Leg 7 - Houston, Day 5

March 31, 2011

Like good Catholic boys, Jim, his friends, and I went to Sunday mass on Palm Sunday. It was a really crowded mass. We went at the 12:00pm celebration and were forced to stand. It was a bummer but it was a nice mass. Afterwards, we all went running. The route started at Jim's apartment went out to a park and around the park path and back. The total mileage was shy of 9 miles? Maybe. We all stuck together until we left the park and made our way back to the apartment. Jim was running out of steam and said to keep going. Then the other two guys lost steam, so I just took off and booked it all the way back. I stopped shortly two different times on the way back. It was a good run and a good testament on how much fitness I had still retained for not training very much in the last couple of weeks. It was very hot and sunny out. Mid-80s in the middle of the afternoon. It gave me hope for the Fly Pig Full Marathon that Jim had talked me into doing. He had been training for it and, at the time, had me almost convinced to run the full with him.  After the run, we all split and grabbed showers. Jim took me to a barbecue restaurant. It was most delicious. You go up to a counter and pick out your meats and sides. Then pay and sit down to eat. They absolutely stack up your plate with food. I got three meats, duck, chicken, and brisket. Duck was very good. Something I would recommend to any one who decides to grab barbecue.

The parents of one of the girls that was hanging with us throughout the weekend has season tickets to the Houston Rockets. They were out of town for the weekend and were not going to use their tickets, so she invited Jim and I to the game Sunday night. It was AWESOME! The tickets were first row above the tunnel where the Rockets come in and out to their locker room and the same for the mascots. The game was against the Pacers, so I was able to see David West play for the first time since he left Xavier. And I know I am a tall guy and that players in the NBA are tall but you don't get a sense of how tall they are on television. Being that close to them, you just felt small or at least of average height, which is weird too. There was a lot of entertainment in between timeouts and quarters. It was a very entertaining night. Also, a group of the Rocket cheerleaders were in front of us during the game. Just spectacular seats. During one timeout, the Rocket mascot Clutch, which is a giant bear, was riding a segway and throwing out stuffed animals of himself. As he was going back to the locker room he stopped right below and threw his last stuffed animal. I caught it! It was a great feeling. Almost immediately after catching him, I had the bright idea of taking him along with me on the trip and taking pictures of everywhere I went. First was the Rockets game:

After the game, the girl took us to picked up some burgers. Burgers were delicious and were from Whataburger. Never head this fast food chain before. Time to get some sleep and wake up early to get to New Orleans for my next part of the trip.

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip:
Leg 7 - Houston, Day 5

Leg 7 - Houston, Day 4

March 31, 2012

Finally, the weekend arrived. Jim and I had set up a tee time around 12:00 pm. It was a hot day in the 80's. One of Jim's friends from the night before joined us to play. He was a beginner and was looking to get out to play more and learn the game. Since I didn't have my clubs with me, I borrowed Todd's clubs. They were find for the most part, a little short. His putter was the worst. I think he might have stole the putter from a little person and had been his since he was like years 5. It was so bad that all 3 of us in the group just passed Jim's putter around to putt. As soon as we were done, we headed out to pick up some Chipotle and watch the semifinal games of March Madness. Luckily, Jim has DirectTV and was able to replay the first half of the first game so we didn't have to miss a minute of the game. Todd was in New Orleans at the game. He forgot his tickets but was able to get into semifinal games. Throughout the day, Jim was getting updates on his status to see what he should do with the tickets. He took pictures and sent them to Todd. It ended up working out for him.

Jim called people over to start the night while we watched game 2 of the semifinals. The people showed up and we began to pregame. We played Boom. It was slightly unfair and after each round of play we all switched around to screw over new people. It was entertaining though. After we got tired of playing, we shifted to Beer Die and played like one game. By then, it was pretty late and not worth trying to go out to the bars, so we called it a night. I would mention who was all there, but I don't remember the people's name. I think there were 3 girls and 4 guys including Jim and I.

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip:

None

Leg 7 - Houston, Day 3

March 30, 2012

Today was a relaxing day to try to catch up on some blogging and do laundry. After getting up about mid-morning. I went for a run through the park nearby and got back to shower and launder some clothes. Before I knew it, it was 3:00 and time to meet up with Emily to golf with her and her students. I got to the course shortly after she did. The kids were pretty cool. We went to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls. I hit balls with no shoes on because I didn't have my golf shoes with me. It went pretty well. I hit a couple of good balls. We eventually went on the course. We split into two teams. We played 2 holes, I think. I tried teaching the kids some tips about golf out on the course. I did embarrass myself with the first tee shot. I shanked it pretty bad. It was a little tough because I knew the kids were looking up to me, and I had to be on my best behavior in front of them and Emily. After golf, I met up with Jim. We got together with two other guys and headed to a Cajun restaurant for crawfish and po-boy. First time for either foods. Both were pretty good, except cracking open the crawfish was a lot more work than I really want to spend on the amount of food in each piece. We split up after dinner to dress up for the evening and convene at a bar to start our night. We went a number of bars and met up with some girls. Jim showed me a honky tonk and left about 10 minutes of being there. It was definitely not my kind of bar. We went to a bar that had cornhole sets out back. We ended up playing against a team who one player thought he was the shit. Jim put him in his place. I just kept my player at bay and made sure Jim had first throw each turn. It was a lot of fun. That's all I have (It was two months ago, so it is hard to remember all that happened. I have a feeling many of these last posts will be similar.)

