Our time at Ben and Vanessa’s was peaceful and fun. We loved the three kids – Jeremiah is the youngest and has the high energy levels and inquisitiveness of a typical five year old. Next is Michael, who at almost nine is an intellectually curious and knowledgeable young man. He’s the physically active one, always interested in what’s going on, asking questions and hovering to see what’s up. He and Chelsea spent time talking about many things, and playing computer games upstairs.
Johnny is the oldest, and at thirteen, he’s the “old man” of the group. When faced with a choice, he’d rather take a shower than have to go outside. He plays the saxophone and clarinet, among other instruments, and I’ll bet he’s very good at anything he tries. All the boys are good at computers, and love the X-box games.
Individually and collectively they were a delight for us to be around. Johnny and Michael are old enough to know quite a bit – they pay attention, so they are great conversationalists, and are quite articulate.
One afternoon we cruised through the Netflix offerings on the X-box, finally settling on CSI Las Vegas, and ended up getting hooked on the “miniature killer” series. We must have watched at least three of the episodes one afternoon. Then of course we had to find out the ending, so we watched the remaining three the next day, feeling slightly guilty that weren’t doing something more socially redeeming, but thoroughly enjoying the time off.
It must have been an hilarious sight – all six of us lined up on the couch in a row, watching the huge TV screen silently and intently, complete with the cat on the floor at our feet front and the dog squeezed on the couch between us.
Even funnier was the moment the couch broke – we were all sitting perfectly still – not a person was moving, not even shifting in place, eyes glued to the TV, and suddenly with a loud thunk, the couch slid to a left-leaning angle.
We did manage to get in a midday ride around the neighborhood with Johnny and Michael, but it was so hot we only lasted about a half hour. We were very glad to retire to the house and check email, do blogs and generally enjoy the blessings of being in air conditioning.
We saw Ben in the evenings after work, and each day he managed to come home for lunch. We maximized our time with Ben by staying up far too late, but we sure enjoyed the time with him. Vanessa is recovering from a broken collarbone, so she was home with the boys, and often wasn’t feeling well, but she was quite a trooper. We got a big kick out of her irrepressible personality.
The last afternoon Joe and Elisa (sp?), good friends of Ben and Vanessa, came by to meet us. We were just in the throes of finishing watching the movie Waterworks, only five minutes from the end, and we really wanted to see how it ended, so it was a bit of a distracted conversation. They soon retired to the kitchen with Vanessa, followed shortly by Ben, so we finished up the movie with the kids. We suddenly realized that we weren’t packed to go yet, so we didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Joe and Elisa.
After packing to go, saying goodbyes and thanks all around, and taking last minute photos, we headed out with our bikes and gear for the four mile ride over to Melissa’s – our next couch surfing host.
Melissa, Quentin, and Robert
Our 6 p.m. ride over to Melissa’s was very easy, though extremely hot. We were soaked to the bone by the time we arrived. Melissa had invited Fabiola, another local couchsurfer and a good friend of hers, over to meet us, so after locking and tarping our bikes outside and maneuvering our trailers into the living room, we chatted for awhile, trying to dry out in the air conditioning.
Quentin and Robert are Melissa’s thirteen-year-old twins. Quentin gave us the tour of our “accommodations” – a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. The bedroom is the boys’ room, loaned to us for the length of our stay. The trundle bed was made up with clean sheets, the sheets were folded back with wrapped chocolates on the pillow, quilts were at the foot of the bed, rolled towels were on the dresser, and the dresser held a beautiful teal vase with a tall spray of red gladioli.
Downstairs were more gladioli in vases along with a Snickers cake. The cake and flowers were Robert’s idea – how did he know we love Snickers and flowers?
