Somehow.....

I wasn't looking forward to traversing the southwest again, but somehow we made it to Texas in two days. We hit just about every kind of weather imaginable. We had to scrape the ice off the windshield when we left home at 4AM. The trip across the California portion of the desert was uneventful. The closer we got to Tuscon the worse the weather looked. I could see snow on the hills ahead. A local radio station took a call from a guy who said he was getting snowed on. I filled the gas tank just in case. We headed out of the gas station into a snowstorm. I was praying it would not get worse as we climbed toward New Mexico. Thankfully the roadbed was warm enough to melt any accumulation, but there were inches of the white stuff on the roadside as we pushed east. After about twenty miles we broke out ahead of the storm. I-10 across New Mexico was a breeze (literally). 20 mph with gusts to 30. RV's pulled off to wait it out. The radio advised El Paso was expecting 22 degrees that night. We traveled as far as Van Horn, Texas, an 850 mile day, and stopped for the night. The breeze we had gone through caught up to us some time during the night, and we awoke at 1AM to rattling windows and wind moaning through the trees and anything else it could whistle around. I awoke after a restless night at 5:30. We were on the road a little after 6. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, except watching gas prices fall the farther east we traveled. I saw one station at $1.33 a gallon. We pulled into Adam and Jamie's about 3:45 PM, thankful they don't live on the far side of Houston, and unwound by goofin with grandkids and eating a great fish dinner.

Where is global warming when you need it?

Last night was chilly for SoCal. . After dark I went out to plug in the RV and turned the heater on low to keep the RV pipes from freezing and was surprised to see an inch of snow on the ground. I took a little of the white stuff off the car trunk and made a small soft snowball, and shared it with Mom. (That is to say it missed her by four inches as she was baking in the kitchen. You can imagine her reaction.)

Texas Anyone?

I can't believe we leave for Texas in only about a week. I'm barely recovered from the 3200 mile drive for thanksgiving day, and not looking forward to forcing my body to do that marathon again.
I am trying to decide whether to take the truck or the Toyota. I guess it depends on the weather. I probably won't make that decision until we are on the verge of loading the vehicle.

Holiday Spirit

I wouldn't be surprised if Mom asked me to put the tree up on July 4 one of these years. She loves getting ready for Christmas. This year a condition for going to Texas for Thanksgiving Day was the tree had to be up before we left. I managed that, but we broke a water pipe in the yard which required two days of attention to repair. Consequently the tree was naked when we walked in the door after Texas. A few days after getting home I put the lights on it, and then Mom did her thing with the rest of the decorations. We reminisced about our families having a tin foil tree with either blue or red balls (very late 50's), or a flocked tree when we were kids. I was IMing with Jamie and she reminded me of the time we came home and the tree had fallen over in our absence. It did that twice due to cheap tree holders and off center natural trees. So I made a super-duper tree holder out of a car wheel, which we still use today. We made a few of our own Christmas memories back then.

T-day Texas Style

We are home. We did a long day Sunday, overnighted in Deming, NM, on the road again about 6AM and sort of like a horse heading for the barn pulled into the yard at 2:35 PM Monday. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight!
I thought I left my camera on the kitchen table at home for half the trip. I accidentally discovered where I put it on Thanksgiving Day. Here are a few of my favorite pix of what followed....

Above: Preparations for the BIG dinner. Everything was great. Good to see Tom and Mercy, and Brian and Jen too. I think Brian spent half his day trying to sort out a file transfer problem for me. Thanx Brian.

I was changing clothes in our bedroom and heard a little noise. Then I saw two tiny fingers come out of the armoire. I spied a little more and there sat Nora. The closet is just "Norah" size. She sits herself down, pulls the doors closed, and seems content in the security of that box. She has such great motor control that she pulls the doors closed on herself without pinching those little fingers.








After dinner I tried to get a few pictures, mostly candid. Here the ladies realized they were being "framed" and hoisted glasses.





Computer savvy Jayden at his perch in front of the iMac. At times a grandparent wonders if he will lean back tooooo far?



My morning ritual was to have a bowl of Cheerios. Grace always seemed to sense when the pantry door opened and would come running. Several bowls is as easy to make as one and Grace and Norah liked to join me at the table for the first course of breakfast. When Grace finished skimming the Cheerios off the top she walked away and I called her back saying she needed to finish the milk too. To that she picked up the bowl, put it to her lips, and slurped it all down in one long chug.


Then she put the bowl down, and, knowing I was trying to capture the moment, smiled up at me with that impish "I did it" smile.

We greatly enjoyed the time in Houston. The five days flew by too quickly.