April 2016

Well, we had a fun week with tests and doctors in Columbus.  We each have new medicines to take, all tests came back in good order, and we are on our way to West Virginia and then Washington DC.  We were able to see a few old friends while in town but not everyone we wanted to see.  I swear we spent the whole 10 days here in doctor's offices.  It's what happens with medical doctors, dentists,  optometrists.  Now except for a quick October visit to the anti-coagulation clinic & my GP, we are finished for the next 12 months!!

When we left WV, we considered going over Route 50 but opted for I-68 instead.  Every time I drive over Keyser Ridge and Big Savage Mountain, I expect to see snow - even on the 4th of July.  We lucked out and got over both mountains without one snowflake.  And we stopped in Frederick Maryland for a day.  I had not been back there since 1997 and there are many changes.  It has built up so very much since I worked there.  Farms have become shops and restaurants.  We spent a nice afternoon in Emmetsburg antique-ing and didn't buy a single item.

Then it was on to Washington DC.  The trip from Frederick was uneventful, if very wet, until we reached the beltway.  The beltway was backed up and Connecticut  Avenue was horrid with traffic.  Luckily the GPS was feeling helpful and we made it to our hotel safely, if not quickly.  It was beautiful in Washington for the 4 days we were there.  We ended up exploring a little, meeting up with Jim & Rhonda for Katie & Niall's wedding. 

Our first day in town we walked from our hotel at 10th NW and K St NW down to the Vietnam Memorial.  I thought my feet were going to fall off and that new medicine from Dr. Albers was kicking my hind end!!  Seemed we had to stop every 2 blocks so I could sit down and rest.  Thank goodness there are many, many benches along the National Mall.  Some observations:

• The FBI building has great security, especially for their parking garage
• Never leave a Nationals' game in the 7th inning.  That baseball game lasted 16 innings!
• Ford's Theatre had lines around the block.  Why do people want to see where a president was murdered? 
• The last of the cherry blossoms were still very pretty
• Why did they have to change the Smithsonian so much?  And where was my Hope Diamond?
• My main complaint about the Smithsonian is the number of unruly school kids running wild through the exhibits.  They weren't enjoying the experience, just trying to fill out the questionnaire's their teachers had given them.  Ruined the experience for us, that's for sure.

The wedding was held April 26th at 6 PM in the Senate Park beside the Capitol Building.  It was a beautiful venue with all of the azaleas blooming.  One of Katie's friends officiated and Ryan's daughters were flower girls.  After the ceremony, we went off to an Irish pub for the celebration. 

Only one more Witz  niece to marry off now.

Kentucky

After we left West Virginia, we headed west to Rick and Carol's for a few days of catching up and relaxing with them.  It was great to reconnect.  I think all of us will be on diets after this visit as they fed us so very well with salmon, tri tip and homemade navy bean soup plus many lunches and dinners we had around their neighborhood.

On April 1st, we decided to try a couple of distilleries on the Bourbon Trail in central Kentucky.  It is a very pretty drive down to Lexington and we headed first to Wild Turkey.  You drive through a beautiful old town of Lawrenceburg then follow a winding road, cross a rickety bridge, and climb a hill to arrive at Wild Turkey Distillery.  There are so many 4 and 5 story warehouses on both sides of the road and signs leading us to the Visitor Center.  I listened to their retired master distiller talk to different groups shopping in the gift area - he signed hat, t-shirts and bottles.

One factoid about Wild Turkey's Kentucky location is this company also owns Sky Vodka.  While the vodka is made up north, it is shipped into Lawrenceburg for bottling.  We were not taken on a tour of the vodka bottling operation...now that I really would have liked to sample!  HA!  We took a tour of the bourbon distillery and had tastings in the main building.  Their Honey Wild Turkey was good but I still prefer tequila.

Mike and I during the Wild Turkey Distillery Tour

One of the visitor's displays

 

 

After Wild Turkey, we stopped for lunch in Lawrenceburg and then drove on to Woodford Distillery.  Their visitor center is beautiful and sits up on a hill.  From the porch you look down upon their old 1800's warehouses.   We chose not to tour this distillery but enjoyed a tasting.  Yes, the picture below is my empty tasting glasses.  I preferred the Distiller's Select but only with the dark chocolate truffle....and those of you that know me know, since my last rounds of chemo, I can't stand the taste of milk and dark chocolate.  Woodford Reserve Select made me a chocolate eater again!



