Vacation Time

Dave's vacation began with fun and family.  Sunday morning, we picked up Kloe (Dave's Granddaughter), and started out for Houston.  It's the time of year when Kloe gets to enjoy summer with Robin (her mother and Dave's daughter).  Houston is a long drive from here, but it was such a fun trip the time just flew by. We stopped along the way to eat at the Lakeside Cafe (I'm sorry I don't remember which small town the cafe is in), where we took advantage of the opportunity to try what they boast is "the best chicken fried steak in Texas."  It was quite good, but the best in Texas is a huge claim to live up to, and our local McKee's restaurant is hard to beat. Maybe I'm just partial. 
After we reached our destination, we dropped Kloe off at her grandmother's house, made plans for lunch the next day, then went to our hotel.  Happily, the swimming pool was vacant, so Dave and I went for a swim.  I learned something new about my husband, folks.  Dave is an excellant swimmer!  I knew he could swim, but I had never actually seen him in action, and I was very impressed.  I, on the other hand, am easily intimidated by the water.  I can swim a little, but I have to stay in the shallow end.  I have to have the reassurace that my feet will touch the ground, should I need them to.  After about 45 minutes to an hour, Dave got out. He wanted to relax in a pool side chair with his book, so I did some water exercises.  It was about 8pm when we went back to the room.  By this time, we were starving. 
Freshly showered and dry, we started out for ihop.  We had copied the address, along with the one for Waffle House, out of the phone book, keyed them into the GPS, and started out.  Now, as handy as the GPS is, and as much as I love having it, I have to say it's not completely flawless.  First it told us the address for ihop didn't exist (that should have been our first clue), so we told it to take us to where Fuqua street (where the ihop is supposedly located) begins. After spending $3 to use the tollway, we arrived at this dark, bumpy street in the middle of nowhere. The street sign said Fuqua, but obviously it was not the correct area.  We decided it would be best to forget ihop and go to Waffle House.  After pulling into a convienence station, we keyed in the address for Waffel House.  Not wanting to spend anymore money for tollways, I selected the eco route, which apparantly means back streets route.  Grr!  It was almost 10:30pm when we reached Waffle House, but I'm please to say that the staff was friendly, the service was speedy, and the food was delicious!
Monday morning, as we were gathering up our stuff to check out, Dave contacted Robin to ask where to meet for lunch.  On our way to the Chinese restaurant Robin had recommended, we passed right by the ihop!  Yes, people, there was an ihop not two blocks from the hotel, it just happened to be on the next street over. Fortunately, we found the Chinese place with no trouble.  The food was incredible, but paled in comparison to the long visit we shared with Robin, her husband, Roc, and Kloe. People came and went, as we sat and talked, laughing and catching up until it was time to leave.  Reluctantly, we parted company and headed for home, but this definately will not be our last visit.  As we were driving through Houston on our way out of town, Dave spotted the exit for none other than Fuqua street.  Ha!
After one more stop in Rockwall for our monthly Costco trip, we finally arrived home a little before nine.  What fun!  Now we have to settle in and do the other thing we had planned to do while Dave is off, and that is to paint our bedroom and clean out the screened porch.  Neither of us wants to do this.  It's hard to switch work mode after your brain has spent such a great time in vacation mode.  I'll keep my readers updated on whether or not the painting gets done. ;)