It wasn’t only the flowers and the Snicker’s bars that made us feel at home. Just looking at the boys’ room made us feel like we’d gone back in time. Stuffed animals are tucked up near the ceiling in a hammock. Toys are organized into buckets on shelves, with board games on top. Books are tucked neatly into shelves in the closet. I had organized the kids’ room in the exact same way when the kids were young. They’ve even got the same yellow rag rugs I bought at the Ikea in the Czech Republic back in 1997!
We spent Wednesday night having a late dinner with Fabi, Melissa and the boys at Jalisco’s, a restaurant in downtown Rockport, and of course, stayed up late talking. Fabiola is a totally charming woman, here on a work visa from Mexico for the last ten years. She works for a local real estate developer, doing accounting and any number of odd jobs that need to be done.
Getting a work visa has become more complicated after 9/11, and since her visa is up again in November, Fabi is trying to decide what to do. Finding sponsors for a work visa is not easy, and living with the uncertainty of a yearlong visa is not relaxing. Right now Fabi is making arrangements to head back to Chiapas in Mexico for a short visit.
Back at home after dinner we headed upstairs to bed, but realized we needed water. In what we’ve discovered is her usual mode of amazing hospitality, Melissa had brought cold bottled water up to the bedroom for us, placed on the dresser on green cloth napkins, before we retired to bed.
It’s hard to talk about our time here without mentioning Melissa’s love of cooking. She’s been interested in cooking from the age of five, and had many years’ experience in running a restaurant both right here in Rockport and in Corpus Christi with her now former husband (their former restaurant is now called Paradise Key). With only herself and the boys to cook for, she says it’s harder to cook, but throw in another couple of people, and she kicks into gear effortlessly and efficiently.
With a lot of years behind her in the food industry to collect what she needs, she’s got all the essentials, including everything needed to create a great presentation as well as great food. Melissa’s also got the food ideas; it’s inspiring to see what she can come up with in only a few moments. And wow, does it ever taste great!
Thursday, after a fun morning hanging out with the boys in the morning, followed by lunch with Fabi at Paradise Key, Melissa’s old restaurant, we hung out together for another few hours, awaiting Neal, a couchsurfer from Lubbock TX who’s in town to visit his parents.
By herself, Melissa made potato salad and pasta salad, and with Robert, made hummus. Neal was coming in from either San Antonio or Austin, and his contribution was barbecue – sausage, chicken, brisket, spare ribs, and pork. What a feast it was!
Quentin and Robert are thirteen, and typical of most kids who grow up without television; they are extremely creative and know how to play for long periods of time by themselves. They are also very bright and very articulate, each with a wicked and timely sense of humor and a great sense of fun. They’ve always got suggestions of what the group can do next; Thursday night after dinner they suggested playing The Game of Things.
Each person is given a small piece of paper (five strips to a page) and a pencil. One person reads aloud a line from a card chosen from a deck, and each player writes down the first thing that comes to mind. The lines range from “what should you not do in a crowded bus”, to “what doesn’t last very long”, to “what would you like to do with chocolate”, to “what would you not do in your backyard”.
When everyone has written a response, all responses are collected and read by one person, while the others have to guess who wrote it. The responses were hilarious in most cases, as was the group style of figuring out who wrote what. A few times we laughed until we nearly cried. By the time we ran through the strip of five pieces each, it was nearly midnight.
Having gotten to bed so late, Friday was a sleep-in day, at least until 9:30, when we awakened to Melissa chanting “Wakey wakey, time for cakey!”. We all met in the kitchen and started our day with the Snicker’s cake.
Neal joined us later for lunch. Melissa had made sloppy joes from the leftover barbecue meat; she added the leftover potato salad and freshly made pita bread veggie sandwiches with hummus, tomato, zucchini, avocado, and red onion. Every meal around here is a feast!
While the boys and Chelsea spent time making forts from Jumbling Towers (like Jenga), set up battles with Star Wars figurines, and Chelsea checked email, Neal and I talked quite awhile about sponsorships, our trip, clothing for the trip, and so on.
