On the 29th we decided to meet Rich and Kerry and Leigh and Brooks in Grapevine to celebrate Jo-Anne's birthday ... find a nice quiet, family place to chat, eh. Not.



Grapevine was a massive sea of Christmas viewers and the procession of cars was awesome but kept us from going to the restaurant we had hoped to have the kids see and enjoy. We drove around this insanity a while and while beautiful, we were hungry. Leigh did check but the hour and a half wait seemed a bit much for chili filled enchiladas at Tolberts on Main Street.

We then regrouped and headed for the Red Robin about a mile away and a place that we have grown to like for the service and especially the wonderful burgers. We got in fast and settled into a quiet corner and little Ev instantly became the center of the event.

Here he is as we were comparing the red hair of he and Richard ... some Irish maybe?

And then in his manly pose as if he is ready to order the next margarita. Happy little restaurant goer so far and the hit of the section we were in.

And, oh by the way, Jo-Anne did have a great 64th birthday celebration, especially with the grandson nearby. Cheers!

Merry Christmas 2011!

We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season so far and ours was particularly great. Leigh and Brooks hosted their first Christmas Day event as new parents in their house in Richardson and we had a super time. Brooks' parents, Judith and Larry Whittington were staying at Leigh's house and we arrived Sunday morning for the event; coming over from our park in Grapevine. Because we were having such a good time the pictures were slim ... but here is a pretty good family shot except for the intense flashback from Brooks' head.



At first little Everett was off doing one-year old stuff crawling around the place but then arrived to see what the fuss was about and really got into it.

Leigh just gave him a box full of tissue and that was fun as some of the simplest things are the most fun ... especially when you are one.

Then he was off to test drive the Cozy Coupe below that I had assembled and Buster had test driven. This thing will be good til he is about five so the first attempts were humorous at best ... he has a lot of time to get the hang of it.

After the present opening we had a really nice dinner prepared by Brooks and Leigh. As this was the first Christmas in their home with Ev and all four grandparents, it was a pretty special event. An interesting point is that this is only the second time we have seen Brooks' parents, the last being 13 years ago at the kid's wedding ... we'll try to do better in the future, eh.

And lastly a shot of the decorations in the town of Grapevine which were done extremely well, earning it the name of, "The Christmas Capitol of Texas."

All in all one of the best Christmas Day events that we can remember and we hope all our family and friends had a similar experience. Love to all this holiday season!!

Happy 93rd Birthday Mom!

Here's the usual group on Friday night seated at Cenare's Italian Restaurant in College Station for Mom's 93rd Birthday. As opposed to the last shot at Thanksgiving, I (really the waiter) actually got Richard's face instead of the back of his head. Super food, perfect service, in a quiet setting ... what could be better .. and the birthday girl in pink had a nice dinner.

We then adjourned to Richard's place for cake and ice cream and to fest a bit more. After Mom blew out a token number of candles (didn't want the fire dept to respond) she got a few gifts to open.

And then the cake and ice cream and of course Kerry's homemade cookies were great especially with some coffee and the fire going in the fireplace on a 45 degree night. Really great.

Christmas eve we flew the Flying Scotsman back up to Grapevine to spend Christmas Day with Leigh and Brooks and Ev and Brooks' parents ... pouring rain and 46 all the way back here to the lake, but the machine is wonderful.

A couple of catch-up pictures before I move on. Here is the Flying Scotsman on Wednesday night after brother Richard brought the pink flamingos over to the park in Bryan. Kinda compliments the palm tree nicely I think.



And then the very serious side of modern day electronic life. Hey, look, she is using both thumbs to text Leigh ... and at least we aren't in a moving vehicle, eh. In reality texting has become a way of life and really aids the mobility of our lifestyle.

And I spent about two hours assembling this vehicle for little Everett as a Christmas present for tomorrow morning and yet the first one to get a test drive was Buster ... I think he is actually smiling.

On the 10th of December we moved to the Vineyards campground in Grapevine Texas where we have been before but this time it is for a whole month; something new. What a wonderful RV park!

