times on this trip and had seafood each time. We found it to be fresh and tasty with good service provided. We also liked the salad bar. Four stars for this one. You can get a good meal here with a good view of the bay, and it won't cost an arm and a leg. (Perhaps just an arm.)



One thing you really shouldn't miss at Charlotte Plummer's is the bread pudding. It has a wonderfully rich bourbon sauce and is probably too sinful to be eaten on Sunday. But we did; we'll repent later.

Bread pudding at Charlotte Plummer's.

JD's Seafood and Burgers. We had a fried seafood combo of fish and shrimp which was pretty good. It was on a lunch special for $13.95, which we thought was a good deal. The regular price of $19.95 would have been a bit much unless the portions were larger. The staff was friendly enough, but our server was distracted. On the day we stopped, they could accept only cash, claiming their credit card machine was on the fritz. The décor was sparse and uninspired, and we got a feeling that all may not be well from a business standpoint. Two stars for this one; we don't think we would go back.

Captain Benny's Seafood. If there were ever a hangout for locals, this is it. We were greeted by Captain Benny himself, a wiry old gentleman who constantly mumbled to himself and assiduously guarded the cash register. Everyone seemed to know him except us. The patrons also seemed to know each other, and several groups sat at large mismatched tables in the ramshackle place. They were surrounded by many beer and wine bottles they had carried in themselves, as the restaurant is BYOB. Most of the bottles in view were empty or nearly so, and the noise levels at the tables seemed to increase proportionately with the consumption of booze, which is, of course, not exactly a new phenomenon. The service was incredibly slow--it took about an hour to get our meal--but it was no faster for the regular patrons either, who were really too sloshed to care.

One woman feeling no pain at a nearby table took the opportunity, in an increasingly loud voice, to describe in excruciating detail the labor and delivery of her two children. Very little was left to the imagination, including a description of how the doctor "cleaned her out" once the baby had arrived. Fortunately, our meal had not yet been served, so we had a little time to recover after she had finished the grisly story.

The food? Quite good, actually. The shrimp and fish were very fresh and tasty, and the price was fairly reasonable. Three and a half stars; we would go again, even though the service was slow. It's sort of like driving up on a traffic accident; you know it's not going to be pretty, but you can't keep from looking.



Captain Benny's. Pretty much a dump, but the locals love it.

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me. Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

For Those Who Don't Quite Get It

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

I cannot begin to tell you the number of people (non-RVers) who scratch their heads and raise their eyebrows when they hear of our retirement lifestyle. Their response goes something like this:

Non-RVer: "Let me get this straight; you drive a 16-ton bus all over the country for weeks or months at a time, pulling a car behind you and staying overnight in trailer parks?"

Me: "Well, we call them RV parks, but some folks don't even use them all the time. They just park on public lands and camp off the grid."

Non-RVer, eyes widening: "What do they do with their houses?"

Me: "Some RVers known as fulltimers don't have a regular house. They elected to sell it and live fulltime in their RVs."

Non-RVer, after audible gasp: "But you still have your house."

Me: "Yes, but we're not sure why; we're rarely there."

At this point, he or she probably has raised at least one hand, palm to the side of the face and mouth agape.

I then try to offer an explanation, perhaps by describing some recent RV travels. I could easily use a description of the simple pleasures Sandy and I experienced today:

Before dinner, we sat quietly on a bench near a wooden pier overlooking Aransas Bay. A dozen or so seagulls wandered nearby on the beach, some flying away and others swooping in to take their places, their screeches unintelligible to all but their preening brethren. There was a light breeze, so the bay was not quite as placid as usual. The fronds of the palm trees, acting as windsocks, pointed ever so slightly to the southeast, revealing the wind's direction as from the northwest. The latest cool front had all but exhausted itself, having been denuded of its clouds and ushering in the bright sunlight and impossibly blue sky that we sometimes take for granted in Texas. Although we were in our shirtsleeves, a light jacket would feel good at nightfall. It was a beautiful and peaceful place, and the world's ugliness and strife seemed very far away.

We can't help but marvel at our having been blessed to arrive at a point in our lives where we can follow the sun and not have to be entombed in the massive snowfalls of the frozen north that we've seen on TV. Or, if we're not trying to escape the heat or cold, we can merely change the scenery whenever we wish.

Some don't understand it at all, and that's fine. I know so many people who cannot imagine themselves in such a vagabond-like lifestyle, just as I cannot fathom the boredom I would be forced to endure while imprisoned in a house, awaiting the end of my mobility that old age will bring. The window for going, seeing and doing is open for now, and no one but the good Lord knows when it will close. But close it will, and I do not wish to regret the adventure not taken.

