Back at Lake Conroe, TX

We came back to Lake Conroe Feb 9. We like it here. It's a nice rural setting but less than five miles from here there's every kind of commerce imaginable; very convenient! Things have been pretty quiet. Carolyn does line dancing three days a week, we visit with Lara and family one day on the weekend and we go somewhere one day a week.

Last week we went to Huntsville, TX to the Prison Museum and did a driving tour of the town.
The museum was very interesting and we recommend it as a stop for those that pass close to Huntsville. A history of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is presented. One thing that is pretty obvious, Texas takes things pretty serious when it comes to their prison system. This is old Sparky, in service from 1924 to 1964. 361 including 2 from Bonnie and Clyde's gang were intimately familiar with this chair.

Those that are incarcerated all wear a white prison uniform, get up at 4:00 AM, work at an assigned supervised job, and live in a 6' X 12' unairconditioned cell with one other inmate.
The only exceptions are those that are on death row. They don't have cell mates and don't get out to work.


Texas has about 150,000 inmates in it's prison system. Any one incarcerated in the Texas prison system is released in Huntsville when they get out. Each is provided a prison made suit ( it looks a lot like scrubs and is made in the Huntsville Prison), $50 in cash and a bus ticket to the Texas town of their choice or, if going out of state, a bus ticket to the Texas state line in their general direction of travel. The Huntsville Grey Hound station is the drop off spot for all inmates being released.

We had a nice visit with Lara, Jeff and grand kids on Saturday. We enjoyed a traditional tamale dinner of chicken and corn tamale's, fried corn, fresh tomato and onion salsa and guacamole. We're told this is considered special fare by the locals and would be typical of a new years dinner.

As a final note, today is Spanky's 2nd birthday. Time flies! It seems like yesterday when he found his forever home. He enjoyed a special dinner and a new bag for his special day.

Columbus, Texas

We moved about 120 miles Wednesday of last week from Lake Conroe to the Thousand Trails in Columbus Texas called Colorado River. It's nice here. We're in a rural setting just a couple of miles from town. We look out our back door at the Colorado River ( Not T H E Colorado River, just a river named Colorado that flows through Colorado County, TX). There's lots of wildlife here including herds of deer, lots of birds, coyote, armadillo etc. Spanky has been well entertained. He enjoys watching all the activity.

Life has been quiet since we got here. Last weekend we went out for dinner at Peters, a local beef bbq restaurant. This is pretty typical of restaurants through this area. It's interesting how much food they seem to be able to serve for a very small price. A half pound of beef brisket,two vegetables, iced tea and soft ice cream for $5.95. The food was good and place was packed. It's not obvious to me how they do it.

Many of the small towns through this part of Texas have their opry houses that provide periodic entertainment for the locals. Many of the performers travel the circuit and use this as a way to try to break into the county music entertainment field. Monday night we went to Country Music Monday in Giddings Tx.
It's about 45 miles from here. One thing about Texas, it's a long ways between places. Everything is at least 40, 50, maybe even 100 miles away. Anyway, the music was good and we had a good time.

The Grandchildren, Lara and Jeff will visit this weekend. They live about a 100 miles from here. We'll probably go out for beef brisket again. Beef, it's what Texans eat.