Endings

The past few weeks have been difficult.  On March 13th my mother entered into hospice care.  She had lived with my sister Liz for the past 2 years and was slowly fading away.  She passed on March 23, 2016.  Mike and I started preparing that day to leave Texas and pre-packed all of our belongings, except for daily clothes by the 20th. (There was also the final trip to Goodwill for all the things we discovered we no longer needed to carry with us!)  So when the call came, it took us just the final day to load everything into our truck and head north.

Of course any trip with the two of us is not without some drama.  The morning of March 24th we stopped in Livingston to pick up accumulated mail and found a jury summons for Mike.  He was supposed to have reported on March 21st!  I was sure that he had a "failure to report" subpoena sworn out against him and would be arrested at any minute, being the hardened criminal he is.  Needless to say we went to the courthouse right away to correct this error.  And happily Livingston is used to dealing with Escapees like us, who travel full time.  The clerk just said "OK, when do you want to serve?"  So we will be back in Texas on September 26th for Mike to serve jury duty.  And I cancelled the last 2 weeks of our Colorado trip.

The trip to West Virginia was good as the roads were clear but the orange barrels are EVERYWHERE!!!  I know they are the state flower of PA, but seriously?????  Anyway, with all the rain in Arkansas, it looked like the whole state is just one huge swamp.  There was water standing on both sides of the roads in fields.  I don't think it is because AR is growing all of the world's rice, it just looked like it.

So we finally got to WV and had a very nice funeral for mother.  Liz's son-in-law Nelson officiated at the ceremony.  As with all funerals, we saw many friends and family and, for me, quite a few unknown people who knew mother over the years and came to pay their respects.  She is now laid to rest beside Daddy and Bruce.

Edith's Shinnston High School Senior Picture

L to R:  me, Liz, mother, Becky

 



Last month

Nothing is guaranteed in life except death  & taxes so we took a trip up to Texas City/NASA area to Frye's to buy Turbo Tax.  It was discounted about $20 less than Wally World next door.  Besides we need to get out and about and keep moving, don't we? 

This memory is for my Star Trek fan friends and family.  We missed the turn into Frye's driveway and had to go around "the block".  (FYI, the blocks are Texas sized as well so it was probably a quarter mile round trip to get back to the driveway.)  Here we are on the NASA Parkway and we had to make a right on to - here it comes!!!! - Kobayoshi Drive.  If you are a Star Trek fan of either the original series or the new prequels, you will get this thanks to James T. Kirk's Star Fleet Academy days.  I have to admit I was bouncing in my seat and laughing that the folks around NASA have such a great sense of humor.

We met our landlords, Bob and Maureen, this past week when they stopped by to change the filters on the furnace. It was nice to have faces to match with the phone calls and correspondence which were necessary to arrange our stay here in Galveston.  They live about an hour northwest of the island.

When we were chatting Maureen mentioned going to Scotland to spread her mother's ashes when we were explaining our travel life style.  Interesting fact is along the Galveston seawall there are slab granite jetties jutting out into the ocean.  There are also many slabs stacked south of 80th street to build up beach.  When Maureen was in Scotland in the Hebrides Islands, she was told one of the islands has a large granite quarry and the majority of the granite they ship out of Scotland goes to Galveston.  The Scots didn't know why Galveston Texas was purchasing so much of their granite so she enjoyed explaining to them exactly what their granite was placed to do.  You really can learn something new every day if you pay attention!!

So this past week we finally made it to the train museum here on the island.  The trains were originally brought to the island to by-pass Houston.  There was a amjor rivalry between business men on Galveston and Houston.  We enjoyed the scale trains set up similar to my ex-boss' collection.  I worked for David in Sacramento and he has built a layout of the Sierra foothill towns and their trains.  The ones here in Galveston were multi-level with tunnels and trestles.  Two older men were looking at them and saying "Gee I wish we could see them running" so I pushed the large button which said "Push Here to Start Trains"!  It was their DUH moment.  Out on the old tracks by the train station, we could look into the private train cars but were not permitted to enter.  We were able to climb into a caboose, an engine, a fully restored mail car and a Pullman car donated from Canada.  It was a nice morning trip and we got some really good pictures from there. 

We are beginning to pack to leave Galveston and I will be very sad to go.  I have enjoyed exploring this area and just kicking back for the past 3 months.  On to Ohio, WV, & NC

Spring in East Texas

Blooming Redbud

Well, spring has come to East Texas and the redbud trees, pictured above, are blooming all over!!  The other trees have a faint light green glow to them as their new leaves are coming in now too.  When we lived in Ohio, I always looked forward to seeing those redbuds but not until late April to early May and then I would know that winter was finally over.  I think East Texas has the same kind of winter season my friend Stephanie tells me they have in costal North Carolina.

