Any comments?

We would love to see your comments, so if you want to leave one but don't want to open a Google account, here are instructions I copied from Carrie's blog.

"When you go to the comment screen, at the bottom, you choose your identity from a drop down menu. If you do not have a Google Email Account, you can choose 'Name/URL'. Then you can type in your name (please use a last initial in case I know more than one person with your name), and Voila! a post with your name on it!"

Zack Time

Visited Carrie and Stephen and gave Zack some grandparent's guidance all day Sunday; going back tonight. Carrie is doing an outstanding job of sharing Zack's adventures and pictures on her blog http://thestavinohafamily.blogspot.com/.
Check it out if you aren't already a regular reader.

Don't worry, granddaughters, we will be up to see you next week.

"To the moon, Alice!"

One of the RV parks we stay at when visiting Carrie is just a few miles from the Johnson Space Center. We finally decided to go for the tour yesterday. Well worth the time and money, although give yourself more than the 3 hours we allowed. We paid an additional $3.00 each to become members of Space Center Houston. This membership (complete with photo ID) will allow us to return each and every day for the next 365 days for free admission ($19.95 each) and free parking ($5.00). What a deal! Surely we'll be back in Houston some time before 09/30/10! (Tonya--I'll be back this week for at least a few more hours.)




Actual size mock-up of the shuttle, used for astronaut training and design engineering (and changes while in space in case of a "glitch" along the way).




Actual size mock-up of the space station.



Bottom of the huge Saturn V Rocket used to send the moon shots.




I figure living in an RV qualifies us to live in the space station. (Tonya--Not!) As you can see I am pretty much ready to go.

We have a winner.

Actually, several winners of the different pool tournaments (amateur 8-ball, amateur 9-ball, amateur team 8-ball, amateur wheelchair 8-ball, amateur women's 8-ball, amateur scotch doubles 8-ball, professional women's 9-ball, professional one-pocket, professional 8-ball, professional 10-ball) this week in Galveston. To no one's surprise that are pool fans, the players from the Philippines won most of the money, although Mika Immonen from Finland won the featured 10-Ball event. I stayed until about 2:00 a.m. this morning until all the trophies and cash were awarded (thinking they may have a spectator award, which I was sure to win). Unfortunately they didn't, so the USA missed its chance to get in the winners circle.


This is the TV pit where the feature matches were streamed live on the internet. The other tables were where the amateur events were held.


This is the Pro side of the venue, where all the professional events were played.





I was in the TV pit so often I got to know Cornelius the cameraman.

Now that that's over we are going to stay here a couple more weeks to do some visiting with Carrie and Stephen and get some more Zack time. Tonya found our camera yesterday so future pictures will be better than the last few I took with my phone. MoMance may be small but there are lots of nooks and crannies to stow/lose things.

On the beach

where we used to run.... We are going to be staying here in League City TX for the next few weeks. There is a huge pool tournament extravaganza going on at the beautiful Moody Gardens Convention Center in Galveston (note the youtube address in the last post you didn't go to). The event started on Friday and will go through next Monday. All day long there are pro and amateur tournaments, high stakes gambling all night long. Needless to say I spend about 14 hours a day (all my butt will stand) at the convention center watching. League City is about the same distance from Carrie's house so Tonya has been to see the Z'ster and will be going even more after tomorrow when Carrie's work schedule slows down. Well, my butt is rested now and I've got to get ready to go so I don't miss anything.

Another place, another song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2tgVAML2gE

Actually we're 25 miles north but nobody ever sang a song about League City.

Back in Texas

After a little unplanned adventure in Oklahoma we made it to Texas, spending last night in Madisonville, about 100 miles north of Houston.

In Oklahoma our GPS routed us on State Highway 63, a shortcut from westbound US 270 to southbound US 69. This was a state highway after all, how bad could it be? The answer, we found out, is pretty damn bad. State Hwy 63 is 22 miles of rough two-lane blacktop with no shoulder, lots of 90 degree blind curves, and two one-lane bridges.

