I went on a trip. Not one of those lousy in-state trips. This was a 3-state trip with my grandparents and my cousin Garret. It took at least 17 hours of driving (including Starbucks and convenience stores). We drove an average 5.6 hours per day. We stayed at 2 KOA’s in Abilene, TX and Albuquerque, NM on the way up to Ouray, CO. We got coon skin hats on the way to Albuquerque at the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner, NM. Ouray is a good sight-seeing town. Just north of the center of town is 1 of the 7 Cascade Falls. It has a great view and the mist feels good on a hot day. Also just out-of-town there is an old mine. It has a tour and a place to pan for gold. There is a train that goes from Durango to Silverton and back that you can buy a souvenir cup which you can get free refills for life with. In Silverton, Garret got in a bind cause we both had 10 refills each of Dr. Pepper. The restaurant’s bathroom was full and he was about to cry.|=p.Also while we were shopping, Garret and I found 2 identical pocketknives with a bone finish. We also rode a jeep up a mountain to Imogene Pass 13,400 feet above sea level.We played in snow in July!!!!! We also saw a fort called Fort Peabody. To the east of town is Ouray hot springs. Four miles out-of-town to the north is the Ouray KOA, which has a creek through the center, where we stayed for 5 days. We played by the creek most of the time and fell in a couple of times. I had to jump in twice because Garret through the ladderballs in the creek.On the way back down we stayed in Albuquerque and Amarillo, TX. In Amarillo we saw the play ” TEXAS” at Palo Duro Canyon,the second largest canyon in the US. That’s how the trip ends.|=p
We ventured once again into the political landscape tonight. We attended a town hall meeting by our representative, Gene Green (D-TX, 29th district). We weren’t able to attend the one in our home town, we had our priorities….Astro’s tickets! So we drove 30 miles to a neighboring community in Pasadena to hear what he had to say about Health Care, Cap and Tax, and other miscellaneous topics. We turned the corner nearing the small community building and were surprised by the number of police vehicles lining the streets. We were an hour early and counted 18 police/sheriff’s vehicles. It seemed overkill for the 5 people waiting at the door with no protesters in sight. The up side was there was no fear of anyone vandalizing our truck. We were required to show photo ID at the door to gain entry, proving we were in his district. The irony in that requirement is that Gene Green voted against showing a photo ID to vote in elections.
The room was very small,72 chairs were set up. It filled quickly with standing room only, at least doubling attendance. The room was filled 15 minutes before time to start, so he started early. Median age in the room was around 60. Rep. Green had helped write HR 3200 and had a handout ready for us, the spin began. He gave his opening statements explaining his reasoning behind the Health Care Bill and Cap and Tax (which he is also strongly in favor of). The questions and comments ranged widely, but most were centered around Health care reform with several senior citizens voicing concerns. No one in the room spoke in favor of it. Most of the crowd was respectful. There were a couple of people who were angry and even Gene turned red in the face a couple of times. He didn’t take too kindly to one gentleman calling our current president a socialist. He didn’t take the bait, handled himself really well. We were both very impressed with the way he responded to the overwhelming opposition in the room. Our impression of him is that he is really a nice guy, but as one attendee pointed out, he is going to vote yes on both bills regardless of what “we the people” want. Gene didn’t disagree.
In our opinion when our representative no longer represents the majority of the people in his district, it is time for him to think about life after politics. It is our responsibility to make our vote count. All of congress needs to be reminded that we aren’t a nanny state yet, they still work for us. Stand up! Be counted. Let your voice be heard. DON”T TREAD ON US!
Carol and I are very low-key. We don’t draw much attention to ourselves. We are conservative and frugal (our kids always said we were cheap). We have dinner out occasionally and sometimes go to a movie (if there is one WE can agree on). We do like to take vacations and have had opportunities to travel around the country to see family and friends. It is such a great moment when we taste something that reminds us of where we have been. A really great burger reminds us of that time we went with Neil and Tanya to a burger joint near Shaver Lake. A great cup of coffee brings back memories of watching Old Faithful erupt again, while sitting out on the deck of Old Faithful Lodge with David and Pam.
