Buc-ee’s...”It’s a Texas Thang”

It was dark when I left the house, just a purple ribbon, trimmed in pink, peeking above the eastern horizon. The plan was to get through Houston before peak traffic congestion. I was headed for San Antonio and a couple of days work.

Clear of Houston I stopped at a Micky D’s for coffee and a McMuffin (my wife frowns on those!). Since I don’t get those often, I really enjoyed myself (munching and sipping...man their coffee is hot!) as I headed out I-10.

Soon I started seeing the Buc-ee’s signs for jerky, fudge and “Buc-ee Nuggets” ( !Buc-ee Nuggets!?). Spaced out, every so many miles, (109 to go, then 85, then 55 and on and on) they entertained me as the mile rolled beneath my wheels.

As I drove on I recalled a recent story I’d heard about ABC News profiling Buc-ee’s on the evening news...”really clean bathrooms” was the attraction.

Well...soon I came on another Buc-ee’s sign saying “can you hold it” and I understood what they meant! I had to go! Remember that big cup of Micky’s java?

Now the signs took on a different meaning! I really wanted to stop there, to see what all the fuss was about, AND I really needed to go...which one would win out?

The miles crept by, my speed increased from a leisurely cruise to a more lead footed, gas guzzling one... a race against time and nature!

Finally!! I crested a hill and there it was, like an oasis shimmering in the distance...I’d made it!

Kinda anticlimactic from here on...yes they have very nice bathrooms (ahhhhhh!) and a great variety of shopping (good thing my wife wasn’t with me)...they even had a $3,000.00 mesquite rocker!

I managed not to buy anything, but more coffee and headed on my way.Now I can say I’ve stopped at Buc-ee’s....”It’s a Texas Thang” (that’s what the sign said).

Diamonds in the Mountain

After a long flight in one of Continental’s “mailing tubes” (Embraer Regional Jet) and a two hour drive to my destination in the Shenandoah Valley, I just wanted to grab a smooth glass of wine and supper.

Road weary I asked the young lady at the hotel desk if there was a nice local restaurant nearby. “Just down the street” she said...so not wanting to drive anymore I headed that way.

As I pulled into the parking lot I noticed the parking lot was full...seemed odd at this early hour, about 5:00 PM, and most of the cars were what I’ve always referred to as “retirees’ cars”...Mercury Grand Marquees, “Caddies” and Lincoln Town Cars.

Entering I noticed that the restaurant was dated, old paneled walls, heavy nautical type tables and chairs, old yellowed light fixtures and ceiling tiles and...aromatic (smokey).

The hostess asked the usual how many (I looked back to check if anyone had come in with me) and smoking or non (it smelled like it wouldn’t make any difference). “Just me” I said.

Seated I looked around and wondered if I hadn’t wandered into the dining room of a nursing home. Most, if not all, were senior citizens (bear in mind I’m about to go on Medicare), on walkers, oxygen trolleys’, and various other senior “appliances”.

They all seemed to know each other, laughing, smoking (yep...puffing away) and lifting their “toddies” in toasts to each other they were all milling around, having a grand time visiting each other’s tables.

I became totally engrossed in their joy, in-spite of ailments, physical status or age they were enjoying their night out.

It was unexpected but enjoyable...can’t remember what I ate (the wine was fine) as I was too busy listening to their laughter, stories (sounded like some were tall tales...oh yea!) and watching their joy.

When I finally departed I had been refreshed from my long day of traveling. Many were still there, I felt like I’d learned a lesson...you’re never too old to laugh and enjoy what you have (they were still there) and not what you don’t (youth and health).

So enjoy!

NO BOARDING PASS!

In this day in time, where paranoia runs rampant...and the TSA has become the “Godzilla” of federal bureaucracies, playing on our fears, a terrorist under every rock and airline terminal a maze of security checks and blue shirted people everywhere...would you think you could get on a plane with no boarding pass?

“No way” you say! “Oh yea” I respond!...gather around and let me tell you the story.

I had gone to Pittsburgh for a few days of consulting, and all had gone really well. Flush with accomplishment I headed for the airport about noon, for a 2:00 PM flight. Work complete, airport security behind me I settled down for a nice lunch at TGIF and a rare luncheon splurge of a glass of wine (I knew it was five o’clock somewhere).

