Thanksgiving on the lake...

I get the feeling that, although I do enjoy a bit of writing now and again, this blog will likely become more photographs than text at some point in the near future. As I am never sure who will be reading it, if anyone actually does, I despise having to watch what I say.

So, I'll likely start relaying more of our trips and outtakes from them with pictures.

Thanksgiving was an interesting one this year. We decided, rather than spend so much time driving to and from several locations, we would take a more simplistic approach. Pick a holiday. If you want Thanksgiving, the other side gets Christmas and vise versa. While this made for quite a few hurt feelings, everyone seemed to understand. Our second choice was to split for the holidays and be miserable, but make everyone else happy. We have grown tired of trying to make everyone else happy.

We had a good time at the Thanksgiving feast. We did some really self destructive eating. Tis the season, right? After the feast, we had a camping trip planned to the lake. It had been planned for quite some time, but as the day drew closer, mother in law decided that she didn't want to go. This left just CeeJay, her dad and me. We ended up having quite a good time.

I guess I'll just move on to the photos. The entire series can be seen HERE.

I got to shoot a Z06...

My buddy Karl, whom I now officially hate, got one of my dream cars. He was kind enough to bring it out on a rainy afternoon and let me shoot it for a while. So dreamy.

Short and sweet. I hope to be able to get more on a better day, but for now, I'll have to settle for parking garage photos.

If you would like to view all of them, they are located here...

Martin Dies in fall...

Heh. I love that title. The state park that we enjoy going to, mostly because it is fairly close, is called Martin Dies, Jr state park. It is a really pretty park and hasn't been that popular since we started camping there about 5 years ago. That all changed this weekend.

They were closed for about a year after Hurricane Rita tore through that region of south east Texas. They lost a lot of trees and we were pretty sad that we couldn't camp there for well over a year, but it was still a pretty well kept secret.

We put in our reservation a week or so before our trip and they didn't mention anything about being booked up. When we got there, we were amazed at the number of people trying to check in. We actually had to wait in line for about 15 minutes, which we had never done before. The place had gotten quite popular. Ugh. We enjoy camping to get away from it all.

Well, we picked our spot off of the map (because the ones we liked were already taken) and we went on back to park the behemoth in our new home for the next two days. We had no idea how awesome this spot was going to end up being.



So we settle in on our first night and our camp neighbors are older. They certainly don't seem like the party type and we are excited about that. As the night goes on, more and more people arrive. The party is getting ready to kick off...

Except, it was our kind of party. After the rest of the crew showed up at our camp neighbor's site, they broke out the guitars and even a banjo. They were literally playing "dueling banjos" with a guitar and a banjo. It was awesome. We enjoyed every bit of that. They were the nicest people we had ever camped next to.


Our firewood was pretty green, so it took a lot of effort to get it to burn. If you didn't watch over it constantly, the fire would dwindle and go out. This is usually my job, but I was feeling like a bum and didn't really care. CeeJay really picked up the slack here. She had our fire going really well for HOURS. She is quite the little pyromaniac.



The following evening, our neighbors invited us over for fried fish and even some birthday cake. CeeJay had made some home made chili, so we passed on the fish, but took them up on the birthday cake. Heh.



The weather was gorgeous and the stars were amazing. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of camping. We got a few inquiries on big Bertha. People were wanting to know how old she was and what kind of an RV she is... No revealing decals or images makes it tough to figure out. The park hosts came by for a short visit and CeeJay expressed her interest in possibly doing that someday. Now that could be a lot of fun...

So our little car, my first and only new car ever in my whole life, turned six years old last month. We special ordered it from the factory and picked it up at the end of October, 2003. It has 75,000 miles on it now. I did a full inside and out detail (with the help of my lovely bride) and wanted to take her out for a birthday photo shoot, but just never had enough free time in the month of October. It just seems that everything else was taking up all of my free time. So I opted for an older photo from a couple of years ago. Interestingly enough, it hasn't really changed at all in the last few years, so, oh well. Oh yeah, it is also completely paid off as of 3 days ago.

Someone tried to break into it a few years ago. The mark is still there and I haven't fixed it yet. I might do that for her birthday as well.

We have had very few problems with this car. She still has a bit of a sunroof issue that I haven't fixed yet. We replaced the cam positioning sensor about 3 years ago, but other than that, she has been flawless.

We debated selling it since the market for this little car is still pretty strong, but I think we (I) just love driving it too much. So, the little SRT will stay in our fleet a little longer.

Now, instead of monthly payments, I can use that money to do the little things that need doing, like brakes, tires, and new, non-bubbling window tint.

Happy Halloween...

I trust that everyone had a fun time this past weekend. It is always enjoyable to dress up on that one day of the year that allows you to get a little crazier than usual.

We had a couple of parties to hit over the weekend. John and Samina's and Brooke and Jason's. We had a great time at both. I really enjoy this time of year. The weather is awesome and we are heading into that time of year where all of the holidays are.

This weekend we are heading out in the coach again to do some additional work and try to relax. It seems that having no kids makes people think we can just jump and be at their beck and call every day. Escape seems to be our only relief from this pattern we have created. Maybe that is why we ended up enjoying camping so much to begin with? Hmmmm. Interesting.

I'll have a couple of more updates to add soon. For now, everyone enjoy the beautiful weather. According to the Weather Channel, it is pretty much nation wide!