I think the first time we ever had Starbucks was in Fresno, California with Tanya and Neil. Carol thinks maybe it was with David and Pam in Sausalito, California. Either way, our addiction started in California. Once we had a Starbucks, no other coffee shop could compare. When we returned to the great state of Texas we would drive 30 miles into Houston for a fix. If we had only known what it would do to us. We have driven lots of extra miles in search of a Starbucks for a fix of caffeine. Our budget and our waistlines have also suffered, (I miss my feet). You should see us maneuver around the parking lots when we are pulling Belle. Sometimes Carol just gets out and starts walking into the store while I circle the drive-thru and see who gets service first. Not really, but it’s almost that bad. We are proud that we were some of the FIRST to get coffee at the then new Starbucks in Lufkin Texas. Almost like a badge of honor. We have thought seriously about putting a sign on the back of Belle saying “follow us to the next “.
Yes, we are Starbucks addicts. Our grandchildren try to count how many Starbucks we visit on our travels. We are enabled by our family and friends who buy us gift cards and gifts containing Starbucks coffee. (please keep it up) When someone is addicted as badly as we are, gifts are easy. Our kids purchased us a treasure a few years ago. We use it daily. We are proud owners of a coffee maker that grinds the beans (Starbucks house blend), then brews the fresh coffee and is ready when I get up in the morning. LIFE IS GOOD! We bought a Starbucks Gold Card ($25 annual fee). They definitely have lost money on us. We get 10% off all purchases for a year. We are waaaay ahead!
Carol and I started naming all the cities where we have had Starbucks. We had to go to our big US map where we track our journeys. Here we go, in no special order, nor is this list complete:
Fresno CA, Baton Rouge LA, Los Angeles CA, Oklahoma City OK, Flagstaff AZ, Galveston TX, Albuquerque NM, Clear Lake City TX, Amarillo TX, San Antonio TX, Hewitt TX, Charlotte NC, College Station TX, Fairbanks AK, Forrest City AR, Boulder CO, Slidell LA, St Louis MO, Baytown TX, Jackson MS, Visalia CA, Gainesville TX, San Francisco CA, Houston TX, Salt Lake City UT, Kemah TX, Bernalillo NM, Beaumont TX, Waco TX, Niagara Falls ONT. Canada, Lufkin TX, Lake Charles LA, Hot Springs AR, Kearney NE, Ardmore OK, New Orleans LA, Mt Vernon IL, Sausalito CA, Denton TX, Bakersfield CA, Moore OK, Las Vegas NV, Texas City TX, Durango CO, Huntsville TX, Dallas TX, Ennis TX, Birmingham AL, Texarkana AR, San Diego CA, Denver CO, Effingham IL, Hammond LA, Evansville IN, and counting.
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Nelson and Carol
As I was lying on the ground tonight looking under a picnic table, it struck me. I am married to a serial hobbyist! The latest thing “we” are into is geocaching, which is basically using geographic coordinates to find things other people have hidden. My mind began to trying to remember all the hobbies Nelson has had over the years. I think the first was the motorcycle we bought when we were first married. It was stolen soon after Marie’s birth. Gardening came with the purchase of our house, 30 years ago. It is a hobby we both still enjoy. Nelson grows the best tomatoes in the neighborhood. Photography classes came next. He still uses those skills he learned. We carry 2 cameras, his and hers. His is more likely to contain beautiful scenery, people…not so much. He and Marie took scuba diving lessons together when she was a teenager. My home is peppered with stained glass pieces he has made. He has fished off and on over the years. We had a boat for a time. Woodworking has always been a favorite. Nobody talks about the number of knives he has collected all his life. And now, he makes them also. With that, of course, comes leather working. His mother taught him to weave baskets, which he has passed on the the grandchildren. Things heated up when the kids left home. I waited in the car while he went in search of Hot Wheels Treasure Hunts all over the Houston area (for the grandchildren). Then there were beanie babies and e-bay finds. Antiquing brought with it a collection of old fishing lures and equipment. We eventually had our own antique booth to resell some of it. I guess that counts as a hobby, too. Baseball hit us hard about 10 years ago. We have Astro’s tickets along with shelves and boxes of memorabilia. We also began visiting Major League ball parks a few years ago. Nelson obtained his concealed handgun license and has been upgrading his firepower (as he calls it). The one thing that we have done all through our marriage is travel. We stayed in tents, pop up trailers, campers, hotel rooms and now, Belle. We travel well together and obviously enjoy the same things. So, as I was trudging through the brush and poison ivy tonight (he’s allergic) to find something “tied up” in a tree, I realized how fortunate I am to have a husband who is interested in so many things. It makes for an interesting life. One of his quirks is that he rarely gets rid of anything. He says that I should be thankful for that. Most of all he would tell you it doesn’t make him a bad person.