Lunch finished, a warm buzz from the wine, I headed for the gate. Passing one of those huge (at least 30 screen) arrival / departure boards (there not boards anymore but video extravaganzas) I noticed my flight said DELAYED. “Rut roh, rotsa ruck”...that is never good, especially in the middle of the day!

Arriving at the gate the poor young lady working the podium was already besieged with the inevitable barrage of questions, which to her credit she handled with patience and humor (stick around she’ll loose it later). Sitting near the podium I picked up (without getting in that long line) that our (B-737) flight was on a mechanical delay, “but no fear the mechanics are arriving on the next flight from Newark.”

Ok...that sounded plausible.

So I sat back and began reading my book and listening to the long line of people explaining to the young lady how important it was that “they” get to Houston so “they” could connect with their flight to wherever. She very politely listened and said she would know something shortly and would make an announcement.

Before this story becomes an epic novel, on a James Michener scale, let’s fast forward a few hours.

The mechanics arrived from Newark, opened panels and shined their flashlights into darken mechanical spaces and finally pronounced they’d found the problem...but the part was back in Newark! I’m not trying to second guess them, but being a retired pilot, I know that the problem had been diagnosed and the solution suspected....so why would you send mechanics, their tools and no parts?

When the young lady at the podium (her rosy cheeks getting darker) made that announcement....the scramble was on!

The arm waving, hand gestures and voice levels, around the podium began to rise by the minute. The once placid young lady’s cheeks began to turn a crimson red as she valiantly tried to handle the situation.

Hang with me...we’re almost there.

From somewhere in the gathering gloom of dusk and the ever increasing rain showers appeared a Continental Connection Bombardier Q400! Our young crimson cheeked agent announced that anyone wanting to get to Houston tonight (implying the part ain’t getting here today) could hop on board this mystery airplane and connect in Newark.

Momentarily stunned, the heard thundered toward the departure gate (why yes I was in the heard, taking a quick assessment of my chance on plane A and NOT seeing it going anywhere soon). To our surprise our boarding passes were surrendered at the gate and we were told that everything would be sorted out by the time we got to Newark...”just get on and find a seat!”
“WHAT...give up my boarding pass, my only proof of purchase...what’ll the TSA say....you’ve got to be kidding me”! Surely there was a TSA agent somewhere saying...”hey, wait a minute, you can’t let those people out on the ramp, much less on that airplane without a boarding pass.”

It’s only a short fifty five minute flight to Newark...up and down the aisle the conversation was all the same...“I don’t have a boarding pass...what’s going to happen in Newark”?

I have to take my hat off to Continental...we were all met at the gate with boarding passes for the continuing flight to Houston. WOW!! Kudos to Continental for taking a bad situation and making it work.

Exhausted but still hopeful we all dashed through Newark’s myriad concourses, more shops and restaurants than gates, arriving just in time to board our flight. WOW...again.

Disheveled, tired and thankful we arrived in Houston late in the evening, no worse for the experience and, in my case, HOME!

Commons sense does occasionally prevail.

Thunder rumbled and lightening flashed across the horizon...it was 4:30 in the morning.

Looking out our window on the ship we could see the offshore platforms dotting the Texas coast, shrouded in heavy rain and illuminated by their work lights, as our ship worked its way toward a dawn docking in Galveston.

The rains on the last day of our cruise were like tears of sadness...it had been a great cruise. We had departed Galveston seven days ago on the Carnival Conquest, under brilliantly blue skies and calm seas. Each day had been gloriously announced by golden sun rises and beautifully blue seas.

With over one thousand miles to Jamaica, our first stop, we had two full days at sea to explore and learn our ship....and learn we had to do as the fourteen decks offered challenges of getting where you wanted to go, as few decks allow a transit along the nine hundred feet of ship.

To the lyrics of the Beach Boys song Kokomo....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxJg8GMjhQ&feature=response_watch

Aruba Jamaica ooo I wanna take you

Bermuda Bahama come on pretty mama

Key Largo Montego baby why don't we go Jamaica

Off the Florida Keys There's a place called Kokomo

That's where you wanna go to get away from it all

Bodies in the sand

Tropical drink melting in your hand

We'll be falling in love

To the rhythm of a steel drum band Down in Kokomo

our wake churned and slid behind the ship to mark our progress.