Last week we took Mike's cousin Terry to Hobby Airport for her return home to PA.  She was able to visit us for 5 days and her visits are never long enough.  We didn't do much more than show her the island and relax/veg during her visit.  We did find two other restaurants in our search for gluten free menus.  They are Mario's Seawall for pasta and wood fired pizza and Nick's for seafood.  Terry says Nick's makes a wonderful mojito too with lots of fresh mint and I can vouch for their Grilled Mahi Mahi with mango salsa.

After driving up to Hobby, and since we were half way there, we decided to continue on north to Livingston to pick up our mail, instead of having it shipped to General Delivery here in Galveston.  And since Texas votes March 1st in the Super Tuesday primaries, we dug out our new Voter's Registration Cards and took them with us too.  Texas is another state which now allows you to vote early and not wait for election day.   I hadn't checked into absentee ballots so I was happy we could stop by the Justice Center in downtown Livingston and cast our votes.  Not saying who each of us voted for and both chose different candidates.  I am already sick unto death of all the political rigmarole.  By the end of October, as the political ads overtake the air waves, I will probably stop watching TV, listening to radio, checking the Book of Face, etc.  For November's general election, we will request absentee ballots as we will be somewhere in between Colorado and Tucson.

One of our meal stops in Livingston is either Manny's for Cajun food or the Whistle Stop Café across the street from the Polk County Courthouse.  Yesterday it was Whistle Stop.  We'd had breakfast at Denny's by the airport after dropping Terry at Hobby so we decided Whistle Stop would be the perfect spot for a snack.  Both of us had Bean & Andouille sausage soup with Mexican cornbread (nice and spicy with jalapeño peppers).  For dessert I had a slice of very tart lemon meringue pie and Mike had peach cobbler.  I like the Whistle Stop because its atmosphere reminds me of Griffin's Bar-B-Que run by my Aunt Griffie (Martha Ellen Griffin) and Aunt Peg Anderson on Shinnston's West Side.  Whistle Stop is obviously a local restaurant in a small town with waitresses who know most of the customers and what they usually order.  And the pies are almost as good as my Aunt Griffie's  but the crust just isn't as good.  There is also a gift/antique shop connected to the restaurant and it's always fun to explore.

Whistle Stop Café

We are still really liking Texas and Galveston.  This winter has been the best in many years!

Mardi Gras & Tawn

 

We had our first guest last week, my cousin Tawn.  It was a good time to visit.  Not too cold, sunny days, and the second weekend of Mardi Gras.  Galveston Texas has the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the US, right after New Orleans and the Galveston celebration is much more family friendly!  We bought balcony tickets overlooking the main parade route and the band stage. 

 

So, regarding those balcony tickets....  We are spoiled by NASCAR.  When you buy premium tickets to view a race, those include a commemorative souvenir, snacks, free soft drinks & water, and a nice area to sit and chat.  Not here with their balcony rates.  All you get is access to the balcony.  No food, no reserved seating, no reserve or timed space on the balcony for the parades, etc.  In our building they had between 15 & 20 tables spread between 2 rooms and those were grabbed by the first 50 people there.  Those first 50 were also the balcony hogs and never moved, they just rotated thru their group of folks so no one could get on the east side of the balcony.  There was no accommodation for the number of tickets they sold.  One of the Crewe  Bob-a-loo leaders was most unhappy as she'd paid a very large fee for about 60 of her group working parade floats and there was no seating available for the food she'd brought in for them.  If and when we do this again, we will stay at street level with the masses.

 

There were so many people downtown on Saturday.  The majority were families with a lot of small children.  Some of those kids had sooooooo many beads around their necks that you couldn't figure out how they were still able to stand upright!!  The kids would stand below the balconies and call out for beads.  Mike bought us a large bag of beads and we had a very good time throwing them down to the crowd of people below our balcony.  We threw our beads to the kids mostly and all 3 of us had pretty good aim.  We still have about 1/3 of them left if anyone wants a few strands??