Coming up on a year ago, Carol and I had a important decision to make. Stay or go? This massive storm was about to pound us, with expected 12-20 foot storm surge. I had been asked to be on the “Hurricane Response Team” so I had made a decision. She didn’t want me to worry about her while I was working (speaking from experience, all daylight hours) so she went to Lorena to stay with Marie and Keith until further notice.
I had planned to stay at Mont Belvieu Station with other co-workers as we had done in the past. We were released from work to take care of things at home Thursday mid-morning, and told we couldn’t stay at the station. Carol had already left for Lorena, so I was left to ride it out at home. I went to get Belle and bring her home and stayed connected, I set the rear feet down to stabilize her.
With the truck and trailer parked in the driveway, I proceeded to complete the window covers for the house with plywood and Ply-Lox clips. Friday was spent picking up anything that would fly in the wind. The storm was expected to hit Friday night late or early Saturday morning. I had everything I needed to weather the storm, but my girl friend.
I received many phone calls from family and friends, checking on me. No, I am not Crazy, yes I will be fine. All was ok at this point. I watched TV untill the cable went out about 11:30pm, so I went to bed. I knew I needed to go to sleep before the wind started. I woke up hearing a loud roar from the wind at 3:00am, power was out. I went into the living room to look outside using a flashlight. Flashes of light off the rain as it went horizontal across the yard. I was looking for tree limbs or trees on the ground in the front and back yard. We were doing good so far. I cracked open the window to get some air flow, nice and cool. I went back to sleep at some point.
At about 5:30am I woke up with this “total silence” it was very strange. It was getting light, so I went ouside to look around. What a mess, but it had been worse after Alicia in 1983. No trees were down, we were very lucky. 4 of 5 houses around us had trees in or on their house. The truck and trailer was riding the storm very well.
The wind started from the other direction, not as bad as it had been, but very strong. Again I could see the rain going horizontal. I sat out this part of the storm trying to nap and talking to “everyone”. My cell phone worked fine through out the storm. I had several co-workers check on me, or I checked on them.
I was releived when daylight came. I could see the neighborhood better. “WOW” what a mess. We were missing a Hot Tub cover, I know I had strapped it down.
My shop and our house was good, I found our cover in the neighbors back yard.
Work was crazy as expected, working 24/7 as needed. I pulled our rig out to Mont Belvieu, and connected to the power we had from the station generator.
Carol was ready to come home, no water, sewer, or power in Baytown. We can make it. come on home. I pulled our rig back home and parked in the driveway again. My girl friend came home and we setup camp. A cool front blew through which was wonderfull. After a couple of days we were able to borrow a 3k watt generator from work. We also had unlimited ice from work, this helped us save most of the food from the freezer. We had been eating from this supply for a couple days already. We needed to do something with our fresh peaches we had just stored that summer. Lets make jelly, what a job that was. The only light was from the generator, and it was “HOT”, I don’t remember how many jars we did that night, but it is something we will allways remember.
This is where the adventure begins, we would discover whether we could survive living together in Belle. We had just purchased her in June, and had used her a couple of times. We were fortunate compared to our neighbors. 16 days after the storm, the power came back on. Work had gone back to normal or close to normal.
We did it, we can live together in the close quarters of a 25ft. Airstream travel trailer. We decided to take some time off work, so checked out everything in the house after the power was back on. We broke camp, packed up Belle and went camping in the Hill Country. More memories to go in the “Book Of Belle”
I had always thought “you can buy a whole lot of hotel rooms for the price of an RV”. My mind was changed when our children moved away from home..and they took the grandchildren with them. It was hard to have “one on one” time with the little ones in a hotel room or in their homes. We also had acquired a chihuahua along the way that had to be kenelled if we were gone.
While watching the travel channel one day long ago, my husband fell in love with Airstream RVs. So when we began to talk about buying an RV, there was really only one choice. Sure, we looked at “others”. But, he was stuck….only Airstream would do. We couldn’t afford a new one, they run $50,000 and up. So, we began an E-bay and Craigs list search. We located one in our area, actually about 100 miles away. We had never been inside a used one until we looked at this one. It needed some TLC, but was in our price range. We purchased it with several others on a waiting list behind us.