Neal now works in the security industry, working to install and implement sophisticated video surveillance systems, but in the past he managed several outdoor sports stores. He loves fly-fishing with a passion, and does a great deal of climbing, both rock and ice. He also cycles quite a bit, and probably does more sports that I don’t know about.
Earlier I had complimented Melissa on her pants, and she told me they were Prana, an excellent company we’d looked at over the last few years. Melissa also has the Patagonia Bandha top, one we’ve looked at often, wondering if it would work for us. She told us to talk to Neal, as he always wears Prana and Patagonia clothing.
I had a great chance to examine Neal’s pants (Prana Nemesis knickers) and his shirt (the Prana Legend T), and to talk about ideas for us getting sponsorships. It was a really productive hour or two for me, as well as being fun getting to know Neal.
Neal adjourned to take care of his work for a while, while Quentin and Melissa made key lime pie from scratch. We later explored town, intending to have coffee at a new shop in town. The original coffee shop was closed (the joke around here is that the sidewalks roll up at three in the afternoon), so we tried out another new place – the Beachside Café.
We had an entertaining time at the Beachside. It wasn’t until after we’d ordered that we discovered that the shop had closed earlier, and we’d just happened to catch the owner still there. She always had young staff do the food and drinks, so she had no idea how to make anything we ordered.
Thank heaven Melissa had restaurant experience (she’d also worked for a local coffee shop); she ended up having to walk the owner through every step of each drink we ordered. The drinks were not too good, though they weren’t the worst we’ve ever had, either, but the adventure was fun.
After the coffee adventure, we gradually made our way over to Neal’s folks’ house for an evening boat ride.
The evening boat ride was gorgeous and relaxing. We cruised the canals in Key Allegro slowly, and wandered out to the skimmer nesting area. We saw beautiful homes and beautiful boats – there’s clearly a lot of money in the area, including George Strait’s home with his boat Day Money docked in front.
Since it was Friday night, a band was playing at the Paradise Key restaurant so we cruised over that way as well, tying up just outside the back patio to hear the band. Fabi called right then, so rather than place an order from the boat, we headed over to Fabi’s for drinks and pizza. At one a.m. we finally motored back to Neal’s place.
After getting to bed close to two in the morning, Saturday was a very quiet day. Melissa made breakfast tacos (delicious as usual), and after eating, I watched her made a strada (breakfast casserole) for Sunday morning. The day was just up our alley – I read and wrote blogs, Chelsea did photos and played with the boys, we had incredibly good iced coffee drinks in the afternoon, and we ended the day watching both Jackie Chan Rush Hour movies with popcorn, pizza, lasagna, and cheese sauce with tortillas and tortilla chips. How wonderful is that?
The breakfast strada on Sunday was awesome – I took the time to write down the recipes of the breakfast tacos and the breakfast strada; I don’t want to forget how to make them. We spent the afternoon over at Fabi’s in one of the community swimming pools, followed up by Mexican shrimp cocktail and the movie Mamma Mia.
We’ve spent the last couple of days quietly at home for the most part. We did get to see a small community down towards Port Aransas when Melissa dropped her boys off at their grandparents’ home; we looked at a small Catholic Church from 1856 (Stella Maris) and the cemetery next to it, over in Fulton; and we had Vietnamese food last night for the first time (it was excellent). We took a long walk on the beach around sunset; it felt great to be out getting exercise.
We’re finding that we are extremely tired – it’s probably a result of not much sleep and lots of steady input. We do best if we get to bed early and get up early, getting exercise in before we start our day, but our schedule has been flipped in recent weeks. And the days are still stiflingly hot, much too hot to consider being outside for more than a few minutes.
We’re still putting out feelers for a place to stay for the next two weeks; meanwhile I’m starting work on a newsletter and Chelsea is updating our database. We’ll keep you posted when we find a place to stay; please let us know if you know of a place that might work out for us.
Signing off from Rockport