Day 6 and 7 - Tony's in Houston, TX

Wake up Wednesday morning, and the house is super quiet.  Go downstairs to learn that Belinda (Tony's wife) had left early that morning to drive a few hours and drop the kids off with her dad, and Tony was taking vacation so we could all hang out together!!

Tony and I got going.  Here's another one where I'm not real sure what he does, but it's pretty cool.  He works for a company that (I'm going to oversimplify this again) builds engines for ships.  BIG engines for BIG ocean, deep sea drilling kind of ships.  He travels all over the world to get these things installed.  Amazing.  He took me to his office to see where he works and introduce me to folks (and to check in; he's one of those that can't totally remove himself from work, and I was ok with that).  People at his office were SO nice, but you know, this trip has reminded me that people everywhere are pretty nice.  He also took me by a building they'd just bought and are going to transfer to.  It was HUGE.  I would not want to be in charge of that move.

I'd told Tony that there was one tourist-y thing I wanted to do while I was in Houston - visit the Museum of Funeral History.  I realize that this might not be interesting to everyone, so I also told him that if this wasn't his thing, no biggie, I'd go by myself.  Well, he was up for it!!  He knew it was near the last  building we visited, but not sure exactly where, so he called OnStar for the address.  It was pretty funny...THREE times they asked him, "Sir, you want to go where?"  Finally he said "Funeral.  FUNERAL.  Like you die, and you have a funeral?"  The OnStar guy said he thought that's what Tony had been saying...  Finally find it.  The Museum of Funeral History is pretty darn interesting!!  Lots of old-timey hearses, sections on the history of embalming (Did you know that embalming became popular during the Civil War, when families would search battle fields for their loved ones, and then carry the bodies home?  Some entrepreneur set up an embalming tent on the battlefield, so the bodies would 'survive' the trip home to be buried!), the history of Papal deaths and the ceremony that goes along with their burials, Presidential deaths (Lincoln's wife was so distressed that she did not leave DC to travel on the train with her husband's body to be buried, and his living son chose to travel alone and meet the body for burial, so his son that had died while he was living in Washington was exhumed, and they made the trip together), crazy coffins, and military deaths.  It was in this last section that they had a short video on the guarding of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  Tony and I sat and watched it twice.  It was amazing, and I now want to stop there on my way to Delaware.  Since it's summertime, they change guards every half hour.  Hit the gift shop on the way out, and they had NO postcards and NO keychains!!  What kind of gift shop is that?  Tony and I got t-shirts that say "Any day above ground is a good one".

UGH!!!  I'm having trouble loading pics.  Blech.  Ok, now I'm bummed.  WHY WON'T THEY LOAD?!?!  I can't write anymore...  :)

Do I have to pay?!  I can't figure it out.  What a mess.  Apparently by loading pictures here, I now automatically have a Picasa account, and it looks like I still have room.  OMG!!!  I'm very frustrated.  It's $5 for the next step of storage, and I think I'd pay that, if I knew for sure that that's what the problem was, but I don't think it is.  Crap.

I am going to SCREAM!!!  I don't think I've used even a fraction of my allotted space, so WTF?!  I have so many more pictures to share!

I have wasted SO MUCH TIME on this.  I don't know what to do.

Me and Ton in my new t-shirts.  Mine is on backwards.  I wanted black, but the museum didn't have it.  Do you get that?  A museum of FUNERAL HISTORY didn't have a black t-shirt!!

YAYYAYYAYYAY!!!  I got it to work!!!  Have no idea what I did different, but I GOT IT!!!
Let me get more pictures on now while it's working...  OMG I'm SO EXCITED.

Ok, so where was I?  Tony and I left the museum and went to lunch at a burrito place called Freebirds.  The "F" is backwards, and it's decorated with lots of pop culture/current stuff and figures that people have made out of the aluminum foil that covers the burritos.  It's similar to a Moe's.  Here's a pic of me and Tony.

After lunch we called Belinda, and she was back in town so we picked her up and went out riding some more.  They took me to Tony's boss' lake house.  There was a Hummer there, and I asked Tony to take a picture of me, because who knows when I'll be near a Hummer again?

