Road trip to visit some dear friends…

We have been enjoying our stay at the old homestead and have been able to see most of our friends we hoped to visit in and near Bryan/College Station.. The other day we drove to The Woodlands, Tx, a beautifully designed community carved out of the piney woods just north of Houston, Texas. Our main goal was to make a trip to the recently opened Trader Joe’s to restock all of our Trader Joe’s favorites. We were running low on many of them and won’t be near another one till we get to Raleigh, NC. We took back roads so that we could savor the green pastures, piney woods and in this part of Texas spring is beginning to bud so the wildflowers were beginning to present their colorful displays.

We also figured this would also be an opportune time to visit an old college buddy of mine and his wife in The Woodlands. We sat outdoors by their beautiful pool to laugh and share stories. The time flew by but we wanted to get back on the road for another planned visit with our friend and daughter’s former Fastpitch Gold Softball coach. His ranch is in Chappell Hill where we enjoyed a tour of the property improvements and to hear future plans for a zip line downhill across their pond.  We were also treated to some delectable slow smoked BBQ pork and chicken as well as some ice cold beer mixed with more laughter and camaraderie. This 175 mile loop not only restocked our shelves with important goods (such as 2 buck chuck or 3 buck chuck here in Texas due to the higher liquor taxes) but allowed time to revisit with some very dear friends along the way. Priceless!

On the remaining maintenance checklist I was able to finish the trimming and routing of the front television and offer a photo of the finished product here. I also tackled the replacing the back bedroom TV as well. The back TV came out nicely as I was able to cut back the protruding cabinetry that houses the TV and provide for an additional storage shelf just below it. Sharon was anxious for this change because we both had hit our heads many times on that old cabinetry each time we bent to get something out of one of the drawers below.  So we are very pleased to have been able to trim back that darn cabinet. I included a few pictures showing this nearly completed back TV modification.

    

Well we have a few more days here and we hope to see a few more friends, buy some Aggie gear and catch a Texas A&M softball or baseball game (or both). On Wednesday we head east for a rather long drive of 293 miles where we plan to spend a few nights in Abbeville Louisiana at the renowned Betty’s Place. Too bad the weather looks like it will not cooperate with us as our travel day and the days we plan to spend at Betty;’s look as though they'll be very wet. But such is the life of a nomadic traveler…