Not too much to report from today, we left Dallas at about
9am and managed to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic as we headed out of
the city while most commuters were heading in.
The drive was mostly uneventful, though there were hundreds of trucks on
the road, so we spent quite a bit of time following moving road blocks as one
truck would inch past another which took several minutes due to the relative
speeds. I think we’ve whinged about this
previously in the blog, we are at least grateful that there are two lanes
(minimum) so we can actually pass. Also
the limit in some parts of the Interstate in Texas is 75 mph, so time speeds
past. The drive has been pretty dull
this trip. Texas is flat and boring, not
much to see except vast lengths of road ahead.
We arrived in Houston with no problem. Which reminds me,
Dora spat the dummy again this morning so we had to wing it until she woke up
and started giving us directions.
Sigh. This will be our last trip
with Dora, time for her to be retired I think.
Poor Dora, she has served us well but her unreliability is intolerable.
First stop was a boot shop I had sussed out with a view to
trying on some I had only been able to lust after online. Alas the largest size they had was a 8.5, and
despite my best efforts, I could not get my foot in. They have no zipper, so it was just too tight
to get my highly arched feet in through the ankle bit. And in fact, they did not look as nice in
reality as promised on the web picture, so it was no great hardship to settle
for what was originally my 2nd choice, which they had available in
my size. Finally, boots purchased, I am
a very happy boot-a-holic J And the boots have the flower of Texas – the
Blue Bonnet, as decoration. Doesn’t get
much more authentic than cowboy boots with the Texas flower.
And for anyone who saw the boots on Facebook, that was
actually a mini tin of peppermints in a boot shaped tin, not a real pair of
boots J I
was being facetious about my boot purchase!
Boots duly bought, we stopped for lunch at a nearby café,
and I tried tamales for the first time.
These are a corn based dough which is filled with meat and then steamed
in a corn husk. The café reportedly has
the best tamales in Houston, and while I have no frame of reference, they were
very good. After that we hoofed it to a
nearby Mall, the largest in Houston. It
really is very large, and very Mally, with many chain stores. I was not really in the mood to try anything
on with my 5-days-in-a-row-without-washing shorts, 2 day old t-shirt and stinky
(yes, STINKY) sandals, so I browsed and enjoyed looking at lots of clothes I
had no intention of buying, nor could I afford if I wanted to. The sales people were obviously bored and I
was approached MANY times, “can I help you find something M’am” – “no thanks,
just browsing” – “well my name’s Betty, so you just holler if there’s anything
you need” – yes super polite despite my slovenly appearance. I guess they are made to watch Pretty Woman
as part of their training and do not judge a customer by they smell of their
feet. We are seeing more of a mix of
races here, more Asian and Indians, plus quite a few muslims, including a guy
with three women following along behind, completely clad in black except for
their eyes.
By 5pm we’d about had enough wandering so headed back to the
motel to chill for a bit. For dinner we
headed back to the tamale place again, managed to get slightly lost on the way
home as we didn’t follow Dora’s directions closely enough. Prep for the next day included booking tickets
online for the Johnson Space Centre.
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