While exploring the the town of Grapevine we started with the Cross Timbers Winery where, along with some great local wines, the owner gave us some places to see in the area. This tasting room is in a farmhouse north of town and dates from the 1870's ... super ambiance and people.

The vinyard owner said go to the Gaylord Texan if you want to see Christmas lights. And lights there were ... millions of them ... WOW. This is the entrance to the hotel, indoors, and the light curtains were spectacular.

As we walked around a corner here is Frosty on a rotating pedestal in a Texas cavern with the light wall in the background.

This place is massive and impressive. OK here is the Riverwalk. Uh, not really, but indoors in a hotel in north Texas ... holy cow. It is 72 degrees here year round.

We ate at this Tex-Mex restaurant, one of many in the atrium of many different themes, and it was really something else; called the Riverwalk Cantina, they have done a remarkable job of replicating the Riverwalk experience of San Antonio.

They actually have a barge replica for larger group seatings like we have done on the real Riverwalk ... really cool.

And finally back to our park here which is really beautiful and our brown bus is on the lower left of the picture. If you look really close, yup, we are on Grapevine Trail ... what could be better.

Yes it is Christmas time and the holiday season allows for the placing of a lot of stuff on your place, mostly helping the local power company out, but what the heck. Some decorations are really cool and some tacky and in the past we have posted some of both including those on our homes and elsewhere.

Here is the last RV park we were at, the Destiny RV Resort in Denton, and their display this year. They really have done a spectacular job and a lot of work on the whole park especially the main office here.

Above the roof, in the daylight, you can see the detail of the especially neat (tacky) blow up trailer with a Santa that moves in and out of the door.

Of course the license plate is ... Joll E RV ... which we can relate to!!!

Changing subjects ... A new dining experience enhanced our theme of travel and food and that is of Mimi's here in Dallas. This place rivals La Madeleine which has grown to be a large chain. Mimi's is excellent and you start with the champagne trio below; each fruit drink, strawberry, orange, and pomegranate, enhanced with a bit of bubbly ... nice; they were provided as a flight at a single price and really great!

Then on to the main course for brunch which was eggs Benedict for me and French toast for Jo-Anne. Mine was excellent and rivaled Able's in Shertz as they are the standard for us for Benedict fare. Jo-Anne's toast was not so hot and next time she will try the Benedicts ... but the mimosas were perfect.

And here are Ma and Pa at Farina's on Main sipping some wine and enjoying the village of Grapevine, Texas. Good wine and food and we will be back to sample more.

Right now it is a cold 40 degrees and pouring rain in northern Texas. We have had about 2-3 inches so far and more predicted. They need the water here but the cold makes it a bit harder in the RV life. Who's volunteering to go out there to walk the dog and empty the black water, eh?

Because of the wet winter we just bought a small cast iron electric stove for the office and here is the web surfer at her post in the office and her eager helper Buster who thinks Mom is ordering dog treats on line.



And then there are the home maintenance duties which seem to be always there whether you are in an RV or the house. The washer/dryer had been acting up for at least the last eight months and we finally got tired of it and yanked it out of the cabinet (all 150 pounds of it). This was a prelude to getting it fixed at the dealer but Bruce thought we might be able to make it function. And with a few tools, never enough or the right kind, he worked the thing back to health and it is functioning normally ... yea ... no more laundromat!

Today's butt shot!

Actually Buster had lost one of his chewy things beneath the slide out under the dinette and Bruce and he were trying with the help of a coat hanger to extract the thing. They finally prevailed and Buster was rewarded for his patience ... don't know how old it was but he was happy.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

Another year has zipped by and here we are at the table again. This time however we are not at the Jo-Anne and Bruce table but a restaurant called La Riviera in Bryan. And yes I know the picture isn't the best; back of Richard's head (however it is his hair ... lucky guy), grand kid staring at his mom, my dad vigorously chowing down, and Jo-Anne gesturing at the laughing Leighanne ... hey the food was excellent and I had more than my share.

