Month: May 2023

We left Alabama in late February on our way to Fredericksburg. Houston is home to many friends so we stopped there on our way.

Rudy and Carolyn live near Baytown in the South East part of the Houston area. They have a covered parking space at the corner of a 200-acre plot, part of a much larger dispersed sod farm. The sod farm is owned by a family, Mark runs the business, and he and Rudy are friends.

The sod farm has several thousand acres spread out in this area. The covered RV parking spaces in the corner of this plot are big enough for three RVs. Rudy and Carolyn are under the bigger cover and Mark’s chief mechanic and his family are under the other one. Rudy fixes Aqua Hot RV heating systems and there is plenty of room for visitors (like us) and people bringing their motorhomes in for service.

Having someone living at the field helps prevent unwanted visitors from driving on the grass field. The field is irrigated. While we were there Maggie enjoyed the wide open field, running and chasing her tennis balls.

We went to see Scott and Carol and Bill Blackmon who are all on the far north side of the Houston area. It took almost an hour and a half to get there, all on several interstate segments. Scott smoked ribs for dinner. Carol made salad and side dishes. It was a wonderful dinner and fun to see everyone. Scott and Carol have a dog named Harley. He is smaller than Maggie but weighs about the same, a solid dog. We put down Maggie’s water bowl and she shared it with Harley. But when she tried to get a sip from Harley’s water bowl he was not so willing to share. There was some barking and snarling and snapping. Maggie’s lip was bleeding a bit. She retreated to my lap for first aid. It quickly stopped bleeding and then all was OK again now that boundaries had been set.

After dinner and dessert and some chat time, we headed back to the sod farm. There is a new toll-way around the east side of Houston. We did not have a Texas Toll-Way Pass so they bill you by mail after taking your car’s photo as you drive by. It took the same time but was longer. Very little traffic, very easy. It took two months to get a toll bill in the mail.

On Saturday we went to the Monument Inn in La Porte, Texas. Rudy drove. We followed an unfathomable route (at least to me) down this road and that until things started looking familiar and there it was, right on the Houston Ship Channel, just 45 minutes away, just over there in Texas. We have been here several times. Keith and Jo joined us for dinner.

Dinner was excellent as it always is. I tried their crab-stuffed jalapenos appetizer and a bowl of wonderful seafood gumbo. The stuffed jalapenos are large and very tasty, you get 6 for $10. And the gumbo was $7. And to get rolls and cinnamon buns too. I brought 4 of the stuffed jalapenos home. We always enjoy dinner at the Monument Inn.

After dinner, we all went back to Rudy and Carolyn’s to visit more. Keith and Jo got to meet Maggie. The trip home was across the Ship Channel on the free ferry and then just 20 minutes to home. Go figure.

Rudy is driving the ferry.

We were just along for the ride.

Good friends and a nice visit with all of them.

On Sunday we headed for Fredericksburg. We had to go across the south side of the Houston metro area on I-10. It takes almost an hour and Sunday traffic is not too bad. Half of the route to Fredericksburg is state and US highways which make it a pretty nice 4-5 hr drive.

We go across the far south edges of the Austin metro area. It used to be mostly rural but is quickly changing with new residential, commercial, and industrial development. Tesla’s factory is down there somewhere, just another immense building surrounded by others. Where does the water and power come from to support all of this? This used to be a brief slowdown, but now it takes more and more time. Lots of construction, and eventually a new East-West toll road to speed things up.

Turn left at Johnson City and another half hour or so to Fredericksburg. When we first came here it was all rural ranch land. Cows liked it and someone discovered grapes do too. Ranchlands are now dozens of vineyards and wineries owned and developed by newcomers and investors. It is a huge new industry here and a big tourist attraction.

At home, it has been snowing heavily, then raining, then snowing again.

When we were kids, no one had a snow blower it was just a shovel and the snow went up on the pile next to the driveway, a snow canyon just wide enough for the family car.

It almost looked like this, for a five-year-old the piles sure seemed this high. And some winters they may have been.

We arrived, got settled in, started deploying the accessories, and checked in with Peggy, Norm, Mike, and Jackie. Springtime in Fredericksburg is quite pleasant and we are glad to be here.

The girls snuggle up for a quiet morning.

More Later, Much Love,

Roger and Susan and Maggie

This year in Orange Beach we had visitors. Usually, we are there on our own, we make new friends every year and often they are back when we return. This year we met a couple from North Carolina, Curt and Julia. They had two small dogs so we saw them often while walking Maggie. They were two sites away from us and are returning next winter. Curt and I went to see the new Avatar movie one afternoon. It was a good movie. We enjoyed their company.

