Seeing family

Above:  With family in Brenham.  

We woke after 0800 feeling awful despite having more than my usual hours of sleep. It was 0100 in New Zealand, which explained a lot. We swanned downstairs to have a reasonably good breakfast of oats (yes, kinda unprocessed food in USA!), toast and a waffle washed down with plenty of coffee and tea.It had rained heavily during the night and there were forecasts for storms. This is in addition to the flooding they had last week.

We had about 3h to kill till our appointment so I did some admin, most importantly, send in my invoice for the last month of work! The weather was pleasantly warm and comfortably humid.

Yesterday, we had discovered that Kim had a bit of stitching left in his back that the doctor hadn’t removed properly. After a shower, my attempt to take it out was too easy. Just a snip and a tweeze. I’m glad we didn’t pay good money to go to doctor, especially in the US!

My nephew Billy (who hasn’t met me in his adult life) arrived at our hotel at 1240 with his girlfriend Andrea. We went in our car towards Brenham. With a 6pm meetup in Brenham we had plenty of time for stops along the way for lunch etc. First up was Sam’s Club (in lieu of no one having a Costco membership) to get some electric toothbrush heads. It was starting to get late so we had lunch there too.

We were next enticed by the factory outlet shops then another stop at a Walmart equivalent to get a few other things. We got to Brenham with about 20 minutes to spare, allowing us to wander around the little town briefly. We got to Nathan’s BBQ on-the-dot while Stanley (my step-bro) and family were pulling in.

It was nice to see him and his (now) wife, again after about 10 years. It was the first time I met their three kids. Stanley had suggested a Texas BBQ and there’s only about three in Brenham, a half-way town. One closed at 4pm leaving a choice of Nathan and one other. I was left with picking the venue and thankfully no one was disappointed.

The weather was beautiful if not glorious. There had been weather warnings for much of the area but the weather systems must have shifted. There was still evidence of ponding in various places from the previous week’s storms which caused a few deaths.

We had brisket (which I thought was a stewing cut), ribs, chicken, a broccoli salad and a few other sides. The Texan BBQ sauce was tops. All too soon, we were full and there was plenty of food left over. We decided to pop out for photos before sunset the parted company.

As there was still some daylight, we went back into Brenham to have some of its famous Blue Bell ice cream which was very reasonably priced compared to anything in New Zealand.

We got back to our hotel around 2100. I felt sleepy halfway on the way back and was worried about Kim who had been driving all day. Back at the hotel, I found that he was overcome by a sleepy wave at the same time. It didn’t make sense as our bodies being on NZ time shouldn’t have been sleepy then. Strange.