Before I go too far here is the story. OK, we have no house in the area near my parents any more and we are in Dallas. So what to do. Let's just pop down to their area on the holiday and have a good meal at a restaurant and the out of town folks can stay in a hotel. Hah! The College Station area where my parents are is an insane college football town where the last hotel was booked a year ago for this day for the 150,000 fans and the rate if you could find a bed was over $400 a night. There were no available hotel rooms or RV spots within 50 miles of the town for Wednesday or Thursday night ... and none of it had anything to do with the holiday at all ... just college football.

Because we didn't want Mom and Dad to travel far, so we booked a local restaurant with no problem (all the locals are at the game) and we were able to get into the Aggieland RV park in Bryan which was full but the manager keeps us in mind and offered us an empty piece of pavement before it went public.

We were there from the 22nd to 25th of November and managed to squeeze in some doctors appointments as well before we headed back to the Dallas area. Now back here we are helping Leigh and Brooks move their wedding photography business from the loft they had just to the south of downtown Dallas to one more near their home and in Addison north of downtown proper.

While we though we'd stay at this park for a bit longer we have now booked back into the Vineyards (the name maybe, eh) over in Grapevine from the 10th of December until the 10th of January. We have been there several times for just a few days so a month will be a new twist. This will get us over to the new year and then we can plan for 2012 even better.

Happy 1st Birthday Everett!

While Ev was officially a big 1 on the third of November his parents were able to get everyone together on the 13th for a nice party. Hard to believe it has been a year since the wild ride from Bryan to the hospital in Dallas for the little preemie.

Unfortunately for this occasion the little guy had just gotten a pretty bad ear infection and wasn't feeling in the party mood but we felt he needed a bit of good cheer. With numerous professional photographers in the family I shot only a few of the 1,000 or so of the birthday boy. Here's the view of the paparazzi from his perspective ... goo goo gaa gaa ...

And the sufficiently destroyed dragon cake ... the last fork driven home by Ev himself.

After the dragon slaying he got a bunch of really neat gifts which he was in awe of and actually perked up a bit.

And he and grandmom after the little guy was plum tuckered out from all the partying and crashed in her lap ...

Cool little guy with a lot of livin' yet to do ... Happy First and many more!!

First, even though today is the 12th of November and little Ev's birthday was the 3rd,  we will celebrate it tomorrow the 13th as his mom and dad are shooting a wedding as I am writing this on a Saturday night.

On the 10th we packed up the Flying Scotsman at the Aggieland RV park. We took down all the deck stuff and packed it in the basement and headed for the Dallas area. We said bye to Mom and Dad and Richard and Kerry in the College Station area yet will return there for Thanksgiving Day dinner.

The Thursday drive up to the Dallas area was a gorgeous one with perfect blue sky and temps in the 60's throughout the three hour drive.

We are now unpacking in the Dallas Destiny RV Park which is really in the little town of Corinth about 20 miles north of Dallas and really a suburb of Denton on IH 35E north of town.



This appears to be a really nice park with all the amenities and a monthly rent of about $425 plus the electric. Right now we are planning on staying here until March, with the occasional side trip for fun, food and wine, of course.

PS, yes there is a set of bull horns hooked on the front of the RV to the rear of ours ... University of Texas football fan I guess.

Halloween 2011!

OK, grandkid picture time, but you gotta admit he's cute as a chicken.

Here's the boys as Everett and his bud Nick are hauled around the neighborhood on their first trick or treat adventure in a modern Radio Flyer.

AWWW ... OK grandpa get over it,eh.

And papa Brooks with the chicken man ... happy first Haloween for the little guy!

After the Department unveiling ceremony on the 28th we adjourned to the Cenare Italian Restaurant in College Station, our favorite place for a quiet setting and consistently excellent food. Here's Dad in his Dick Cheney pose for his 95th birthday celebration.



After the excellent Italian food it was time to adjourn to brother Richard's place for the cake and ice cream. Again here's Pop expounding on ... something.