This year there were many more electric bicycles and three-wheeled trikes like ours than we have seen in the past. There were many more electric bikes and trikes than non-electric ones. It probably is representative of the age of most of the folks in the park at that time of the year. If an e-bike gets older folks out and moving then they are a great addition.

Surprisingly, the winter is considered the “off-season” in Orange Beach. The condos and the RV Parks and the State Park are full of mostly older snowbirds, not like the crazy summer days with active families having adventures, eating out, and shopping every day. Family time at the beach in the summer is the “high season.”

In January our friends Jeff and Sandy from North Carolina stopped by on their way to Arizona as did Hans and Marjet from South Carolina who were going to Arizona with Jeff and Sandy.

I went to see the USS Alabama Battleship one day with Jeff and Sandy. I followed the tour routes one way, they went a different way. We didn’t have lunch there.

There was a seaplane launching catapult at the stern end of the battleship and a crane to hoist the plane back on board after it landed in the water. It seems like it would have to be pretty calm for this to work.

And way down in the engineering spaces at the bottom of the ship, there were eight boilers each with six burners. The Alabama was able to reach 25 knots on only 4 boilers. The top speed of 27.5 knots took all eight boilers. The fuel capacity of the ship is 2.1 million gallons. That is more than 11,000 times the fuel capacity of our motorhome!

It must have been very hot place to work.

And the boilers needed fresh water. The ship was able to convert 40,000 gallons of seawater to fresh water every day for the boilers and crew. The ship’s water tanks held 118,000 gallons of fresh water.

We had a potluck supper one evening. We made Barbecue Shrimp using a recipe from Pascal’s Manale Restaurant in New Orleans. Jeff and Sandy brought southern gumbo from a local seafood place. Hans and Marjet brought salad. It was fun. Way more food than we needed which is always the case with a potluck. We had enough leftover shrimp for several more meals.

Hans and Marjet have two Goldendoodles, Jazzy and her son, Storm. Storm’s father is Jax and his father was Calhoun. Maggie’s father was also Jax so Storm and Maggie have a common grandfather, Calhoun.

The dogs all got along quite well, especially Maggie and Jazzy. They both piled onto Marjet’s lap one evening when they joined us for a campfire.

Jeff and Sandy and Hans and Marjet left for Arizona. We got back to our everyday routines.

Susan and I drove over to Pensacola, FL about 45 minutes away to get fresh scallops. Our destination was Joe Patti’s. It is a big fish market. They also have a nearby restaurant.

Inside the fresh fish market, there was a very long counter with every kind of fish you might want. You took a number and when a counter person called your number, you told them what you wanted and you moved to the appropriate place on the counter. I was looking for sea scallops for a special dinner (our 47th anniversary). They had just what we wanted. Dinner was wonderful.

In February my cousin Sue and her husband Lloyd came for a visit. They stayed in a nearby condo. They had been spending a couple of winter months in Panama City Beach, Florida for many years. Changes in the condo rental market there had them looking for other options. So they were exploring Orange Beach and Gulf Shores choices.

We went out for lunch at the Sea ‘n Suds restaurant which is on the beach in Gulf Shores. Food is good and you are on the beach. And several other meals as well. We played a couple of Quiddler games too.

There were many condos to check out and it seems there is no easy way to look at and compare several choices at one time. They had to call lots of different sources, most had no units to look at, they were all occupied. So they had their work cut out for them. They found a couple of choices that would work. They are working on what will work for them. One thing is for sure, they want to get away for a good chunk of the Minnesota winter.

We did manage to get to the beach one day while they were here, the very green lawn anyway.

Puzzles

We bought a puzzle for Maggie. Something for her to solve to get treats.

She figured it out quickly. We have two more puzzles for her, more complicated. She seems to like the challenge and figures them out without too much trouble.

After Sue and Lloyd left we had just a couple of weeks left in Orange Beach. The flowers were in bloom at the RV Resort.

We were off to Houston to see friends there and then on to Fredericksburg. But first Maggie needed her second visit to the groomer for a trim.

Still the teddy bear look but all trimmed up. She got a bath, her nails trimmed too. Maggie is 23 weeks old and 25 lbs at this time. Her puppy teeth are getting replace with adult teeth. We managed to find a couple baby teeth and then lost them again.

We made our reservations for next year, got out for dinner with Curt and Julia and started getting ready to leave.

More Later, Much Love.

Roger and Susan and Maggie.