Happy 4th of July!! They do not allow fireworks here in the park, so there are activities going on all day to keep the kids busy. This morning was the parade. There were close to 100 individual entries–mostly kids on bikes and some families in golf carts. The winner got a free pizza certificate, and the runners up got some “Yogi Dollars” to spend in the park.
The air conditioning people did not show up early enough for us to be open for lunch, so we (Kevin) volunteered us to clean some cabins. We did three cabins in a little over two hours, then went to lunch. We had planned on working all day, so neither of us were very hungry, so we just had a snack. We checked on the kitchen, and although it was still quite hot, the temperature was going down, so we decided to go ahead and open at 4:00. We finally got our little deep fryer going and we were able to test some food in it. Looks like it will be simple to operate–the difficulty will be timing orders that have both pizza and fried foods on them. Since most of our business is “to go” everything has to be timed to be ready at the same time. That will take some practice…
Since we did not open until 4:00, we stayed open until 8:00. We both sampled the fried food we will be selling, so that was our dinner. We just had some dessert when we got home. The park is totally full for the 4th, so we should be busy all day Friday and Saturday…
We were off on Tuesday, but did not do anything at all, so I had nothing to write about. On Wednesday, we were supposed to work 11:30 - 7:30, but the air conditioning was not working in our building at all, so we were dying by 2:30. It was 95 degrees in the kitchen and climbing. We let the managers know that it was not working, and that we had to close down. One of the maintenance people here went to look at it, but nothing got fixed. We had the rest of the day off. Since it is still mostly empty here, it was not a big deal, plus it started pouring rain shortly after we closed, so we figured we would not have had much business anyway. After our short workday, the cat got to go out for a good long time, but the minute I brought him in, he wanted right back out again. Spoiled cat.
We were off today, and we really didn’t have anything we needed to do. Kevin wanted to pick up a few things at the Camping World, so we headed that way. It is just outside the city of Katy, so we thought we would stop at Camping World, then get some lunch and a few groceries, then head back home. We got a few necessities, plus they had these neat foldable rocking chairs for only $28, so we got one of them, too. Now we have two comfortable recliners and two comfortable chairs. After Camping world, we got back on the freeway looking for a place to eat. We saw the sign that said Houston 25 miles, so I said we should go into downtown. We did not have a plan of what to see or do, but we went ahead and drove into Houston. The downtown area is big, but not super huge, so we drove around a bit looking for somewhere we could go. We decided to go to the aquarium. It looked big, and it was something we could easily do with the time we had. It cost $9.50 for just the aquarium, or $15.99 for an all day pass to the aquarium and the surrounding amusement park. I figured we would never be back, so we got the all day pass. The aquarium was neat, and nicely planned out, but not very big. It did not take us long at all to see the whole thing. It was very different from the Seattle aquarium and the Newport, Oregon aquarium, which mostly house local sea life. This one had fish and creatures from all over the planet. Plus a white tiger. I don’t know why there was a tiger at an aquarium, but it was probably the best part!!
After we walked through the inside part, we went on the ferris wheel outside. We were at least able to get some decent pictures from up there. Then we went on the shark train. It was a train through a tube of sea water with a bunch of sharks…pretty neat, but the pictures did not turn out that well.
So by the time we were finished there, we were both very hungry. We had passed a buffet place on our way into town, which just happened to be right next to Ikea. We decided to try it out. The food was okay for the most part–typical buffet food. Then we went to Ikea. We bought a few things for the kitchen at the park, and a few things that we needed 
Then we got right into rush hour traffic for our drive home. We went home the more direct route, but it did put us on the Sam Houston Tollway, which cost us $1.50. We stopped quickly at JC Penny then went to Wal-Mart for a few groceries.