About 5 miles into this shortcut the left rear leaf spring on MoMance broke causing the axle to shift, tires to start rubbing together, and no telling what else. I didn't realize it in the truck and would have continued driving, but lucky for us Tonya was following in the car and saw something was amiss. She tried calling me (no cell service) then passed me in a no passing zone (it's all a no passing zone) honking her horn. I stopped where I could, which was right in the middle of my lane.

Fortunately there was very little traffic at this time of day. More good luck as there were two nice young guys who stopped shortly after we did, jumped out of their truck, and hit the ground. They spotted the broken spring before I did, and since they had experience with ranch and oilfield trailers, knew immediately that I was going to have to pull both wheels off the back axle, tie up the broken side, and run on the other 4 wheels to somewhere I could get it fixed. They helped pull off and load the wheels; the shock held the broken side up off the ground so we didn't have to tie it up. I will be passing their help forward at the very first opportunity.

We eased on at about 20 mph for about 14 miles when one of the four tires I was running on picked up a nail and started leaking air. Luckily, our tire pressure monitoring system alerted me so I knew it was getting low before it blew out. With only one tire left on that side (meant to have three) it wouldn't have been long before we had no tires on that side. A side road suddenly appeared so I could change it without being in the "highway" (I just happened to have a couple of good tires in the back of the truck).

Just around the next curve we found Pittsburg, a town of a few hundred people, an out-of-business bar, a gas station (with convenience store) that doesn't take credit cards, and a bar that is in business. We pulled into the parking lot of the out-of-business bar and decided to make our repairs there. Lucky for us all we had to do was crank up the generator and we were home for the night. After setting up I went on a fact-finding mission to the local watering hole. After a few beers and a few games of pool I got some leads on where to get a spring, and also found out that country singer Reba McEntire graduated from high school three miles up the road in Kiowa OK, although she doesn't claim that as her hometown. I was playing pool with a guy that had dated her sister, Suzy Q.

On Tuesday morning I found a spring in McAlester, only about 15 miles away, and got a new tire (the nail had punctured the outside edge of the tread which means it wasn't repairable). In the afternoon I installed the new spring and replaced the wheels. We decided just to go to an RV site in Reba's unclaimed hometown for the night and hit the road again on Wednesday. I guess the repair job is okay since we traveled 300 miles and nothing fell off.

I would say all in all things turned out great. We avoided some potentially really bad problems, got to meet several nice people, found a state highway not to take, and were home every night.

We're not in

Kansas anymore Toto, we're in Poteau. That's a town in Eastern Oklahoma where we have been visiting our friends Scotty and Rose Price. They have a beautiful home on a hilltop with a pool and a 20 mile view. Played some pool in their pool house that is also a pool room. Scotty grilled some steaks on the barbie and Rose made a fantastic meal which we ate on the patio under the full moon. I'm pretty sure that's about as good as it gets. Leaving this morning as soon as the fog lifts.

For the younger generation of readers that didn't get the last post go to the link I have added under the picture.

The sun is breaking through, "A little traveling music please maestro."

Standin' on the corner...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baDi3WpQZnI

With our car

we did rejoin. That must mean we're back in --- ------. Just a little quiz to see which of you readers has been paying attention. Poolplayer Charlie "Hillbilly" Bryant said his daddy always told him. "It doesn't cost anything to pay attention". I wish I had paid attention to where I put the camera since it's not in the car. This has given me an idea though. If you have a digital camera, print out a sheet that says "This camera belongs to .......... Phone Number........." Take a picture of it and leave that picture in the camera just in case you leave it somewhere and an honest soul finds it.

We have stayed at some beautiful parks the last few days. Lake Elmo Reserve near Minneapolis, Clear Lake State Park in Iowa, and Prairie flower Corps of Engineer Park near Des Moines IA (clue, people, pay attention). Heading out today. Will let you know where we end up in a couple of days.