Our whole goal was to create lifetime memories with our grandchildren. So, we named her “Belle” as in silver bell or tinkerbell, etc. She as become a part of our family and the grandchildren treat her as such. They love taking trips in Belle and we drag her to their houses so we have quality time with the kids. She also comes with her very own “snack box”. That seems to be their favorite part.
For those of you who want specifics, she is a 1996 Excella model, 25 ft. in length. Perfect size for us and 2 or 3 grandkid, although we have had 5 in there at one time. She pulls like a dream and I will admit, it is great to sleep in your own bed every night even when you are away from home.
A couple of interesting notes, several people have stopped where we have her stored to ask if she is for sale. Just recently we were stopped at an intersection near Waco. We thought something was wrong, but the other driver wanted to know if she was for sale. She is a great conversation piece, several people have asked about her at various campsites. I give tours because I remember how hard to was to see inside one while we were looking. We saw a lot of them in Colorado this summer, but rarely see them in Texas.
We have learned that every Airstream comes with a legacy passed from owner to owner. We are Belle’s third owners. Both couples before us had to stop traveling due to health concerns. We love having her along for the ride. She already has too many memories attached to her for us to sell.
When we asked our 11 yr. old grandson, Jake, where he wanted to go on his trip, his choice was to take “Belle” somewhere where there is snow. The only place we could think of (within driving distance) where can you find snow in July was the Rocky Mountains. We have wanted to go back to Ouray ,CO for years. So we told him we knew the perfect place for hiking, rafting, mountains, mountains on top of mountains and 4 wheel trails everywhere. ( Boy stuff!) Carol and I had passed through in 1985 with our friends David and Pam and our 4 kids (all grown now) in tow. Another reason for choosing Ouray was the possiblity of riding the Durango/Silverton Railroad which had been a dream of ours for many years. Jake also wanted to “pan” for gold and get rich (the rich part didn’t happen). He didn’t have any idea that we had invited his cousin Garret to go with us. They are best friends and only see each other a couple times a year, both very 11 years old. We started planning this trip last winter, around Jake’s baseball, my work schedule, school, and ended up choosing mid July. We went on-line and searched for information on camp grounds in the area.(Ouray KOA was great) We purchased our tickets for the train ride and planned the 2 day trip from Baytown, TX. where we live. We stopped in Waco to pick up the boys and spent our first night at Abilene KOA, where their best feature was the refreshing pool. With a quick “gift shop” stop in Ft. Sumner for the Billy the Kid Gift Shop Musuem, where the boys purchased their “coonskin caps” , the second night was spent at Albuquerque North KOA . The third morning they loaded up on free pancake breakfast before continuing on over the pass to Ouray. We arrived Saturday evening and set up camp at Ouray KOA. After a quick trip to the visitors center we planned our week. We would go to the Gold Mine and gift shop on Sunday, finishing up the day swimming in the Hot Springs . Monday we scheduled a Jeep trip to the top of Imagene Pass @ 13300 ft elev. (snowball fight). Tuesday we rode the Durango/Silverton train and, of course, visited the gift shops at both locations. Wednesday we rafted the Uncompangre River with Rigs Fly Shop out of Ridgeway. Of course the boys hit their gift shop while we waited. That evening we climbed to the top of Box Canyon and rewarded ourselves with iced coffee from Mouse’s . Thursday we packed up and spent the night back at Albuquerque KOA. The boys had voted it number 1 KOA on the trip. Friday night was spent at Amarillo KOA so we could go to the Palo Duro Canyon. The stage show in the canyon, Texas, was great. The boys didn’t spend much $$ but did come back with some unique items. They bought matching Coon skin caps (no animal was harmed in the making of these caps) the second day out and wore them 24 hours a day. They discovered Geodes at the mine that we broke open to discover what was inside. Each got a lucky rabbits foot. Garret bought several for friends and famiy at home. With the small pocket knives I taught them to whittle. They made sharp sticks to keep the bears away,( it worked) ! Both found a few flakes of GOLD ( a whole new blog) in the river. Most important was the time spent together doing things that some people will never take the time to do…making lifetime memories.
Midlife is Good