Wow. What a long day. We were both exhausted when we got back to the park. Good thing we were still full from lunch so we didn’t have to worry about dinner. I set up my new rocking chair and sat outside with the cat until the bugs drove me crazy…
We worked 11 - 6 today, and we were quite busy in the morning, but Sunday is the day most people leave, so after around 2:30, the snack bar was dead. We did some cleaning and some sitting around, and then it started raining. Again. We should have closed up as soon as it started raining–I think we only had two customers after that. Since we were open six of seven days this week, this was our best week so far. We sold nearly $2000 worth of pizza and drinks. Not bad considering that most people who go camping bring way too much food with them.
Once we got home, we fixed some dinner(I had the leftover stew and Kevin fixed a frozen dinner), then the cat and I sat outside for awhile. Then he wanted to go for a walk, so we wandered around the campground a bit. We were standing near a tree when I heard a “cheep” and a thud. I shined the flashlight on the thing that fell from the tree and I was shocked to see that it was a bird with a small snake coiling around it. That sort of freaked me out–seeing a snake fall out of the tree we were standing under, so I picked the cat up and we went back to the RV. I told Kevin what happened and he just asked why I didn’t have the camera with me to take a picture. I decided it was a small snake and not too scary on the ground, so I grabbed the camera and went back out to snap some pictures. It was dark, so the pictures aren’t that great–I had to find the snake with the flashlight, focus the camera, move the flashlight out of the shot, then take the picture without moving the camera. Good thing I took a bunch of pictures, because most of them were blurry. There is one distance shot of the snake still coiled around the bird, and a close-up of the snake with a lump in its throat…
The Snack bar is open from 11am to 8pm on Saturday, so it is our longest day of the week. I had worked on Monday for Sue so I could train Erika to make pizzas and I was going to leave early on Saturday. But we were quite busy during the first half of the day, so I decided to just stay and work. I did not want to leave Kevin alone with Sue if they were going to be busy, because she can barely do the job. So all three of us worked until 8:00. And of course it was slow. We got the majority of our business before 5:00. But I am sure if I had left it would have been busy and would not have gone well. We decided to make ourselves a pizza for dinner tonight. We have to pay full price, just like everyone else, so when we make our own, we add a few extra toppings to make it just how we like it.
We only have three work shirts apiece, so we have to do a load of laundry every three days, and today was one of them. So even though we did not get off work until 9:00, then ate dinner, I still had to start a load of laundry. It did not get done until after 11, and even then the shirts were still damp. I hung them up to let them dry overnight. I think that if we are required to wear a uniform and we work five days a week, we should get five shirts, but we only get three. We do get free laundry in the laundry room, but I only use that when there are a bunch of towels and sheets–about every two weeks or so…
The weather was nicer today, but it was very humid due to the rain yesterday. We did not work until 2pm, so we had a nice, leisurely morning. The owners are in the park since yesterday, so they are trying to get us the rest of the equipment we need to sell food other than pizza. We got another freezer that we barely have the room for, a small safe to store the register money overnight, and he has also ordered us some more tables. The food has already been ordered from Sysco, so hopefully the tables to put the fryer on will be here by the time the food arrives on Tuesday. So by Wednesday, we are supposed to be selling the pizzas, plus french fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, chicken tenders and wings, and maybe a few other things. I would like to do a few salads and maybe some cookies or other sweets, but that will come later…
For dinner tonight, I threw some Costco stew meat, along with a bottle of dark beer, some onion, carrot, potato, and seasonings into the crock pot and let it cook while we were at work. When we got home, I was very surprised to see that the meat was fall-apart tender, but the potatoes were barely cooked. I actually thought they might turn to mush, cooking for eight hours, but I had to fish them out and microwave them for a few minutes to make them soft enough to eat. I think it could be due to the lack of liquid in the pot, but I thought the steam alone would be enough to cook them in eight hours. Anyway, we made some minute rice and had that with the stew for dinner. Then the cat really wanted out, but he doesn’t really like the number of people that show up here on the weekends, so he really didn’t want to walk. We just sat in our little yard for awhile, but I did make him walk a little bit.