 

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life you've given me;

please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Overcoming Pain With...Fear

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

Fortunately, the pain in my foot subsided significantly after I began wearing the new zombie boot. It is also possible, however, that the pain has been suppressed by fear. You see, Sandy has had to assume the driving duties in Mae, something that would normally happen only if I were unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. She will be the first to tell you that driving a vehicle makes her nervous, but this doesn't fully describe its effect on me. To illustrate why I'm sometimes fearful, perhaps a brief review of some of the more memorable events in her driving history is in order:

• Sandy's most significant automobile accident occurred when she collided with a vehicle driven by her own husband.

• She once collided with an appliance in our garage.

• She was ticketed for speeding in a school zone. (She was a schoolteacher at the time.)

• In an attempt to back our Suburban out of the garage, she managed to get it caught sideways in the structure and had to call me home from work to straighten it out. I asked if it could wait until after work hours, but she informed me that her beauty shop appointment constituted an emergency. I came home.

Sandy actually has a very good driving record; it's just that odd things seem to happen while she's driving. And since she has achieved perfection in my eyes, I'm sure these things are not her fault. (Sandy helped me write this paragraph.)

Here are a couple more restaurant reviews for you:

B and J Pizza in Corpus Christi.  Oh, my! This cavernous place has some righteous pizza. It was packed when we went on a Friday night, and it took nearly an hour to get our pizza, but it was worth the wait. Super fresh toppings lay on a crispy crust that was also light and tender. It reminded me of the 5 Ate Café, a favorite in Houston featured in an earlier post. Four and a half stars for B and J; it would have been five had the wait not been so long.

I'm in line to order at B&J Pizza.

For our Valentine's Day dinner, I chose Roosevelt's at the Tarpon Inn in Port Aransas. This was a really fine place, and we enjoyed immensely some expertly-prepared mahi-mahi and flounder and the attentive service. Very fresh, very tasty and very expensive, but nothing is too good for my Valentine, right?! Four and a half stars for Roosevelt's; I would have given it five, except I didn't care for the julienned vegetable saute served as a side. (Had the veggies not been cut so fine, they may not have suffered from being slightly overcooked.) The original Tarpon Inn was built on this location in 1886; the restaurant was named in honor of onetime guest Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Tarpon Inn looks rundown, but it's not. This is typical of small coastal towns.

Garlic bread served at Roosevelt's. Just as good as it looks!

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me. Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Harassed Aplenty, But Still Standing (Sort of)

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

I suppose one can tell the quality of his friends by the quantity, if not the quality, of their harassment. Well, I must have some doozies. While most of the comments were kind and sympathetic regarding my poor broken foot, some of the wags whom I reluctantly identify as friends had a different kind of support in mind, namely, none. Ed assumed I tripped because I was blinded by the noon sun when I awoke. Bob figured I had been thrown out of a restaurant, since I seem to spend so much time in them. John said he would "run the numbers" to see what he would charge me to drive Phannie home.

Well, I don't want to throw stones, but the only reason Ed gets up before dawn is that he thinks he has a dog to let out. (He doesn't.) And Bob is understandably confused, as he's probably nearing 80 (he just had another birthday party where everyone put on sunscreen when they lit the candles on his cake). And John is so cheap that he once went outside and fired a gun on Christmas eve so he could tell his kids Santa killed himself rather than tell them they didn't get any gifts.

(Yes, we like each other; not to worry.)

But never fear, dear reader; just because I get jokes about my seemingly incessant posts about restaurants, I will continue undaunted to share my foodie impressions so you can weed out all but the best if you ever find yourself near where we've been. Today we went to Corpus for the day and stopped at Snoopy's Pier, a hulking restaurant overlooking Corpus Christi Bay and offering dining that is mostly al fresco. 

You order your food at a counter and take a seat, then a server will bring it to your table. The seafood was quite good and fresh, and I really enjoyed the fish and chips. Perhaps the savings in staff helps keep the prices fairly reasonable, and that's always a good thing. I give this one 3.5 stars, meaning it's worth the trip.

Not having had quite enough fresh seafood at the end of the day, we stopped at the Boiling Pot in Rockport. This ramshackle place serves mostly fresh boiled seafood, Cajun style, where they dump the steaming, spicy contents of a boiling pot onto your table. Then they put a bib on you, and you go after it, eating with your hands.

