Fri - Mon: We Can Slow Down Now!

After we left the Houston Space Center on Thursday we headed north on I-45 toward Conroe. A short way up the freeway we stopped at an AT&T store to get a new phone. Gary's phone kept turning itself off or dropping calls while he was in the middle of a conversation. He had been talking about replacing it for some time and when we couldn't use it for the internet (to do this blog!) and had all the other problems we decided it was time. It took awhile to get everything transferred to the new phone but it is already making life much better!
Unfortunately, we hit the commute traffic for Houston when we got back on the interstate so Gary had some challenging driving to do. Thursday night was spent at a Flying J Truck stop just a few miles from the town where the Houston temple is located. Can you believe we even ate dinner at a Denny's???? We actually got good service and good food .... I think the truck drivers probably would not put up with anything less.

Isn't the Houston Temple beautiful? We drove straight to the temple Friday morning and parked in their bus parking while we showered and got dressed. The endowment session had already started so Gary and I did sealings instead. It wasgreat and we got to meet some very nice Texans!

I wish my pictures could show how pretty the area was - this was the fountain in front of the temple.

After a few hours at the temple Gary and I were famished. We forgot that we hadn't eaten breakfast so our next stop was an Arby's restaurant for lunch. We are now on the relaxing part of our trip - no hurry to get anywhere special, except to visit family in Conroe for the weekend and then a March 14th committment in Pahrump, NV!!! When we arrived at Debi & Manny's house on Friday afternoon we had a little bit of time to ourselves until Debi got home from work. It was great seeing her and not much time went by before Manny got home from his out of town trip - he had been in New Orleans area for work! Later that night their son MJ stopped by with his wife Destiny and their two children. I goofed - I didn't take a picture of them while they were here for dinner with all of us.

This is their oldest daughter, Heather, with her husband James. She and their children stopped by on Saturday and spent some time visiting. He does pest control but has a hobby of making BBQ for fundraisers and cookoffs! On Sunday we got a call from them saying that Heather was going to the ER because she had been in pain all day. We think it might be appendicitis. I will be calling Debi back tonight (Monday) to see how she is doing.

Jennifer is the second child and this is her husband Chris. They have just one child and she is a cutie. On Sunday night they invited us to their house for a Texas BBQ - he is a great cook. They work with Heather and James to help them at the fundraisers and cookoffs. Chris has lived in Texas all his life and is a down home cowboy!

Heather, Jennifer, Stormy & DJ (two of Heather's children) came in to see our motorhome along with Debi. Have you noticed that Debi and Manny's children have names almost the same as ours? We were waiting to see if they named their son Mark but he was named Manfred (MJ) instead so we have 2 out of 3 the same!

Saturday night we wanted to take Manny & Debi out to dinner (Mexican, of course) but they ended up treating us to the dinner as Gary helped Manny change 2 water heaters that day and they were quite challenging. How often do you find water heaters in the attic? Getting the two old ones out and bringing the two new ones in was a job since they had to be brought up and down two flights of stairs!

Debi and I spent some time shopping - we looked through the clearance racks at Kohl's and Ross after she ran a few errands. We did find some good buys.  Between the 2 of us we spent $60 and SAVED $440!!  80% off then 25% off then 15% off does wonders!

When we did go out for dinner I tried something new - Fried Avocado stuffed with Chicken!  Gary tried something new as well - Shrimp Poblano.  Both our meals were delicious.

Monday morning Debi and Manny had to go back to work so Gary and I took our time - at least I did.  We look forward to seeing them again and hope they can come out west in the near future.  Gary and Manny are very much alike and got along just fine.  Debi and I enjoyed our time together, too.  It's too bad we live so far apart.  Thanks for the great weekend, Manny & Debi!

Leaving a little later in the morning helped us miss the main commute though the interstate was still busy.  The rain wasn't too bad and we were out of it in about 1/2 hour.

 
We decided to stay at a campground tonight so that we can take just the Tacoma into Austin tomorrow.  We got to drive on Texas Highway 71 (not the interstate!) and it was a good change of scenery.  Along the way we witnessed the large area of burned trees and properties from the wildfires that Texas had last year.  They came within a mile of the campground where we are staying, just outside Bastrop, Texas.
 In our travels today we stopped by the Camping World in Katy to pick up the refrigerator part that we had ordered two weeks ago.  We also got some more self-leveling caulking to repair the part of the roof that had leaked in our bad rainstorm last week. Gary went to work making the repairs to the RV once we got settled into the campground.  We couldn't get the refrigerator started again after Gary changed the part so we had a local RV repairman come look at the problem - I didn't see that the fuse had blown and all we needed to do was replace it.  I guess Gary better look at it with me next time!
We will relax tonight and look at the travel guides to see what we want to explore the next few weeks - we have a lot of country to see along the way.