Tours and shopping in Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel offered glimpses of island life and a chance to reacquaint our legs with solid ground.

Sadly, as all good things, we steamed around the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula and crossed the Gulf of Mexico back to Galveston.

It was our first cruise...but not our last.

Hummingbirds

We put out the hummingbird feeder yesterday, to assist in their fall migration south, and like a new restaurant the customers were slow to come...today, however, the words out (good reviews I guess) and they are swarming, eight or more at a time! Note that the feeder is now half empty...and that is just since yesterday afternoon!

Trying to take pictures of hummingbirds requires almost the speed of their wings, which is around 54 beats per second! One second they are swarming around the feeder, fighting for space and a prime table at the restaurant...then the next, by some unheard warning they all fly off in a flurry of beating wings.

This arrival and departure occurs often, no pattern, just often...which leads you to wonder why? Where do they go, perhaps another feeder? Or, perhaps to rest, we have seen them just sitting in our bougainvillea baskets and up in the tree down by the lake.

Trying to identify them is another issue, there are several types...Ruby Throated, Green Violet-ear, Anna’s, and more that we’ve not identified. They move so fast and the time on the feeder is so chaotic that identification is difficult.

We sit on the rockers, just a few feet away with our binoculars and camera, and enjoy these beautiful little creatures.

Great fun to watch.

Ok...let’s try a book review...I haven’t tried that yet.

Riders of the Wind was written by Robert F DeBurgh. He has written an engaging book about early aviation, from 1920’s to 1940. The book was given to me by a close friend and it languished in the guest bedroom up at the lake house for over a year. At a recent family reunion he asked me how I enjoyed the book. With some degree of embarrassment I had to admit that I hadn’t read it yet...”but I will before next year’s reunion!”

And I have.

With summer’s heat slowly breaking, replaced by a low pressure area off the Texas coast, bringing low ceilings (the clouds hanging in the tree tops) and gentle rains that dripped off the boat house dock, I finally picked up the book.

While historically a blend of fact and fiction it had potential, however, started off ever so slowly. Charlie Cross is our main character, who taught himself to fly on his father’s farm in New Jersey. Now as a lifelong pilot I found that a little hard to believe (remembering my early experiences...with an instructor no less!). Anyway he did (in the book) and the story goes on through his career, marriage and starting an airline that somehow survived the Depression and ends as WWII erupts.

Flying a dizzying array of aircraft I was constantly “Googling” them to get a better feel for what he was flying.

Mixing real and imaginary people (he marries a cousin of Anne Morrow...Charles Lindberg’s wife), the book explores the early airmail and airline days. Charlie and Doretta emerge as early pioneers in aviation, he starting the airline, she an early pilot starting a flight school and rising to Captain in Charlie’s airline. As if this wasn’t enough they are enticed to do early route exploration work in Brazil...this is one of the best parts!

All is going well, Charlie and Doretta’s businesses grow, she constantly pushing the boundaries of women in aviation until the depression hits...their survivors and they gather all their employees around them into an extended family and suffer the pains and joys of an extended family.

And then the war arrives!

Winds of Fire is the sequel, and I’ve ordered it, and it will cover the war years up into the 1960’s.

Give it a try (especially if you like aviation) you’ll enjoy it!

Retired....really?

I am beginning to think that consulting is like a windstorm. For a while the skies are clear and the wind calm...then off in the distance you see the dust starting to kick up. Before you know it swirls around you blowing everything around and you’re scurrying around trying to keep everything together.

Well that’s the way it’s been lately. I had been busy earlier in the year, then the summer doldrums set in, no rain and record setting temperatures. Suddenly my lazy days disappeared like little “dust devils” announcing the coming storm.

And so it blew...for three weeks I flew around this country like a leaf in the storm...here then there, back and forth until I finally came to rest...home again.

Actually it was great fun.

The grand finale was working on a spill response drill offshore San Diego, using a C-130. The goal was to simulate spraying a dispersant over an oil spill, using water.

Simple you say?

Well to get permission we had to get approval from the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, California Fish and Game and the Federal Aviation Authority. All agencies were very supportive so it wasn’t really all that bad...the two days of flying went very smoothly.

If you’ve read any of the “Rambling of a Retiree” you will notice this blogger has had a diverse year...”oh yea!!”