Besides the shrimp, crab or crawfish, you also get a bonus of sausage, potatoes and corn, so bring help to eat it all. We were not really all that hungry, so we settled for a bowl of gumbo and a plate of boiled shrimp. The gumbo was outstanding and very spicy, just the way I like it. The shrimp were good, too, but since they had their heads on, Sandy was freaked out a bit by the beady little eyes staring up at her. She also proclaimed that one of them was cross-eyed, but I couldn't confirm it, mainly because I'm sane. I give this place 3.5 stars, so it's worth patronizing. One more thing: Its a little pricey, so bring your man-purse along.

Lord, thank you for the wonderful life You've given me. Please forgive me if I fail to appreciate it enough each day.

Well, Foot! (At Least It's Not My Leg.)

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

I have always had a problem in not watching where I'm walking; I tend to gawk at most everything else instead. I suppose I'm afraid I'll miss something going on around me, or I could just be people-watching. Anyway, paying close attention to where my feet are seems entirely too boring. However, a rudimentary awareness of the ground upon which I'm walking is much more likely to help me avoid certain hazards. It was that lack of awareness that caused me to step in a hole while walking a couple of days ago. The hole was mostly obscured by grass, but I'm sure I would have seen it if I had been looking. I felt the jolt immediately and began to stumble, but I caught myself before my careening developed into a full belly-flop, which would be so like me. After recovering my balance, I didn't notice the pain at first, but as the time went on, my right foot began to swell, and walking became painful. Finally, a trip to an urgent care facility here in Rockport for x-rays confirmed that I had a fracture at the base of the fifth metatarsal.  It's really not a big deal, as it will only require a special boot to be worn to stabilize the foot as it heals. A larger issue is the loss of dignity as I hobble around, zombie-like, everywhere I go.



My New High-Fashion Boot!

 

This will cause us to extend our stay here for a while, until such time as I can safely drive Phannie again. There are worse places to be, however; the blizzard-ridden northeast comes to mind.

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life You've given me; please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough each day.

Breaking Camp and Heading South

At The Lagoons RV Resort, Rockport, Texas...

Having added some local support for Mindy's entry to nursing school, we decided to get out of her family's hair and continue with a little winter vacation of our own. But first, we made a quick trip in Mae back home to collect a month's worth of mail and take care of a few chores around the house. (For those who gave up the demands of your stick house in favor of fulltiming, you can gloat here.) On our way back to Phannie, whom we left forlornly at Rayford Crossing, Mae decided it was time for us to visit the Old Mexican Inn, a favorite restaurant in Corsicana. So she suddenly veered off I-45 and drove through downtown and out highway 31 to this wonderful old Mexican food emporium operated by the Flores family since 1941. We're glad she made the sudden diversion, as Sandy and I enjoyed a collection of favorite dishes, including tacos al carbon, enchiladas and queso, and they were, as always, delicious. I absolutely recommend this place as probably the best stop you can make if you're hungry between Dallas and Houston.

A couple of days later, we departed Rayford Crossing and began the 217-mile leg to Rockport. This required me to make a choice between using the tollway around Houston and going straight through downtown, where it is necessary to transition to U. S. 59 toward Victoria. I really don't like going through downtown, because the traffic is usually heavy, and being in the correct lane at the right time is crucial. This is not all that easy in a motorhome pulling a toad, and it is made worse by Houston's legendary hateful drivers. To give you an idea of how boorish they can be, I was minding my own business earlier in the leg when I turned Phannie onto the I-45 service road. Two drivers in the next lane honked and gave me the middle finger for no apparent reason. I gave them a long blast with Phannie's air horn, which obviously startled them and caused one of the drivers to jerk his steering wheel, almost hitting the car alongside him. Pity he didn't.

Since it was midday and a less busy traffic time, I decided to go through downtown, the argument for that choice being the shorter driving time--it's a long way around the loop--and the money to be saved in tolls. It would have cost more than $25 to get Phannie around the beltway to U. S. 59. Even with the time of day being ideal, the trip through downtown was still harrowing. There was one place where we wouldn't have been able to move into the correct lane except for a courteous driver who made room. Thankfully, it was not one of the guys who earlier showed me the naughty digit.

Phannie purred smoothly all the way to Rockport, and we pulled into The Lagoons RV Resort just before they closed the office at 5:00 PM. Lagoons is a very nice and friendly park, well-maintained but restricted to 55+ travelers. We sorta lucked out getting a space there, as they had only one left. Reservations anywhere in the Rockport area are not easy to find in winter. Seeing the palm trees below and noticing guests dressed in shorts and flip flops tells you all you need to know about the attraction this part of Texas has for snowbirds. 

