Hunkered down in Houston

The Westlake RV 'resort' was very nice, clean and has a great open area for Zin to stretch her legs and run a bit off leash :) The evening meal of bacon wrapped scallops were prepared on what looked liked an unused gas grill in a fully-featured outdoor kitchen under a lighted gazebo.

The laundry room was equally impressive an required the use of a prepaid card rather than lots of change inserted to get the job done. Three loads of accumulated items were washed fluffed and folded within 1 hours time, now that is efficient!  However, there will be unused $$ on the card that will have to be leveraged on the return trip :)  Seems there is a opportunity for someone to make $$ on all those cards... hummmm.

Also surprisingly enough, the internet is actually usable! So the blog entries, pictures and maybe some work can be accommodated.

Kevin extracted the 4 bikes (1 road, 1 mountain for each) from the top of the Jeep (Toad) to discover rusty chains and locked up forks. They were placed on an alternate rack on the back of the RV. Much attention will be needed before the bikes are ridable once the Hemet, CA.

There were 3 alternatives available for TV, (Satellite, Cable and TV antenna). The observation is that the TV antenna had the most and clearest stations that is if you knew Spanish and wanted some redemption! Most was a viewing wasteland and was not turned on much except to catch up on some News and Weather.

Theresa drove in to Houston 11 miles to her meetings. It took more than 30- 45 minutes to make the drive. Working remote by far has lots of advantages, but the face to face meetings were very productive and it was nice to meet and get to know those you have only dealt with by phone. Houston traffic is on parallel with any LA, NYC or any other large metropolis and it is spread out over 30 miles of our I-10 route. Theresa not only found that she was well out of practice to handle the gridlock but also was not accustom to long days of meetings and customer interaction! Wasn't she retired? Not quite yet, as she will continue to do some part-time consulting into the new year :)

The customer dinner one night was at the Taste of Texas Steakhouse. This place was decorated to the hilt in Texas fashion (go big!) for Christmas. The waiter found out there were some “out-of-towner's” and donned each of us with a bandana and cowboy hat for a photo op! The steaks were ordered and then personally selected and marked with a number so each slab would not get mixed up during the grilling process. As expected the meal was delightful and very filling! Needless to say Theresa brought home enough for Kevin's lunch the next day.

Thursday the Smitanic will make it's exit from Houston and head West. Theresa has charted 6 days of about 250 miles each day to get to the Hemet, CA destination. 3 days will be in TX!