Day Four – Glasses and BBQ

We got up and out by 9:45 and made it to the Galleria way before 10. I had to walk and walk to get to the Lenscrafter store – wouldn’t you know we’d park on the far side of the mall?? I was in the doctor’s office before ten. I was the second patient seen and everyone was just very very nice to me. The doctor and I were afraid that I was going to have to add prism to my lenses because I kept seeing two of everything, until I tried tilting my head – that made everything clear. Amazing.

I was really glad to have Frank and Rachel there with me to help me choose which frames to get – I never know which ones are best. My new ones are slightly lavender and they have little pink squares on the side but they are not too distracting. I hope. They said it would take an hour for them to be made, so we went to a BBQ place and had a great lunch. The name of the restaurant is Rudy’s and makes great food. They are certainly set up for crowds and I can see why. It was GOOD!!! They also had ziplock bags half filled with water and the bags were attached to the rafters. Frank looked it up on the internet and found that bags like that help discourage flying critters. Guess it worked – we didn’t see flying critters!!!!

After finishing lunch, we went back and got my glasses. They seem quite different from my old ones and I couldn’t see anything clearly for several hours but that was probably because of the dilation. Now I can see pretty clearly but I am still getting used to the glasses.

After picking up my glasses we went to the Museum of Natural Science and the parks around it. The Japanese Garden was beautiful and we enjoyed walking though it. The weather was overcast and cool but at least it wasn’t raining. We went to the Museum but decided it was too expensive considering we would only have been able to spend a short time before closing. They did have interesting, huge geodes. They were about eight feet or so tall. The price on a foot tall geode was $1400 so I’d hate to see the price of one of the really tall ones, but they sure were beautiful.

We got back in the car and headed back for the hotel, but got sidetracked by the Buffalo Hardware store. Frank and I dragged Rachel in there to look around. It was really just an interesting hardware store combined with a container store and a kitchen utensil store, or at least that’s how I would describe it. We bought only a rabbit cage cleaner tool but the visit was worth it.

Then we did head back to the hotel and to our rooms. However, the room locks would not open with our keys because we had made separate reservations for the two nights so we had to trek back down to the lobby and get new keys. Now, we are resting and watching television (I guess that’s what they are doing) and getting ready for the drive back beginning tomorrow. We plan to go back about halfway tomorrow and then finish the drive on Monday.

The broken eyeglasses debacle really put a crimp in your vacation activities but it’s just part of the way things happen. Still enjoying the trip regardless.


Later in the evening we went out to Barry's Pizza, which was located in a large log cabin building. We had fried mushrooms, bread with mozzarella cheese and Heather’s Firehouse Pizza along with different beers, mostly St. Arnold beer. Our server was only on his second day of serving so he made some mistakes, but overall it was a really good dinner. We spent a lot of time just talking and enjoying each other’s company. Finally we left and I got to drive again since I’d had no alcohol. It was a good ride back and then they came up to my room for a while. Just after we got out of the elevator they told me that strange smell I’d noticed from the other passengers was green marijuana. Oh my!!! We looked at maps and decided to return to Georgia by way of Shreveport, LA so that we can ride different roads and see different sites than on the ride out to Houston. Frank also tutored me again on how to put photos in the blog so perhaps there will be some. He put some photos in some previous days of the blog so be sure to check them out.

It’s about time for bed and time springs forward tonight so I’d better get to sleep. Long drive tomorrow and the next day.