I'm not real sure what's up with my expression...

 When I got there, Belinda said she wanted to get feathers.  I had NO idea what she was talking about, but said yes anyway.  Well, here's what she was talking about.  We dragged Tony to a hair place in the mall, and had these feathers put in.  They were $10 A FEATHER.  Later on, we found a place that put in clumps of 7 for $35, and we both got the group called "Rainbow".  I don't have a picture of them, but they are - obviously - all different, bright colors.  They're held in place with a metal clamp, and will stay in until I have someone un-clamp them with needle-nose pliers.  I'm going to keep them in for awhile.  I read an article that said fly fisherman are not happy with the trend, because it is raising the prices of feathers.

My originally, lone ($10) feather is the blue one, Belinda's is the yellow and black striped.

 That night we went for pizza at a local place called Star Pizza, I think.  I had two slices with crazy toppings like artichokes and avocados and cilantro and stuff.  It was delicious, but a $400 order had come in right before ours, so it took forever.  It really wouldn't have seemed that long, since we were visiting and getting caught up, but several employees came over and apologized for our order taking so long.  No biggie.

Then we went to a dueling piano bar.  It was not crowded, and there was lots of audience participation, so we were forced to participate.  We hadn't been there 20 minutes when they asked every table to pick out the drunkest person.  Well, we didn't really have one, but there were only 8 or 9 tables of people, so the piano guys called out our table and said we had to pick someone.  Well, Tony and Belinda immediately point to ME!!!  Long story short, the 'drunkest' people had to go to the front and do the YMCA.  BEFORE I MADE IT BACK TO THE TABLE, Tony had it posted on Facebook.  And he's my best friend?!?

I'm guessing that guy on the end really IS drunk, because I have no idea what letter he's doing.

Belinda and I had lots of fun, because we were doing some major people watching.  There was a bachelor party sitting next to a group of unrelated women, and we had stories for all of them.  It was fun.

Next morning, we get up...and go on a 200+ mile ride on their Harleys!!  I rode with Tony.  I don't know if you're familiar with the seating on a two-person Harley, but both of us have backs to lean up against, so I wasn't smushed up against him.  As we left his neighborhood, we had to drive through some residential and business areas with lots of traffic, and I almost chickened out.  But I figured if I was going to do this, I trust Tony more than just about anyone, so I might as well do it with him.  After about 5 minutes, we got on back country roads, and I was fine.  I leaned back, relaxed, dug in my pocket and got my phone to take pictures...  When we got to our first pit stop (aka biker bar), one of the other riders in our group asked Tony, "Do you know what she's doing?!?"  Well, he didn't.  They told him that I was taking pictures, and waving like I was in a damn Homecoming parade.  Apparently that's not appropriate Harley behavior.  So I was corrected.

Notice the trees WHIZZING by!

Over Tony's shoulder.  I could BARELY see how fast we were going, which was probably a good thing.

I'm going to make this my new Facebook profile pic - see my reflection in Tony's helmet?

My artsy pic.

Biker bar.  Had a DELICIOUS hamburger on a jalapeno bun.

Super cool bathroom faucet in one of the bars.

We were on the bikes for over 6 hours.  It got REALLY hot near the end (104), so to get home faster, we jumped on the freeway.  I'd been fine up until then, but I really didn't like that.  I know Tony was going over 70mph.  That gave me the shivers just writing that.  Anyway, when we got home, we were tired, hot, and FILTHY.  I'd worn capris, and below is a shot of my exposed leg.  Guh-ROSS.

It looks like hair, but I swear it's dirt (although I don't know which is worse).

After cleaning up, we went out for CRAWISH!!!  Tony is allergic, so we had to pick up a sandwich for him to take (ok, so I guess that makes up for the Facebook picture).  The 'restaurant' was seating under a metal shed, and the restaurant was open for 10 more days, because then the season is over.  They were delicious.  It was here that we saw the woman with the clump of feathers and we got our new additions while everyone else was waiting on the food.



THREE POUNDS OF CRAWFISH - aww yeah!!

After dinner we went back to their house, where Tony and I watched "Wipeout" and laughed and laughed.  Like the good old days.  Belinda is a saint.  :)