March 25 - April 1.  Lake View RV Resort, Houston, TX

After an overnight stay in Scott, Louisiana (a campground waaaay too close to I-10 with a ton of traffic noise), we arrived in Houston.  As we traveled along I-10 and entered into Texas,we pulled into a rest area for a break and some lunch.  Imagine our surprise when we found the Blue Elbow Swamp and a great wooden path to explore & stretch our legs.

Turtles in the Blue Elbow Swamp

We knew going in that the campground in Houston was near the downtown area.  It was a very nice campground and really quiet, but fighting the downtown Houston traffic and roads was nerve-wracking to say the least.  

We're here to see our niece, Lea and her daughter Nicole and Lea's partner Susan.  That helped to make any other difficulties seem irrelevant.   Bob hadn't seen Lea since the late 1980's and I'd never had the chance to meet her.  This was a truly joyous reunion !!   We got to spend lots of time chatting about family members (past & present) and we brought pictures from Lea's grandfather (Bob's dad) with us.  When her grandfather passed away, lots of pictures were sent to Bob & me.  We separated out the ones pertaining to Lea and her part of the family and brought the originals to Lea.   Of course, we made copies of some of them for ourselves. The portrait of Bob's dad (below) was a surprise that Lea found among her things to show us.

Bob taking a picture of a portrait of his Dad.

St Arnold

Lea, Nicole and Susan are all young enough to still be working during the day, but on Saturday, we went to the St. Arnold's Brewery..... oldest craft brewery in Texas, for a few hours of watching how their beer is made and sampling a few varieties.  Very interesting and tasty too!

Lea, Susan and Jan about to enter St. Arnold's

Jan and Susan ready for more samples!

Brewer adding yeast.

St Arnold tending to his "flock"

St Arnold's "tap city"

Jan, Lea and Susan enjoying the samples.

Bob, Jan, Lea and Susan toasting the latest sample

If we mentioned any genre of food, Lea seemed to know (or have friends who knew) where to find it.   During our stay, we had wonderful cajun food, Mexican food, seafood and Bar-B-Que.  Yes.... there's probably a couple of additional pounds on our bodies at this point.   Everywhere we go the food is delicious.  Lea prepared dinner for us several nights.  One night, in particular, she fixed a seafood sculpture ... fantastic shrimp cocktail, crab legs in crushed ice and steamed lobster along with baked sweet potatoes and salad with strawberry shortcake for dessert.  Holy Smoke ... it was great !   And yes, the crab legs were as tasty as they look in the picture.  Lea is a fantastic cook and even our "casual" dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs on Sunday was made extra special when she re-created the chili sauce from our favorite hot dog spot in Toledo, OH.  The chocolate dipped strawberries didn't hurt either !   We were all pretty mellowed out after an afternoon of St Arnold's brews and Mexican Train (we taught Susan how to play) while snacking and sitting around the pool.

Crab leg part of the seafood sculpture.

Nicki, Lea, Susan and Jan around the Mexican Train table

Lea and Bob

When we arrived in Houston, we found that the electrical outlets near the dining table were no longer working.  A day or two later, the drain in the bathroom sink was leaking and broke.  When Jan opened a drawer in the cabinet near the dinette, it came off it's tracks.  Yeow !!  By watching a YouTube video, we found out how to get the drawer back on it's tracks.  While wondering if anything else could go wrong, we made a trip to Home Depot to pick up supplies for the plumbing problem.  The credit card we tried to use was denied.   Thank goodness we don't travel with only one card.  A call to the card company determined that it had been denied because we've been traveling all over the country and they thought it might be fraudulent charges, but we got that corrected.   The plumbing supplies from Home Depot and Bob's nimble fingers got the bathroom sink problem fixed.  A call to the coach manufacturer, Tiffin, clued us in to a potential solution for the electrical problem.  Yup.... got that one fixed, too !!  However, while fixing the electrical, Bob noticed that several wires in the channel of the slide with the dinette table looked frayed.  This was beyond our capabilities, so we took the coach into the local Tiffin RV dealer, DeMontrond RV.  They had planned to look at the problem on Mon (3/31), let us stay in their parking lot overnight and hopefully fix the problem on Tues (4/1). 

As of Mon (3/31) at 5:30 pm they had actually gotten the work done and we scrambled to find a campground about 15 miles away from Houston in Spring, TX.  Seems like a nice campground so we've paid for a week and will try to get things (like this blog) caught up a bit.  We also hope to finalize our income taxes and keep Uncle Sam happy along with deciding how to approach the next leg of our trip.

Happy April Fool's Day to all !!