Friday March 19, 2010-Stephen F. Austin SP

Today the boys and I got up and they gathered up all of their stuff to go home. Yep, it was the day we all dreaded, having to bring them home so they can go back to school next week. We left here about 9:30 and went to Sealy to get them something to eat. Of course, they wanted donuts, so being a retired cop, I knew exactly where the donut store was. We got them some kolaches and donuts and left for Texas City. We made good time down the freeway but ran into heavy traffic on I-45. There were a lot of cars going south toward Galveston. This was the last weekend of spring break.

We got to their house and unloaded their huge bags of clothes, two ripsticks and Cam's bicycle. I took them to the karate school but everyone had already left for the mall where they were going to a movie today. I took them to the mall and dropped them off with Ms. Frances.

I went to Manvel to pick up the new platform from Ken. On the way, I stopped at Buccee's where I got fuel. I took a total of 121.7 gallons to go 1771.4 miles for a 14.5 MPG average.

I went to Ken's and together we tweaked the platform enough to get it installed. It fits over the horizontal portion of the fuel tank to hold the disassembled porch and anything else I want to stack on it. I am very proud of the way it turned out, since it will open up a lot of storage for me in the slide-out tray in the trailer and will protect the fuel tank from anything bouncing around and piercing it. Ken is a wonderful fabricator and welder and the job looks very good.

After leaving Ken's place, I met my old friend Emile at Denny's on Hwy. 6 for coffee. Emile and I worked together at MoCity for five years and became good friends. It was good to see him again and we had a nice visit. I came on back home and got here just in time to sell some more firewood and ice. Time to go back to work...

So long.