Touring Houston with an old friend

May 2-4, 2013
Houston, Texas
Spring Creek Park



The lead writer of this blog suggested that I should pinch hit for a half inning and share some of the Houston experience since I requested that we visit this city en route to the West Coast. Our main reason for stopping in Houston was to spend time with one of my best friends and roommate from college. We both graduated in the late sixties from the U of Idaho, and kept in contact for awhile since we both lived on the West Coast. In 1975, I was best man at Jim’s wedding to his beautiful wife, Simora. He was transferred to Houston by Exxon and here they established their family roots. We lost contact with each other until March of this year when, with the help Facebook, we made reconnected. I wasted no time calling him when he sent me his phone number and immediately lost it emotionally when I heard his voice talking to me. Our appearance may change over the years but our voice is what ties us to the years we spent sharing experiences even if there are gaps of time. We visited on the phone for about 15 minutes and made plans to get together after we set up in the campground in Houston. To say the least, the reunion was epic. I gave and received the best bear hug welcome in some time. It was a great evening of reminiscing, filling in the gaps of time as our lives changed, and laughing at the memories of past experiences many, many times.



The next day Jim was our official tour guide of Houston and it was better than any tour bus program. We covered a lot of ground, saw beautiful architecture in the two downtown areas of Houston, traveled the beltline that circles Houston, learned and viewed how the different communities of Houston were designed and developed. Jim is a wealth of information about the city and its history. After a great day checking out the area, we joined Jim and Simora for a delicious dinner at Pappacito’s Cantina, a fun Mexican restaurant with great Tex-Mex style food.



The next day Jim was my tour guide because I wanted to see the Johnson Space Center which was my  second reason to visit Houston. Simora had been here several times and Pamela was not all that interested so they went off for pedicures and shopping while Jim and I toured the Space Center. A number of years ago, I visited the Kennedy Space Center and was amazed at the many space artifacts I saw. It was fascinating to learn about what was involved in launching a spacecraft and sending man outside the Earth’s atmosphere.





Johnson Space Center is mission control-- the command center for monitoring space flight (successful, near fatal, and tragic) and communicating with the astronauts flying to outer space, the moon, and currently the international space station. We visited the building that houses the Saturn V rocket and spacecraft, designed for moon mission. The size of each piece was amazing and it’s hard to imagine the science that went into their design and functionality in getting man to the moon.  The photo pictured below is stage one of the Saturn V rocket. Look how small the people are in the bottom right-hand corner (not a wide angle lens).




The rocket pictured below is stage three of the five stage rocket that was designed for mission seventeen to the moon—which never was used.



The brown area at the top is where the astronauts are housed. It is surprisingly small compared to the size of the rockets themselves.



The highlight of the tour was hearing firsthand from Dr. Leroy Chiao, the Commander and NASA Science Officer of the 10th mission to the International Space Station. Chiao, one of the first Chinese-American mission commanders, spent six and a half months in the space station with two Russian cosmonauts. He explained that he had a year and a half to speak Russian fluently for that mission as all the training was in Russian and he had to be able to communicate with his Russian counterparts. His talk was made even more interesting by the still photos and video he shared showing what life was like in the space station. This part of the tour was great for Jim too as he has taken lots of out-of-town guests here, but it was the first time he caught an guest astronaut presentation.  It was a memorable day to spend with Jim.



On the last day of our time in Houston, we invited Jim and Simora to our campsite to share a dinner prepared by Chef Pamela . The main course was one of our favorite meals: pine nut encrusted halibut with mango salsa, curried rice, and a citrus avocado salad. We enjoyed getting to treat our guests after all the generosity they showed us while we were here, plus we wanted to give them a taste of life in our motorhome. The hardest part of this visit arrived a few hours later when we had to say good-bye. The good part is Jim and I now have multiple ways to stay in touch and we will be back in Houston next year to spend time together again on our travels west.

Lovebugs, narrow toll booths, and a free campground

May 1-2, 2013
Tomball, Texas
Spring Creek Park


Staying true to our pinky swear, we left Betty’s RV Park on Wednesday with about a four-hour drive to Houston.  Houston had not been a high priority on our itinerary until Vic reconnected on Facebook with a college roommate he had not seen in over 35 years. This kind of stopover is one of the sweet bonuses of life on the road: taking time to visit with friends and family in various places throughout the United States. Both feeling a little blue about leaving Abbeville,  it helped to be looking forward to spending time with Vic’s friend, Jim, and his wife Simora.  At least we wouldn't be going through total happy hour withdrawal after so much social interaction at Betty’s. 