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip:
None

Leg 7 - Houston, Day 2

March 29, 2012

I took my time getting up in the morning. Jim was nice enough to leave me his key. I purchased a ticket to the Houston Space Center and headed on out. It was a cloudy and dreary day yet again. It was sort of a bummer. The Houston Space Center was the same sort of experience. There wasn't a lot to see. A couple of movies and a tour around the Space Center really didn't make it all that exciting. I think Wright Patt's section of space is more interesting than the Houston Space Center, sadly. I mean it is essentially the birthplace of space exploration, and it was small with very little exhibits. They have one area that changes every so often and that is in the middle of the entrance hall and occupies maybe 400 sq ft. O well, it was worth seeing and to say I went there. Luckily, I was able to get the outside tour done before the rain came.

Next stop, I headed to Galveston to check out the Gulf of Mexico and complete 2 of 4 great bodies of water I plan to encounter on my trip across the country. There wasn't much at Galveston, nor were there many people on the beach. That is probably because of the rain. I drove my car onto the beach and then proceeded to walk to the Gulf to stick my feet in the water and take a bunch of pictures. It was slightly challenging since I was trying to keep my brand new camera from getting wet damaged, at least it was not pouring when I was there. A couple of new houses were in process of being built. I thought of how nice it would be to own one of those houses, except I hear the summers in Houston are unbearable, so it may not have been as great to have a house on the Gulf then.

Afterwards, I headed back to Jim's. It was early evening and was time to return. I had seen all I had wanted to. I returned and found his roommate Todd home already. Since Troy was also a fellow Flyer graduate, we decided to start playing Beer Die until Jim came home with food and dinner. Jim made gumbo for all of us. We played Beer Die, watched soccer, and ate dinner. Another friend of Jim's Emily came over to join us. She is part of the teachers across America group. I was roped into joining her and some her students to golf with them the next day. I was about 50/50 when approached to go. In the end, I decided to go because of my life's motto of "Go Big or Go Home". More on this later though. The night ended pretty good. Jim, as always, picked up the new game of Beer Die very well very quickly. Sadly, the night had to end since everyone else had to go to work the next day. I had to occupy myself for another day until I had people to hang out with again.

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip:
Leg 7 - Houston - Day 2

Leg 7 - San Antonio/Houston, Day 1

March 28, 2012

Well after a good night's sleep at a rest stop and thunderstorms rolling through the night. I got up and drove to the next rest stop to pee and brush my teeth. I was headed to San Antonio early in the morning to check out The Alamo and to view the place where my long time idol Davey Crockett gave his life for America. 

The Alamo is in a rather interesting place in San Antonio. It is downtown San Antonio, in the middle of it. Yeah, the middle of San Antonio. Apparently, the city built all its buildings around this historical building. I am not sure why. There did not appear to be any river going through the city or any other significant natural landmark that would justify constructing high rises around the Alamo. Any ways, even though The Alamo is just a building, I got very sentimental about the history of what happened there so long ago. It really hit home to hear the stories on what happened and being able to stand in the same place where all the men died fighting for freedom from Mexico. I only wish they were able to preserve the surrounding area and keep it the same way it was back then so you could see exactly how the land laid out and easily picture the layout of the barricades and such.

After spending a couple of hours there reading up on history, it was time to move on and head to Houston. The drive was not too bad. I was able to make it there by 1:00-ish and firmly placed myself back into the Central time zone. Since Jim was at work and wouldn't be off until 4:00 and back by 5:00. I went to the nearby park and decided to go on a little run. It was quite enjoyable. I think I ran around 6 miles. I saw a lot people in the park. After I ran, I grabbed some food from the cafe down by the street and returned to the park and just laid sprawled out in the middle of the grass to relax and zone out. A little dog came up to say hi. Not sure why, maybe he/she thought I could use a friend. I had hoped the guys starting to play basketball would ask me to play. I haven't played in forever, probably not since after I graduated college. 

Jim finally got off, I met him at his apartment, and we caught up a little. We were waiting for his roommate to return home and head to trivia down the street to hang out with some more people and try our hand at winning some good prizes. Jim, Todd, and I ate a steak dinner before it started and before the other people arrived. It was a most delicious steak. I recommend going to Porch Swing and grabbing your own. They cook it outside on a real grill with your baked potato. They give you a platter so you can put on your own toppings. I got to meet some of Jim's friends and was able to mesh in pretty well with them. I didn't really help much in trivia though. There was a tiebreaker that I was chosen to go do before we even knew we were in the tiebreaker. It wasn't much of a tiebreaker. There were 5 of us and we had to choose a card from the deck and the highest card won. I didn't choose the highest card and lost. Eventually the night ended, I had to plan for the next day and get my beauty sleep.