 

The crowd below 

 

 

I bought Tawn and I each a mask at the 23rd Street Star Café.  It seemed the later in the day it became, the more masks we saw.  We finally gave up around 7 PM and came home.  Got a good picture of Tawn in her mask with Mike.  The bandstand is behind them.  Best thing about the west side of the balcony was being able to sing along with the bands.  They were each very loud so I sounded VERY good singing along with each of them.  I really rocked Whole Lotta Love & Heartbreaker by Led Zepplin!!  Just sayin'...

 

Tawn and Mike

 

Finally in self defense and to rest our weary feet, we walked over to Pier 21 and had dinner at the Olympia Restaurant.  No wine with dinner but the restaurant had many to choose from as you can see them all behind us!  Dinner was very good - grilled salmon, stuffed shrimp and seared Ahi tuna - but the desserts left something to be desired.  I have been EXTREMELY disappointed by all of the flan I have tasted since we settled into Galveston.  I guess I'll have to stick with the beignets.

Dinner at Olympia

 

While we planned to go out for Super Bowl, we ended up staying at home.  Tawn's Denver Broncos won the day.  I could not root for Denver as they had beat my Steelers in the playoffs.  I felt sorry for Carolina but such is life. 

 

On Monday we went to visit Bishop's Palace on Broadway & 14th downtown.  It is a beautiful mansion built in the 1870's by the Gresham family.  In the early 1900's it was purchased by the Catholic diocese to become the Bishop's residence.  The self guided tour took about an hour and a half.  The historical society decided only to put back into the house what either belonged to the Bishop or to the Gresham family so most rooms are sparsely furnished, if at all.  I can't even begin to describe the wood work, chandeliers, marble, etc. in this old mansion.  The decorative work in the coving of the dining room ceiling was linoleum, which I couldn't believe as it looked like hand painted plaster and was very ornate.  It is truly a beautiful building and there is much restoration on-going.  Right now there is a $3 million grant to repair the roof and collections being made to preserve the sunroom, which is mostly constructed out of zinc.   I was intrigued by the kitchen and bathrooms too.  The Butler's Pantry had a gold fixture for hot water and a silver one for cold water.  Oh, and the bathtub in Mrs. Gresham's bathroom had 3 taps - one for hot water, one for cold water & one for rain water.  The rain water was for washing her hair. 

 

The stairway in Bishop's Palace

 

There are many mansions on Galveston from the 1800's and many Victorians built after the great hurricane of 1900.  I hope we have the time and gumption to get out and tour more of them before we leave. 

 



 

January/Medicare

Our weather has been all over the place.  Warm and sunny for a few days and then cold and rainy then thunderstorms, heavy rain and dropping temperatures into the 50's.  I'm not complaining as it is not white and frozen!  We can still get out and walk, in spite of the funky weather.  It is good to winter in Galveston.

I spent the past couple of weeks investigating Medicare Supplemental plans.  Yep, got my Medicare card in the mail the last week of December and will go on Medicare April 1st.  I was totally at a loss when it came to knowing anything about my options and coverage available.  I have read two books on all the plans available and also requested the AARP information packet from United Healthcare.  As we travel full time, I can't take an Advantage plan as most are linked to HMO/PPO, with in-network services only, except for emergency situations.  Also, having a permanent domicile address in Texas limits my options.  So I thought by the end of January I would be stark raving mad but instead signed up for both Part F with AARP/UnitedHealth and Part D with Humana - all choices were based upon my medical history.

It has been quiet here on the island but we beginning to see the build up for Mardi Gras.  Every store is decorated in green, gold and purple along with quite a few houses, especially along 25th street.  I've been told it is a lot of fun and not scary like it can get in New Orleans.  The family parades begin January 29th.   I have purchased masks for Tawn and I to wear for our day downtown and Mike has declared it to be a 'no driving' day.  He has also stated there is no reason for him to wear a mask as he won't do anything where his identity would have to be hidden.  Ha!!  We will get a taxi for transport both ways.

And no post from me would be complete without a food update.  We have found another wonderful little restaurant, The Gumbo Diner, for breakfast.  They have a limited menu, as most diners do, but they also have fresh, steaming hot, made when you order them beignets.  If you have never had a fresh beignet, you haven't tasted heaven!!  They also come very heavily dusted with powdered sugar.  (I did not say this was a health food establishment!!)  WARNING:  Do not inhale as you take a bite or you will cough your lungs out!!  In addition to the beignets, they also have homemade sausage and they make their own tortillas for huevos ranchero, which has been Mike's "go to" choice so far.

Here is hoping all of our northern and east coast friends and family stay safe and warm during Storm Jonas...and when did they start naming winter storms???  I thought that was only for hurricanes?