We asked the desk clerk about favorite restaurants in the area, and she quickly mentioned Shempy's, a little seafood place that we decided to investigate.

The little place was packed with customers, but we soon got a table and placed our order for a seafood platter that Sandy and I would share. Below is a photo of the gigantic platter. By the way, the crab cake was huge, with more crabmeat than I had ever seen before in one of these.

Shempy's is obviously not a place where you need to worry being underdressed. Although I didn't confirm, I assume the guy in the t-shirt below is Shempy, as he seemed in charge and was speaking loudly to everyone. When he came to our table, however, it became obvious that his elevated speaking volume was used because he was hard of hearing. By the time I screamed my order to him and he screamed it back to confirm, everyone in the restaurant knew what we were having.

So, if you decide to go to Shempy's, be prepared for good food and friendly people. But for goodness' sake, don't go overdressed!

Okay, in keeping with my intention to share a few more personal details, here are some that probably will not interest you at all:

We are not morning people. Frankly, I fail to understand why some retirees insist on rising before the sun does. There's no reason for it that makes sense. Humans don't have very good night vision, and they tend to bump into things when it's dark. I know I do! Sandy and I try to get up by 8:00 AM unless, well, we don't want to.

Our sleep needs differ. Sandy is an eight-hour sleeper; I rarely sleep more than five. I often offer her my hypothesis that bright people need less sleep than, well, the unbright, but then she offers her own hypothesis that a frying pan could make a good hat for me.

We are very picky about our bed. Sandy and I really struggle to sleep well if we find ourselves on a strange mattress. For this reason, we duplicated in Phannie our pillows and the favorite iComfort kingsize mattress we use in our house; that way, we can't tell any difference. In fact, we sometimes awaken and do not immediately know whether we are at home or in Phannie. That's not a bad thing.

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life you have given me. Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

Another Foodie Find and More About Quirks

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

I haven't been including too much about our restaurant adventures lately, as we really haven't been all that impressed with some of the places we've been. Until now, that is. 

I've already mentioned El Palenque here in Spring as a wonderful Mexican restaurant, but I must remove my hat now in reverence toward our new find today. The 5 Ate Café (again, here in Spring, Texas), has possibly the best pizza on the planet, yet it is possibly the restaurant least likely to be identified as such on the planet. It is located, of all places, in the Inspire rock climbing gym at 403 East Louetta.

Would you think you would find the world's best pizza in this place? Neither would I.

Don't be scared away by the young athletic types in view who scurry up and down the vertical walls of the gym as if they were large spiders. Is that something I would try? Absolutely not; the injuries that could result are limited only by the number of bones in my body.

We shared the Italian Pizza, a perfect marriage of a thin, almost flaky crust, along with the freshest of Italian meats and cheese. The crust was a thing of beauty, oddly contradictory in that it was thin and crispy and, at the same time, tender. The sauce was inspired, being oh, so flavorful, without being too thick and pungent. The meat toppings, clearly sourced from Italy, had little need for a huge layer of accompanying vegetables, so a few slivers of onion and basil served more as a filigree than anything else. We also tried one of their signature burgers and thought it very tasty but, frankly, we couldn't get past the pizza. Oh my! You must try this place.

Sorry for the quality of this photo; the pizza was so good, I forgot to take my own. This is from their website.

Okay, next subject:  It's time to reveal more oddities--this time about me.

 

I don't like football. GASP! Yes, you heard that right. Now that I've admitted it, I won't be surprised if I hear a knock at my door and then be led away for psychological reprogramming. With football fanaticism the way it is in Texas, it is just not thought normal that a native Texan could renounce it. It's a little like being an atheist here in the Bible belt. 

 

It's not that I haven't tried. I've attended many games, but found that I was bored to tears watching a group of grown men, sweaty and musclebound, chasing that odd-shaped ball around the field. I just don't see the point. Sure, they might win the game, but so what?  The win is only good for that game, and the number of games yet to be played is limitless. A point will be reached where they will lose a game, then the coach will get fired, and some of the players will get arrested, then it starts all over again. I would rather read a magazine about golf--another sport that bores me to death.

 

And really, is there anything more inane than the football talk show? How is it possible that anyone can tune in to a show dedicated to nothing more than utter speculation about who may do what in a football game? Does anyone really care about this?How about including the number of times players have been handcuffed? Now that might pique my interest!

 

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful life you have given me. Please forgive me if I do not appreciate it enough every day.