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip (photos are just of San Antonio):
Leg 6 - San Antonio

Leg 6 - Journey In

March 27, 2012

Got up sort of early but laid around the house and watched television until Kurt was ready to go. Again, it was nice to be able to relax and enjoy my time off. I headed out around 11:00am and began my drive to El Paso, TX where I was to meet one of Dominic's army buddies, who was nice enough to allow me to stay at his place for the night. I drive wasn't very exciting. the most annoying part was the broken cruise control. My foot, leg, and hip began to ache or became numb after a couple of hours. I only had two positions I could put my foot in and still feel comfortable with the my driving. I made it to the El Paso outer suburbs around 5:00pm. I planned to do a hike up a trail and then meet up with the army buddy. To my surprise, the park the trail was in closed at 4:00pm. I was perturbed since there were still at least 2 more hours of daylight, but apparently it always closes at 4:00pm. I was upset with myself for not checking this information out beforehand, but who would have thought of something like that anyways? My experience from parks is that they close at dusk or sunset, so why should I have thought of anything should be different out West? O well. While Dominic was trying to get a hold of his friend, I decided to kill some time and walk around the outlet store that was close by. I found out from Dominic about 20 minutes or so later his buddy was called out to the field for a last second training exercise. Apparently there is a term for this, I forget it, but it happens every so often. You have to be ready to go on a moment's notice. Just my luck.

Now, I was in a bit of a pickle on what to do. I needed to be in Houston the next day in the evening to catch up with Jim and go to trivia with him and his friends. I wanted to stop in San Antonio to check out the Alamo in the morning. Looking at the amount of time I had and the amount of land between me and San Antonio and Houston, the only choice was to continue driving through El Paso and make my way towards San Antonio. I hit the tail end of El Paso traffic when traveling through downtown. I figured I would drive to the next town and find a hotel to stay for the night. As I kept driving, I didn't see the point in wasting money on a hotel room, so I drove until I was about 2 hours away from San Antonio and slept in the car. Quite an unexpected turn in the trip taken in stride along with everything else.

Side Note: Along the route, I ran into a border patrol checkpoint. I started to freak a little because I didn't have my passport with me. Also, I didn't quite understand why there was a checkpoint in the middle of Texas instead of along the border. I drove up to the patrol officer and showed him my license. He asked if I was a US citizen, I said "yes", and on my way I went. No biggie, just sort of odd.

Go Big or Go Home

Leg 5 - Phoenix, Day 4

March 26, 2012

Today was the day I was suppose to leave Phoenix and drive to El Paso for the day and then start making my way back to the east coast. However, that is not how the day went. I made it to the auto shop just about when they had opened. I had to call in to make sure they were not too busy to take me in and work on my car. While they were changing my oil, they found my radiator was just about shot. Fantastic! Now, I have to get a new radiator. They had to wait for it to be delivered by their supplier and then install it. It took over half the day. I was quite unhappy and quite skeptical. The cost was a little higher than I had it would have been. The labor time seemed a little high but what could I do. So finally, the radiator arrives at like 3:00pm. I have been there since 9:00am. Clearly, I was not in a good mood. I got about 15-20 minutes on the road and tried to use my cruise control. It didn't work. Things were just not going my way that day. I called the shop and asked if it was something they could have caused. They just responded by bring it back in and to take a look at it, so I drove back. After 3 hours, it turns out it wasn't them and that the solenoid that activates the cruise control was shot. Well, I had no interest in getting it fixed and was ready to get out of there.

Throughout this time, I was texting Kurt to figure out what he was up to in the evening and hoped I could stay with him to avoid staying another night in a hotel room. He had no problem with it at all. He was actually going to be house/dog sitting for a friend and that we would sleep over there. It sounded good to me. So I grabbed dinner with him and another buddy of his. When I met up with Kurt at his apartment, Molly was making food and was about to sit down and Skype with her boyfriend Sam. Of course, I had to sit down and say hello to my fellow Flyer Alumn and give him a little bit of a hard time for ditching me in Los Angeles. We had a good laugh.

At dinner, the conversation was out of this world. I don't remember exactly all that was said (It was a awhile ago now.), but I remember saying "wow" a lot. The waitress was fun, too. It was a good ending to a bad day. I followed Kurt out to the house after dinner. The girls that live there have a labradoodle. Now, I have only met one labradoodle once before in my life, and he is a pretty most awesome dog. Their labradoodle was very much quite the same, very fun-loving and full of energy. Also, the dog was quite an attention-whore, a lot like my family's dog at home.

Tomorrow, I would finally get out of Phoenix, AZ.

Go Big or Go Home

Photos of the Trip:
NONE