Two Hams on the Road

Thursday, January 23, 2014

We’re in Livingston, Texas, north of Houston.  Steve’s in the living room attending a bank meeting by phone (He’s on the board of directors of a Lafayette Bank), so I’m in the bedroom with Obi, listening to the rain on the roof.

We’re having dinner tonight with Steve’s cousin, Kurt, who lives west of Houston.  He sent us a weather storm warning last night.  Houston might possibly have freezing rain and sleet tonight and Friday.  The warning, which he took off a local weather site, was probably a full page.  But after keeping up with the weather back home, its rather laughable.

Of course the problem here is that no one knows how to drive in weather like this.  So we’ll need to be extra careful and watch out for other drivers.  I am extremely glad we decided to go with a full ton pickup with four wheel drive.  I don’t think we’ve used the four wheel drive yet, but pulling the trailer with this truck is no problem.  Steve does most of the driving and all of the trailer backing up to date, but I do spell him.

We usually switch drivers at rest stops, which have nice pull through parking spaces for trucks and RVs.  And Texas does itself proud with it’s rest stops.  These pictures are from two different rest areas.

Interactive history exhibit.

This is a view from the rest area of the deck over looking a pond with seating areas.

And a cool picnic shelter.

Texas ranks 50th in high school graduation rates and first in the percentage of people without health care, but they have great rest areas and reasonable roads.  And I must admit, very friendly people.  I took Obi for a walk this morning and had two conversations with other walkers and numerous waves from drivers.  

This RV lifestyle brings together an interesting conglomeration of people.  Many are retired and traveling around like us, although most are staying longer in each place than what we’ve been managing.  Many are “winter Texans” or snowbirds, who winter in the south and head north for home in the summer.  Some are workers who will be in one place for several months.  And some are locals who just like the lifestyle.  Once you have a trailer or motor home, it can be a fairly inexpensive way to live.

The place we are staying at now is Rainbow’s End and it’s run by the Escapees RV club.  The park has multiple sections and we are in the transient section.  But they also have lots you can buy and build on.   Obi and I walked through part of that area this morning.  The houses are fairly modest, but they all have RV parking.  People buy here to have a home base.  Some of the units are carports for the RV, with a small building attached.  One for sale sign announced that it was time to hang up the keys.  This park also has a care center for people who can no longer manage on their own.  I hope to drive past it on our way out.  From the map, it looks like there are small RV lots around a central building, so you may be able to stay in your RV, but have group meals and some assistance until you need nursing home care.

I’ve been using my relatively new MacBook.  It’s mostly fine, but I really miss Microsoft Word and Excel.  I need to find better substitutes than I’ve got.  I keep all my recipes on the computer (and backed up) and they don’t format well with My Word.  I really don’t want to reformat all of them.  Has anyone out there found good substitutes?  I know I can run a virtual machine to run Microsoft products but Steve’s been having trouble with that on his MacBook.

Apple designs beautiful, functional products, but sometimes I think they go for beauty over function.  My Apple mouse is sleek, cordless and buttonless.  You right click and left click just like a regular mouse.  It decides if its a right click or left click depending on where your finger is on the mouse.  But I find that I frequently turn my hand or reach for my mouse when typing and it interprets it wrong.   And I noticed one day at the airport that most of the iPhones people were using were in some sort of case.  In my case, my phone is in an Otterbox case to protect it when (not if) I drop it. So all that sleek beauty is hidden in many cases.

It sounds like Steve’s meeting may be coming to a close and I’m ready for lunch.

Keep warm and safe, everyone!

Deb