Is this STILL Texas?

9 March 10 – 14 March 10

Thanks Pat.

Happy pi day to everyone.

This was a move week again for the Chambers house. We went from Port O'Connor to League City, TX. Just 150 miles up the coast. We are going to be here for a month and try to get a few loose ends caught up. The car has needed service for 3500 miles, but the dealer was 3-4 hours one way. We are also lagging to let the spring bird migration catch up.

We have had a couple of trips already while here. We even had one trip for Ray's fetish – Ghirardelli chocolate. Not all the Sam's in TX let alone Houston carry it – but I found it.

We have an Audubon run 5-6k acre refuge about 15 minutes so we can get a little bit in even on a short day. Our first longer trip was to Anahuac – you all know how I like to find those names nobody can pronounce. I couldn't either. It was one of the 6 places to go within 50 miles of Houston. About an hour to get there then we have a problem getting to the car. All those cows were going down the road. It was kind of interesting to see how you move more than three or four at a time. How many men on horses and/or in trucks does it take to move 100 – 150 cows with their calves. For all you non-farmers the truck on the far right is in-coming. The next one left of that is also in-coming. The trailer is loaded with calves – not all of them had to walk. When a bawling calf starts mom tries to get where he is so it becomes easy to make them follow. There were still nine or ten on horseback either leading or keeping everyone going in the right direction. I could not get a picture of the cows going around the car, but take my word for it. They did. There also was a trailer following with two or three horses as spares. The refuge at Anahuac was pretty well destroyed by hurricane Ike in '08. A lot of trees are what I called heat until this year.

City life is NOT our thing. Everywhere you have to go here takes a trip on one or another Interstate. Today after church Miriam thought it would be interesting to go see what Galveston was like. Anybody know the problem with that? I know you haven't had your Spring Break yet, but IT IS Spring Break week for a whole lot of places. We drove over to the East end to see how hard it was to get to the Ferry. It isn't bad getting there, but we were glad we didn't want to go today. They have at least four ferries running on the 20 minute FREE trip across the bay. I counted 50 cars, 1 semi, and 4 motorcycles get off of one. The traffic waiting was three ferries full before you were on the road to get to the staging area. The traffic was backed up for over a mile from there. It is free though. We will take the trip one way or the other as it is a different way to get to Anahuac.

What is Houston famous for? NASA, and we are in the area where it is located. We were coming back from a ride after going to listen to an archeologist talk about some of the things found in the area. Just getting educated. You are never to old to learn something new. We had been warned by the fellow who took us out to Matagorda Island, retired from NASA after 30 years, never to be on the Interstate around NASA Rd 1 between 6-9 AM and 3-6PM, but we didn't think that meant Saturday as well. It does. Do you know what a moving parking lot looks like. We were in it for about five miles. NASA Rd 1 is the next exit north from the one we use.

For everyone in the family – I found a picture you will all get a laugh from. Just driving down the road in Chambers County TX and had to turn around and go back for the picture. Yes, I know it's a grammar school, but Miriam will attest to the fact that I am still NOT grown up. There is some kid in all of us, I just have more of it.

One of the things I forgot to write for the last couple of weeks while you were buried in snow. People down here have started mowing their yards. We saw the first mower out about the 25th of February.

π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. It is approximately equal to --->3.14<---(today) 1593 in the usual decimal notation The constant is also known as Archimedes Constant, although this name is rather uncommon in modern, western, English-speaking contexts. Many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve π, which is one of the most important mathematical and physical constants. Yes I can spell and the PUN was intended. Copied for Wikipedia.

Pictures:
Cormorants put to flight – how many does it take to make the sky black? 400 – 500 there.
Cedar Waxwings – yes spring is coming.
Turtle – I gave alligators a plug – this is alligator food. How's my camo?
Cows – pretty obvious – it was where the road was green.
School – what can you say?