TO HOUSTON WE GO

Well, it was more like through Houston we go and what a trip it was. Houston is a super big city with lots of traffic and I must say the drivers here drive like they are in the Daytona 500. They will cut you off in a fraction of a second, so the drive was pretty intense. Driving a 38ft MH and towing a car was not fun and I wasn't even doing the driving. The GPS told us to take I 45 for the quickest route through Houston to the Conroe area where we were going to be staying.  David decided he waned to go through a Blue Beacon truck wash to wash off the salt from the beach area. The map showed it was off of I 410, so away we went. Our first of many mistakes was turning too soon after getting off of  I 410. We ended up in an industrial warehouse area where the streets were under construction and we were sort of trapped riding around trying to find our way out. Driving through numerous potholes we finally found our way to a regular street and then we saw the Blue Beacon truck wash. There were dozens of 18 wheelers parked all over the place and we couldn't seem to find the end of the line for the truck wash entrance. David drove all the way around looking for the entrance and somehow we ended up at the gate to the PILOT air fill station AND WE WERE SITTING THERE AT THE GATE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. The truckers around us who were all facing the opposite (right) direction must have been laughing their heads off at us. There we sat with the gate in the down position with us unable to move. Since we were towing we could not back up. We just sat there for a few minutes. We could hear the laughter and funny comments. David being the smart guy he is called the Pilot gas station and told then of our "problem". We could hear them laughing too. BUT, they raised the gate and we were out of there, still looking for the entrance to the truck wash. Around the corner we went and there it was. So we joined the line just like all the other truckers and waited. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to get the MH washed and we didn't even have to unhook the car. YAY!!!

 We finally made it to our CG in Conroe/Montgomery which is north of Houston. It was a KOA CG and very nice. It was huge with about 250 sites plus cabins. The sites were very nice concrete slabs with lots of run. The weather was not in our favor however and we had a cold and rainy stay. The wind was pretty strong and during the night we had a horrible thunder storm with thunder, lightening and hail. We were worried about a forthcoming tornado. There's nothing like sitting in a big metal box in the middle of a treeless CG during a bad thunder and lightening storm to make you nervous. But all was well after a couple of hours.

Knowing we were going to be in the Houston area for a couple of days I had contacted a old friend and neighbor of mine from Miami. His family and mine lived next door to each other when we were in high school. His name was Sten and he was a year younger than me, but we just hit it off as friends and had a lot of fun doing crazy things. We decided one time around the holidays that we wanted to cook ourselves a fancy duck dinner  all by ourselves. It was pretty comical after hours of work and preparation the first slice of the duck fell on the floor and the dog got it. We sat at opposite ends of a 7 ft long table with just the 2 of us. Crazy! Then another time he asked if I wanted to help him with a kid's Halloween party at his church and as a costume I make us a outfit to wear. One outfit to wear. We went as Siamese Hippie Twins. The shirt had 2 arm holes and we tied a rope to our waists to keep us from moving in opposite directions. We carried a big yellow flower (it was the 60's) and all went well until we realized we couldn't manage a room full of kids with us tied together. And then there was the problem when one of us had to go to the bathroom. It was a good thing I had another shirt on underneath.

Anyway Sten and his sister Sandra met us for dinner at Outback and we had a great time catching up on both of our families and what we had been doing for the last 46 years.

The CG we were staying in was also close to the manufacturer of my Innova quilting machines and when we checked it turned our they were almost right behind the CG. Unfortunatley, they were not open, so we couldn't visit.

We spent a couple of nights here and then headed for San Antonio.