A week’s recap, visiting family, no calls

Last week was a quick seven days. Mama and I traveled on Monday and Tuesday. I trained on Wednesday and Thursday. We traveled on Friday and Saturday; mostly Saturday. The first two days of traveling took us to Decatur where we looked at two properties, one of which we were interested enough in to approach the bank.


It is eighty acres with six tanks and a well. It has a creek that splits the property in two sections of roughly 55 and 25 acre tracts. Three of the tanks are very nice and the other three have water in them in spite of the severe drought. There is a loafing shed attached to a corral complete with a head gate. The creek is full of small brim. It is clear and deep enough in several places to provide a swimming hole. A small, dilapidated house would provide some lumber if it were torn down carefully; quite a lot to offer in one property.

Tuesday we got to Houston in the late evening. We were put up in a very nice hotel about one mile from the ConocoPhillips headquarters. Mama shopped around, mostly at Costco, on Wednesday and Thursday and I was in training to become certified as an Incident Commander. On Wednesday night we got to go to Johnny Pope’s church, Christ Church, in Houston but he was away at Crown College doing a series of special meetings. The Youth Pastor was great and it was a very good time for me and Mama.

After my training was over on Thursday we went to see Grandma and Grandpa Kline in Chappell Hill, TX. We had a pleasant evening with them and we arrived early enough to take a walk around town. It is not a long walk but it is a scenic one none the less. After only two days in Houston, we were happy to be in the country. Grandma and Grandpa Kline are doing well, but the effects of more than eighty years of living are starting to show on them, especially my Dad. They are content. They are healthy and still very mobile. Regardless of how good they look and feel I am relieved to be closer to them.

On Friday afternoon we drove over to Rogers, TX to see my sister Sarah and her family, Fabian, April and Josef. It is always a delight to spend time with them. As it turned out, we arrived in time for Sarah and Fabian’s youngest, April’s birthday party. There were fifteen young teens over for an evening of party activities, mostly unorganized, but the partiers did not seem to need any organization to enjoy themselves. I got to grill hamburgers and hotdogs. Mama helped get all the food set up. Sarah was relieved to have us there. The wind was so bad that we had to clear out the shop building and set the tables and chairs inside. Nobody seemed to mind. It was a much easier venue for the flies to annoy us – no party is complete without them.

The boys played basketball with the rim lowered enough so that even the shortest could dunk the ball. The girls pranced and pretended to play volleyball with just the proper amount of squealing to keep the boys looking. We visited with Sarah and Fabian and pretended not to notice the silliness.

Saturday we left pretty early so we could take a look at the property once again on our way home. We spent a little over an hour walking around, mostly looking at the creek and the back corner of the upper portion of the property. It was more effort than either Mama or I realized, a fact we discovered several hours later when we were getting out of the car after traveling a couple hours; a gentle reminder that we are not getting any younger.

We were expecting a call from the bank about the property, but none came. We are waiting on their commitment before we make an offer and it appears to be a good thing since Mama has already found two other properties with houses nearer to Decatur that she is interested in. If any of them are still available we may go over on Friday to look at them.

Mama is quite excited. I am getting there.