Day 5...Life's A Beach

Day 5…”Life’s a Beach”

Day five is over…and it was a good day.  When trying to decide what song goes with today it was a hard decision.  Because it was Flag Day and we had a traditional cookout lunch on the patio I thought a Sousa March would be in order.  But, after having spent the day with Mark and his family I decided to go with a Glenn Campbell classic…. Galveston!

I didn’t ride today.  I spent the day with Mark Flippin and his family just relaxing on Flag Day.  I was fed pancakes for breakfast (I declined the healthier yoghurt because…well…THERE WERE PANCAKES!)  Right up there with cinnamon rolls I have a fondness for pancakes and maple syrup and at my age I can either enjoy life or try to eat healthy and stretch out the mortal coil a little longer. Since the prime time to prepare myself for old age was a couple of decades ago, I have elected to go for the gusto now and yes, thank you, I’ll have butter on those flapjacks too.

Marla, Mark’s daughter, and her husband, Josh, have a couple of the cutest kids you’ll ever meet.  Kate is a VERY mature 5 years old, and Noah is a precocious not-quite-two.  I had to laugh watching Kate sing her dad to sleep so she could decorate his hair for the day.

After breakfast Mark took me and his granddaughter, Kate (nearly 6yo) to rocket park at the Houston Space Center.  I got to see, for the first time, a REAL Saturn 5 rocket like the one used to send men to the moon.  It was awesome.  I didn’t really have a good grasp of the size of the rocket until I got to walk its length and see the different stages/engines.  What LARGE cojones those early spacemen must have had to strap on such a beast and hurl their tender pink bodies towards the moon.  It was one of those “1,000 consecutive miracles” that they got there and back.  I also stood beside a Mercury/Redstone rocket that put the first men outside the atmosphere.  Good grief…it was a bottle rocket on steroids!

On the way back from NASA young Kate reminded her granddad that it had been a while since she had been to the turtle pond…and oh, by the way, there just happened to be a playground there.  So we managed to squeeze in a trip to the playground on the way home.  It seemed like a good idea.

The backyard was decorated in red, white, and blue and the whole Flippin clan pitched in to make me feel welcome and a part of the family for a Saturday cookout in the back yard.  Burgers, taters, beans, and lots of laughter made it a special occasion.

Then, after a nap (which was clearly in order) by the whole crew they took me to Galveston Beach and we sat and let the sun go down as we enjoyed the warm waters of the Gulf, the soft sand, and the pungent aroma of seaweed drying out (there were truckloads of seaweed that had been washed up and left by the tide).  I suppose I COULD have done without the seaweed, but it was all part of the deluxe beach experience and I loved it all.

On the way home we all ate at “Shrimp and Stuff” and I had, well, shrimp and stuff.  It was great.

I am truly blessed to have such good friends.  I hope to repay the hospitality someday.