Houston

We stayed at Jetstream RV Resort at NASA down by Keenan’s place of work. Now, if Keenan needed to go into work everyday it would be a great thing! With COVID-19, he has been able to work from home unless he is on console. What’s console, you ask? Think of the movie Apollo 13 when John Lovell stated “Houston, we have a problem.”, it’s the room that controls space flights and the ISS. Actually, Keenan works more in the room behind that picture – a little closer to a Hidden Figures figure. This RV Resort was nice, although the sites were close together and the dog run area was a retention pond and since it had been raining, we didn’t allow Bear to run freely there.

The Jetstream RV Resort was new to us and had been in existence for the past two years. We stayed in on the first evening and Katrina made us a wonderful meal.

The next day we found a off-leash dog park to take Bear to. It was very muddy, but Bear didn’t mind as he loved playing and chasing his toy. Keenan came by for a rib dinner.

Afterwards, we went over to Matthew and Alex – Keenan’s friends and see their new house. We taught them how to play “Oh Fruck” and I think that they really enjoyed it! After a while, we left and headed over to see George and Lindsay, other friends of Keenan’s. Lindsay was due the next day so we headed out to let them rest as the next few days would be tiresome.

The next day we met up with Keenan at the Truck Yard, which was a great little bar in Eado (East Downtown).

Dino and Kendall (both went to the University of Illinois), more friends of Keenan’s, met us there.

Then we went to dinner at the Original Ninfa’s on Navigation for Tex-Mex.

They touted that they invented fajitas, so we got them. Fantastic! Some of the best I’d ever had!

The next day Katrina took Bear to play in the park before we met Keenan for dinner at MAD, a Spanish tapas place.

Check out the hall to the bathrooms:

Nice picture of the three of us!

After dinner we got Bear and went to Barkley’s, an outdoor bar that accommodates dogs (hence the name).

I loved the building that stated Cocktails, Burgers, Dogs. Bear enjoyed running around and playing with the other dogs.

It was a bit wet, so we left the astroturf doggie area and sat and had a drink.

The following day we went over to Keenan’s for the day. We wanted to enjoy the outdoors, but Mother Nature had a different idea with rain. We headed to a nearby restaurant for a late lunch. GEN Korean BBQ where there was a set price and you order the type of meat that you want to cook on the hot plate that sits in the middle of the table.

Fun! And the food was good as well! Great flavorings. After that we headed back to Keenan’s place and finished a jigsaw puzzle that he was working on and then we watched a movie. Keenan played a little soccer with Bear:

Nice relaxing day spent with our son!

Happy 4th of July! We spent another day with Keenan, riding bikes down at Buffalo Bayou and at Memorial Park. Memorial Park is huge, with all types of sporting venues, bike trails, hiking trails, and arboretum!

After stowing the bikes, we made salsa, guacamole, beef burgers and turkey burgers that we grilled by the pool at Keenan’s apartment.

Since it was hot, we jumped in the pool to cool down.

Throughout the day we were able to watch a couple of day appropriate movies, Independence Day and The Patriot. We went to the top of a local parking garage to catch the Houston fireworks.

Great display! Back to the coach to sleep.

We met up with friends of ours, Alan and Becky Gardipee, for lunch at La Griglia.

Nice Italian lunch and it was great seeing the Gardipees. Afterwards, since Keenan needed a new couch, we headed over to the Gallery Furniture store and purchased one for him.

The place was very big (everything is bigger in Texas) and offered free same day delivery and removal of your existing furniture. They even had parking assistants!

That evening we got a real treat because we got to watch Keenan play soccer with a men’s league that he is on. It was great fun watching him play with the end result of tying the best team in their league. Bear enjoyed it as well:

That was a wonderful feat because the referee was definitely against them!

The following day Keenan had to go back to work and couldn’t play all day with us. It was a good thing as we had to get caught up on laundry and reroute some of our future plans. We are trying to meet up with fellow Myakkans, Jeff and Molly Wills, as they are hiking the Continental Divide Trail this summer. That trail is about 2800 miles and they plan on taking 5 1/2 months accomplishing the task. It appears that we will be able to meet them sometime towards the end of the month just south of the Tetons.

Keenan had made dinner reservations at Peli Peli, a South African restaurant. I didn’t think that we had ever eaten South African food so I contacted an expert that we know, Ant Canon (from Ohio) who grew up there and gave us the lowdown on what to eat.

Boy, was he spot on! Great drinks, food and desserts! If you haven’t tried South African, I highly, highly recommend it – you won’t be disappointed!

The next day Keenan worked again so Katrina and I had to find ways to amuse ourselves. We did some outdoor furniture shopping for our pergola at MRMR and then we had lunch at Torchy’s Tacos.

Outstanding tacos!

Afterwards, we headed back to the indoor soccer fields to watch Keenan play again.

This game was much better with Keenan’s team winning 6-5. Keenan even scored four goals (three for his team and one for the other, oh well!). Since it was still early, we stopped at a local bar called The Pour House for a drink and some wings. Nice place, but spending time with Keenan is what made it special.

On our last full day in Houston, Keenan had to work again, so we took Bear back to the dog park. It had been raining so we knew that he would be a mess, but he also needed to play. Here’s Bear jumping through the top hoop on one of the playground dog activities:

I know what you are thinking, and yes – he’s the world’s best dog!

We had an early dinner reservation at Uchi, an upscale Japanese restaurant. One of Katrina’s high school friends, Sally Schwarze, was able to join us.

The food was indescribable and delicious! If you ever find yourself in the Montrose area of Houston, check this place out! It was great catching up with Sally and having her meet Keenan.

As you can see, Keenan prepared a culinary review of Houston for us over the past nine days. Everything from Tex-Mex, then Spanish, then Korean BBQ, then Italian, then South African, and finally Japanese. All very good in their own right, but my favorite was Japanese (although the South African was a close second). I guess the moral is, get out there and try something different, you never know what you will like until you try it!

We had a wonderful time in Houston with Keenan! Unfortunately, the road is calling us and we must go.