All in all a really rewarding day and the 95 year old (hey, Mom is 93 as well) persevered as well or better than we youngsters ... !

Happy Birthday Dad!



October 28th was both Dad's birthday and the celebration of his contribution to Texas A & M University and the historic department they created. In the mid 60's these three guys came from Michigan State University with a dream and concept for scientific tourism design. Here's Dad flanked by Les Reed and Carson Watt the founders of this idea and the department that would follow.

They had a vision that there should be a department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Science somewhere and they had landed at Texas A&M here in College Station, Texas.

Earlier this summer the department had asked Dad to draw a new picture of the new building as the ones he had drawn over the years of previous department locations in older campus buildings were now literally history. He said OK and with the help of a photo from brother Richard knocked out the new building's drawing in a couple of weeks. Dad needed a human to scale the drawing and hence the very tiny likeness of him in the building's doorway ... if you look really closely.

This picture of and by the grand master will hang in the new facility along with many of his other works and is a tribute to his almost 50 years of dedicated service to make this one of the country's finest tourism education centers.

And the master himself describing the last 50 years of work and all the folks that had made this moment and facility a reality.

Here's a nice sunset shot of us parked at the Aggieland RV Park. The temperature here has been in the 80-90 range for highs and around 65 and humid for the low ... A/C running full blast. Tomorrow it is supposed to drop about 15 degrees for the average so we will see.



I don't think we have talked about it recently, but thanks to Karen Hammond here's a little capsule of where we are in the RV life. We got the Flying Scotsman I in April of 07 and put about 23000 miles on it before trading it in April of 2010 to the current FS II on which we have put about 13000 miles; for a total of 36000 miles. Since April of 07 it has been about 55 months and during that time we have lived in the RV for about 37 complete months, give or take. So our average mileage comes close to about 1000 miles a month no matter what we are doing. In addition we have inhabited over 140 RV parks that have run the gamut of bad to wow.

Also keep in mind that we have worn out two cars during the same period. This last summer was a good example of car use but not RV use; when we departed Canada we still had fuel left in the RV from when when entered 5 months before, but we drove the crap out of the car. An interesting aspect of the car is that while it rides behind the RV no miles are added kind of distorting the real miles on its drive train ... all according to Chevy ... but still different.

Right now planning the next Grand Adventure for 2012 .... much more to follow!

Last Friday we had a really unexpected treat. While surfing for possible Thanksgiving dinner venues we happened across a local Bryan restaurant that was offering an Oktoberfest dinner ... well ... hard to resist.

Unfortunately I didn't take my camera and forgot about the cell phone one so here is the generic shot from their website. They are called Christopher's World Grille and we have been many times before but not for a specific themed event like this.



Again here is their promo shot of a typical dinner setting and we have enjoyed it on other occasions. This evening was similar but with a German theme complete with huge German flag on the wall and beer glasses instead of the wimpy wine ones ... Probst!!

There were five courses and each was paired with a German beer. While we like wine with dinner the beer pairing was clever and each was an excellent experiment. There was one seating at 6:30 for cocktails and the five courses took until about 9:30 to consume, especially with Christopher himself describing each course.

1^st Course

Green Pea and Bavarian Smoked Sausage Soup

Beer: Bitburger Pilsner

2^nd Course

Bratwurst and Sauerkraut with Beer Mustard

Beer: Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weisse

3^rd Course

Beer Braised Cabbage Roll with Bell Pepper Sauce, White Potatoes and Parsley

Beer: Paulaner Oktoberfest-Marzen

4^th Course

Bauernschnitzel topped with Fried Egg, Spaetzle, and Braised Red Cabbage

Beer: Ayinger Brau Weisse

5^th Course

Rum Baked Apple Dumpling with Caramel Sauce

Beer: Kostritzer Schwarzbier

Another excellent evening enjoying the best of German food, beer, culture, and music; we really do miss the place and have many fond memories. We'll be back soon ... Ja, Ja!! Now excuse me while I air out the RV.