WE ARE STILL ALIVE AND DOING WELL

Monday, December 2 – Again this year we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with our daughter, Carrie and a group of her friends. We are always so pleased with what a wonderful group of kids she has as friends.

At about 11:00, we began to get the two turkeys ready.

Played a little Cornhole while the turkeys were cooking.

Coloring the tablecloth for the celebration.

Just waiting for those turkeys to get done.

Finally!

We had a wonderful meal, an awesome day, and an abundance of fun. Thanks Carrie!!!

Our month stay at Forest Retreat expired on Saturday, so we headed to the Houston Elks Lodge. This is our “normal” home while in Houston and is only 15 minutes from our daughter's apartment instead of the 35 minute drive we had in New Caney. We will have to dry camp for a day until Site #1 opens up. The people in that site are planning to leave December 1.

It is 7:30 a.m. on Black Saturday. Everyone must be shopping…good for us!

Dry camping at the Elks.

Big football game day. We met Carrie and her group at Pub Fiction for some refreshments and watch the Buckeyes tangle with the Wolverines. Finally score…

Sunday we spent most of the day baking at Carrie’s. Her big Annual Holiday Extravaganza is coming up and the boys love her cookies.

Buckeyes…yummy!

It is Monday, and we are still dry camping in the Elks parking lot. The people planning to leave on December 1 have extended there stay for several days due to illness. Dang! Boy, the Elks could sure use more RV sites. They have ten sites, and according to the camp hosts, they've been full almost constantly for the past year or more.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

HISTORICAL DOWNTOWN HOUSTON

Sunday, November 24 - We were back in Houston last Wednesday to do some more visiting with Carrie.  She had some interesting city sights to show us. After finishing some work around her apartment (hanging pictures), we jumped in Carrie's car and headed downtown. She's a fearless big city driver, so it's good to let her do the driving in Houston.

Our first stop was Carrie's new office building, Enterprise Products. It's one of the highest buildings in Houston – wouldn't you know it. What a beautiful place to work, It is connected to the Houston Underground, a huge shopping/restaurant area located BELOW the city.

We walked around a bit downtown stretching our necks to see the many tall skyscrapers. Some very interesting architecture! With the train running right through downtown, it makes getting around fairly easy. Carrie rides the train to work...nice! They are currently expanding the train system to hopefully relieve the madness of the highway system here in Houston.

We ventured into the Historic District containing some of the oldest building in town. Most have been converted to restaurants or taverns. This area of town is also being revitalized with remodeling and planned events taking place to get the people here in the evenings.

The Hearsay building once served as a Confederate armory during the Civil War.

We stopped to view Houston's 9-1-1 monument. It's a memorial to a Houston native, Lauren Grandcolas killed on United Flight 93. An interesting feature is the smoking fountain (We think they use dry ice for the smoke.) with a tall skyscraper, similar in appearance to the NY towers, in the background appearing through the mist. 

The information about this fountain is fascinating.

It was getting near four o'clock, that means the three-hour rush was about to begin, so it was time to scram or hang around Houston for awhile. We choose this time to flea before things got nuts. Even during non-rush hour times, Houstonians drive a little crazy, during rush hour – forget it!

We'll be back on Saturday to watch college football with Carrie and her gang, a pretty constant happening during football season. Nice they welcome us “old folks” to come along and soak up some of their enthusiasm.

Flowers are still in full bloom.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

COMPUTER ISSUES PUT A DAMPER ON POSTING

Saturday, November 23 – Marsha's been busy, busy, busy! Her computer died on Monday, dead motherboard. It was time to replace her aging laptop with a new one. Buying the new computer is an “ouch” on the wallet, but that's the easy part. Now she has to load everything to make it useable. That is absolutely CRAZY!!! It's like buying a car without tires, or a transmission. Paul just doesn't understand this.

Regardless, Marsha has been using the DSL line at the clubhouse to download software and other updates, amazing.....a new computer needs updates. She broke away from the HP brand name and bought a Samsung. She read rave reviews about her choice. She loves the feel of the keyboard. Yes, it came with OS 8, which now causes her some additional headaches. The first issue she ran into was our printer software…not suitable for OS 8. She went on line to research update drivers. This is just one example of why it takes so long to set up a new computer.

It's been three days now, and Marsha is still at it! She had the hard drive removed from her old computer and placed in an NexStar TX 2.5” hard drive enclosure. Now she can transfer “stuff” from her old hard drive to her new computer. Will she ever be done???

Marsha wants to share her opinion of OS 8…..not difficult to learn at all. She can’t get over how many people are having so many problems with it. One girl here in the campground said she is having a difficult time leaning how to use the new operating system. All she wants is her desktop back. Marsha showed her how to hold the window key down and hit D…desktop appears. She showed her how to pin her applications to the task bar. Debbi is now a very happy camper. She says it looks just like her old desktop…imagine that.

Paul's been diddling around the RV, cleaning his truck, reading, and snoozing in his zero gravity chair. At least the weather has been beautiful here in Houston.

TIDBIT: November 22, 2013, marks our 1500^th day on the road.

We will post a new blog hopefully very soon.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!