After about two hours on road, I noticed that the windshield was almost completely covered with love bugs. Neither of us had ever experienced a lovebug onslaught, but we had heard of it before. Lovebugs, black flies about a 1/2" long with a reddish head, are often found mating in flight. They come out every fall and spring in the Gulf states and are a problem mostly for drivers as they don’t bite, nor do they carry disease.  When they are in season, they are prolific and can easily cover your vehicle causing damage to the paint, especially if they are "baked on" in the sun. I thought we should stop and at least take time to clean the windshield but Vic said he could see just fine and wanted to wait until he could take care of the whole front end.

Okay, then as we were approaching Houston, on the Sam Houston Tollway to be specific, we hit a fair amount of traffic and had the challenge of trying to figure out which lane we needed to get in to pay our toll.  One lane was closed due to a stalled car. Another lane said narrow vehicles only. The toll amount said $1.75 minimum which didn’t help me figure out if we had exact change, so we pulled into a lane that said Full Service. As we approached the booth, I heard a loud noise and looked out the window to see our passenger side mirror hanging by a wire. Ouch. The guy in the toll booth said he sees this kind of thing happen all the time. Great. The actual toll charge turned out to be $5.25, plus a whole lot more when it comes to replacing a mirror. Vic moved ahead and pulled off on the side of the toll road as soon as it was safe to do so. He had to cut the wires to the mirror to avoid having it bang on the side of the coach potentially causing more damage. The mirror itself was in perfect shape, but it was sheared off at the arm.  We wrapped it in a towel and gingerly placed it inside the motorhome in a safe place hoping we could salvage it.
Now, for the good news. I am not sure if it was Jeannie of Where’s Eldo or Antoinette of Have Retirement Will Travel, but we are grateful to one of them for telling us about a great park in the Houston area that is free.  I never heard of such a thing and felt a little suspicious about the neighborhood until I did some research ahead of time and discovered it is a county park with eight full hook-up sites plus tent camping. Not only is it true, but they take reservations!  Furthermore, if you have been following my previous posts, you will know that I had to change the reservation three times! Spring Creek Park is a real gem of a place and it turned out to be only fifteen minutes from Vic’s friend. Score.





Amazingly, even with free rates, the park’s eight sites were never full and we were here over a weekend.  Notice the concrete pad and spacious sites. The surrounding grounds were very well-maintained with picnic tables and grills, play equipment, a pavilion, and even tennis courts. The only downside was the sites seem to attract families with small children. There were five children under the age of eight in the camper next to us.  Fortunately, they were very well-behaved and relatively quiet.



Back to the lovebugs.  Here is the view of the windshield when we arrived to the park. Could be worse but the bugs on the diamond shield were the ones that concerned us the most. A stroke of good fortune came, however, when I called my brother, who used to own a body shop, for ideas about replacing the mirror and happened to tell him about the lovebugs. As a Florida resident himself, he is all too familiar with these bugs and said the best way to remove them is with hydrogen peroxide. We had a big bottle that we carry to clean the dogs’ ears. It sure worked well to clean off the bugs, dissolving them with a foaming action.



The mirror. We called Tiffin and learned that you cannot order separate parts for the arm and the mirror; it all is one piece wired together with heating elements. Bummer. We also called the local Tiffin dealer in Houston and they wanted about $200 more for the mirror and shipping, so we called Tiffin back and ordered the mirror for $435 to be shipped to our next campground in Austin (as it would take 4-5 days to arrive.)  Vic did not want to drive without a mirror so he made a trip to Home Depot for lots of duck tape and managed to make the mirror work well enough for us to limp our way to Austin in a few days.



The most ingenious thing Vic did was place a small plastic bottle underneath the mirror itself to help support it before taping around it. It did take two to accomplish this task--one to hold the mirror and one to tape, but we felt confident this temporary fix would allow us to safely travel the 150 miles to Austin.



p.s. I called the Houston Toll Road Authority and talked to them about the mirror incident. They said there is a special lane for wider vehicles on the right but we sure didn't see one.