Today is Thursday and we are back to work. The day started out nice, but then it got very dark and windy. Then the thunder and lightning and the rains. It never seems to just sprinkle here–the rains are torrential. And they usually don’t last very long, but today the rain just sort of settled in and the winds died down. When there is lightening in the area, they have to close down the pool for safety. Since the snack bar is very close to the pool, when the pool is empty, we sell no pizza. So we sat around for a couple of hours waiting for customers. A few came, but the day was not that great.
After work, we were too hungry to cook, so we had sandwiches and chips for dinner, then sat outside with the cat for a few hours. There are so many bugs here, I can barely stand it. Now, there seem to have hatched some flying beetle-like things, and they are all over in the grassy areas. And they don’t just mind their own business–they seem to want to attack me. I could hardly stand to be outside. Hopefully they don’t stay around too long!!!
So we knew that we were going to go do some shopping today, but we weren’t sure where. We both said we needed hair cuts, so we first went to Great Clips. Then, since we didn’t have any breakfast, it was lunch time. We have been in Texas for nearly two months, and we still hadn’t tried Texas BBQ. So that is what we had today. We went to Spring Creek BBQ in Cypress. We had no idea what to expect when we walked in. They serve cafeteria style–you pick your meat, then they have a buffet line for the sides. We both had the beef brisket (since they didn’t have pork), then we picked some sides. They had mac and cheese, corn, cole slaw, two kinds of beans, potato salad and hot bread. You can basically have all-you-can-eat of the sides, but we got so much meat that I just got some corn and cole slaw and bread. Kevin just got corn and bread–I guess he could have gotten fries or potato, but we did not know that when we were there. I found that on the website after we got back home. Anyway, we got seated and started eating. We both had missed the pan of hot BBQ sauce near the sides, so we were looking around for sauce. I remembered that I had seen something that could have been sauce, so I went and got some. Once we poured on the sauce, we both really liked the meat. The cole slaw was fresh and good, but the corn was watery and icky. They kept coming around with hot bread, so we both got plenty to eat.
After lunch, we went to Sam’s Club. We didn’t really need a lot, but Kevin likes their cinnamon rolls and precooked bacon. We also got some more drinking water, some cat food, and a few other things. Then we went to Randalls grocery store. They are owned by Safeway, so I can even use my Safeway card there. We got a few groceries, then went back home. We hit rain while we were out, and it had also rained at the park while we were gone. Of course we left our chairs out, so they were soaked. They were mostly dry by dark, so we covered them just in case it rains again tonight. No dinner tonight–we were both too full from lunch. We each fixed a snack and that was it.
Today I worked, but Kevin was off. The owners are trying to get the snack shack open seven days a week, so they wanted us to train someone else to work there. We have had one person come over and give us breaks on Saturday, our long day, and sometimes she stays and helps out Saturday night. She is a nice lady, but she has trouble with the basics of pizza making, so we were a bit nervous leaving her in charge of the snack shack, even for the slow days. Plus, three people are not quite enough to be open seven days, when Kevin and I take the same two days off each week. So we really needed at least one more person to work the two days a week that we will be off. The manager decided to schedule someone from housekeeping. She said she had plenty of restaurant experience, and she did pick up the pizza making very easily. It was Monday, so we only had a few orders, but everything she did make was made correctly, so that was good. Then the manager came over and told us that since they are short on staff, the owners said they could hold off on being open seven days for awhile. So that means that Kevin and I will work Wednesday-Sunday, and we really won’t need the extra help. But I guess it is still good for them to have someone else who can work at the snack shack–just in case Kevin and/or I need to be off longer than two days.
While I was working, Kevin came over twice and said he was going to Camping World to get a few things that we needed. But he never made it. He got busy talking to Judy and Kathy, the pair of work camping women, and never left the campground. He was still chatting with them when I got off work, so I got the cat and went over there, but I was really hungry, so we didn’t stay.