 

 

 

Jim and Terri Come for a Visit

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

Longtime friends Jim and Terri drove down from Arlington to pal around with us last weekend, and we enjoyed their visit so much.

On the first evening, we ate at the Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant, a really good one, on Highway 2920 near Tomball and went on a boat tour of the Houston Ship Channel on Sunday afternoon. This free tour is sponsored by the Port of Houston authority and was well worth the hour or so that it took us to go from the turning basin past the I-610 bridge for seven miles down the channel. Although the narration was not always audible, we learned quite a bit about the Port of Houston that we didn't know, including its standing as second only to Rotterdam in the handling of petroleum product tonnage. The city fathers obviously had remarkable foresight back in 1912 when they were able to secure the funding for dredging Buffalo Bayou and creating the immense economic powerhouse that is the Port of Houston.

View from the Tour Boat

Our Tour Boat, the Sam Houston

Sandy Won't Like This Photo, Snapped as the Wind Caught her Shirttail.

After the channel tour, we went to the Monument Inn in La Porte to have some seafood and continue watching the traffic on the ship channel. The food was great and the fellowship even better, so a great time was had by all.



Jim and Terri at the Monument Inn

Terri Watches a Tanker From our Table at the Monument Inn

By the way, I intend to add a tag line to this post and all subsequent ones. I stole it (with permission) from longtime friend Martha Jo Burns, and I wish it to be never far from my utterance:

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life, and please forgive me if I don't appreciate it as I should each day.

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).

With the Grands in Houston and a New Series: What Inquiring Minds Want to Know

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

We have returned to Houston for a month, helping Mindy get restarted in nursing school. Knowing her potential for success, we are more than happy to facilitate this as much as possible. We get the added benefit of being close to grandsons Mason and Pryce, who are much more than a little special to us. Watching them as they grow and change every day is most entertaining and, the older we get, the more important it seems to be for us to feel needed and to contribute what we can along the way.

Phannie provides the perfect means for us to be self-sufficient and not underfoot, as we would be if we were guests in Mindy's and Tyler's home. Living in the motorhome allows us to come by when we're needed and then scoot away, allowing them their own family time to the greatest extent possible.

We're doing some babysitting when needed, usually with Pryce, as Mason is now in kindergarten during the day. When Mindy is occupied with classes, Sandy busies herself by helping with the housework, and I help by doing a little cooking.

Didn't know I could cook? Well, I can--to a degree--and I find cooking's creativity enjoyable. But I don't bother to compete with Sandy in baking cakes, pies, cookies and the like. She is a baker extraordinaire.

Having revealed that little tidbit of personal information, it occurs to me that readers who don't know us very well may like to peek  further under the tent to see what other quirks may be inside. (Don't tell me people don't like to do this; have you seen the tabloids lining the checkout lanes at Wally World?)

I'm thinking the next few posts may form a short series of personal vignettes that explore some of our flaws, foibles and fetishes. You may be disappointed, however; we do not exactly walk on the wild side. Let's start with fetishes or, more properly, obsessions:

My life as a grammar policeman. I admit to a degree of neurosis here. I'm going to lay the blame on my high school and college English teachers, who were fanatical in insisting that their students should not corrupt the mother tongue any more than necessary. I clearly recall Mrs. Reid who, in sophomore English, would rap with a ruler the knuckles of those who did not properly recite her rules of grammar. (Had Mrs. Reid done this today, of course, she would be in jail, but her students would certainly use proper grammar when they came to visit her.) Thanks to these wonderful teachers, I learned to write correctly, and that single ability turned out to be more important than any other in ensuring the career successes I enjoyed in various management positions over the years. The downside, if it could be seen as such, is that I tend to over-analyze each post I write in order to avoid the embarrassment of clumsy syntax and errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar. It takes extra time to stylize each post in this way, so I am, in a sense, bedeviled by my own self-imposed expectations.

Is it painful for me to read the tortured prose of those who were not subjected to Mrs. Reid's ruler? Well, sometimes, but I'm trying to let it go. Our language is getting more coarse all the time, and fewer people care about turning an elegant phrase. That makes me the dinosaur, I guess, stuck in an era when, as a society, we had more time to pay attention to such things. Friendships cannot be based on whether one can recognize a dangling participle, of course, and rapping someone's knuckles is not likely to win me any friends either. So, I write, and I rewrite what I wrote. But I don't care; I'm determined to get it right.

Next, we'll talk about Sandy; she is not without a few lovable quirks herself.