And then there were FOUR, the Jenkins have arrived

  Houston, Texas, United States
Saturday, February 9, 2008

Houston - "there isn't a problem" - one of the best airports for clearing customs very helpful and slick. The little green machine (toad) was waiting, a few quick hello's and then off to Kemah. It was nice and warm, not much traffic but lots of lanes, its amazing what you can tow with a truck, (we all breathed in on several occasions to help Mal out). In no time we were at our destination, our first taste of an RV park and RV living, we were at "Lakeside RV Resort" just up the road from Kemah Boardwalk. The size of Bree was another big surprise we think all houses should have a magic slide out part. The park was lovely, very quite with lots of birds in the bayou - a really good start to holiday.
 
Kemah Boardwalk was interesting, it was very special walking along the boardwalk, seeing all the lovely boats, we could feel the everyday stresses and strains being left behind as we were energised by the warmth of the sun and swish of the sea. Feeding stingrays was a first for us, count your fingers as you leave! Our first meal in Texas was at a BBQ shack close to the RV park - very tasty wholesome Texan fayre.

The warmth of the sun

Fresh air on your face - time to relax

 










Next stop Galveston State Park, where they have a Bayou named after us, (those Jenkins get everywhere). Mal T did some fishing, fish were jumping all around him, I could swear they had smiles on their faces, but no fish for dinner.

Dinner may take a while

The fish are over there - they're big ones too

 
 









Galveston o' Galveston- what was the third line of that bloody song? if only we could remember. Nice place lovely old buildings, great Margarita's and oysters in the Fishermans Wharf.

They were very fresh

 
A trip to Houston would not be complete without a visit to "The ART car museum" amazing, but is it ART? http://www.artcarmuseum.com/  Come back in May for the Art Car parade they get 350,000 people watching this event. The other must for Houston is of course the Space centre. http://www.spacecenter.org/ It went very cold when we were there, in fact we had a lightening storm and the lights went out just as we stepped into the mock-up of the shuttle, don't worry Huston it wasn't a problem we stood very still until they came back on again. Its amazing to think that we were only a few hundred feet away from where the control centre is located, we watched a live link to the current Shuttle mission that launched the week before. All in all an interesting few days around Houston.

And this is street legal - what a KIT

Just before the lights went out

 
 
Then came the moment - to disconnect the RV's umbilical cord, having previously seen the Robin Williams film "RV runaway vacation" we approached this point with a little trepidation, We let Mal T disconnect the poo pipe.  Then we were off to Texana Lake State Park and our first journey in the RV. It really is comfortable, great vision all round although a little hairy when the concrete lane barriers appear at road works. What would you do without the PC and internet connections to plan the route and note down all the junctions in the towns were going to pass through? Mal & Betz have certainly got this sorted we were impressed with the detail they go through before stepping out off the campsite.