I Had Ants In My Boot!

Yep, I had ants in my boot yesterday.  I can't remember the movie, but there is a cowboy having his feet shot at so he jumps around.That is what I looked like. Mama took my boot off and wiped the ants from my feet. That was strange.

I went to the vet yesterday for my annual vaccines. We went to Banfield Pet Hospital.  They are located inside Petsmarts.  Our vet had told Mama they were expensive. They charged about $20 more than what he charges.  However, their hours are convenient and now my records are available at any Banfield that we happen to visit.  They were very friendly. The vet asked why I was wearing a boot and Mama told her about my corn.  She had never heard of dogs having corns.  We were not surprised. It is our understanding that it is a greyhound thing. Mama showed her the information on how to remove them.  She was very interested it learning about it, so we left the information with her.  Hopefully she will learn more about it and will be able to help the next greyhound that comes in.  She gave me an exam and would you believe that she even took my temperature?  I told her that I could hold the thermometer it in my mouth, but she said she had a better way.  Ack!   Mama did not take a photo of that, thank goodness.  She gave me my shot and then I was happy.  I knew that was it.  She gave us treats.  Scout refused to eat hers, so I ate it. 

Eating my treat.

Waiting for the vet.

Scout waiting for the vet to see me.

Mama likes the convenience of Banfield while we are traveling. If we were really sick, she would try and find us a greyhound savvy vet, but for our annual vaccines this seems to be a good place for us to go.

I was exhausted after my vet visit.  The folks went out for lunch.  They ate at Willy's Ice House again. There are two places that Mama wanted to eat at again and this was one of them.  This time she had a BBQ/Cheddar Burger.

Breaded mushrooms - nicely seasoned

Dad's crawfish sandwich

Mama's BBQ/Cheddar Hamburger - it was better than it looks.

Last night, Mama fixed their Emeals meal.  It was simple.  It was just brats with chili without beans on top with cheese and onions.  Mama liked it. She has leftovers for lunch today.

The party house was quiet yesterday.  Well, there was music, but not a wild party like we expected.  The campers with their tent were gone all day. There tent blew around some in the wind. 

The folks sat outside waiting for fireworks, but came in because the mosquitoes were bad. We watched the fireworks from inside the RV.  They were very loud because the public display was just a few hours away, but Scout and I did fine.

Dad either has a cold or it's allergies.  Mama is not feeling too good this morning either. She says it could be allergies.

Independence Day!

We had some new people move in last night.  They look out of place here. They are real campers. They put a tent up and tents are now allowed. The park manager spoke with them about it, but we are not sure if they were told to take it down.  They have two barking dogs and two kids. They are probably just here for a few days.  This is really not a good place for kids. There is nothing for them to do but fish.

Mama says she doesn't want to be invited to the party house. LOL  They sound like they are in their 20's.  It is definitely not her scene. We expect the party to be quite loud today and tonight. We just find it interesting that they can play their music so loud 24 hours a day.  

Mama made Chicken Pitas last night. She was not impressed with them.  The pitas had chicken, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and Feta cheese.

The folks are going to sit outside tonight and watch the fireworks.  Scout and I will stay inside where it is safe for us.

Stay safe everyone and have a great day and night!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Celebrating His First Fourth In His Forever Home

Ready For The Fourth

The RV park is decorated for the fourth of July.  The flags are out on all the posts like they were for Memorial Day.  They have not put the banners out around the Club House or fences yet though.  We hope they do because it makes it look quite festive. It's my first 4th of July being adopted!

The lady that helped Mama with the awning when we first moved here left yesterday.  Mama was sad when she saw they had left. We didn't get to say good-bye. We have our blinds closed in the mornings if the sun is out because it gets too hot in here.  We don't hear anything that is going on outside, so they left without us knowing.  We went over and checked out their site. They have a lot of shade, but their site costs more and Dad doesn't want to move. We should be leaving here in a few weeks anyway.  We don't know where we are going yet. 

There is a subdivision that backs to our RV park. There is a guy who plays music very loud 24/7 and every light on his house seem to be on.  Mama noticed it the first day we were here.  She thought maybe he was dead and no one knew it. She asked the park manager about it and she said that the police have been called several times and there is nothing that they can do about it.  We don't know when he sleeps.  We don't hear it from our motor home, but if we walk down the road into the other RV section, we hear it. He plays pretty good music, but it has to be so annoying to all his neighbors.   Last Thursday and Friday, he had parties. It was really loud. People were laughing, singing, etc.  Saturday, he added a band to his party. I think that upset the neighbors because there was silence for a few hours. I just cannot imagine having to live next to him.  I bet he has a huge party tomorrow night.

The view from our window. It's a Crape Myrtle.  

Me watching the firemen that are down the street from us. 

Mama fixed pitas with pepperoni last night.  It was basically a pita with pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. It is baked for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. She said it was pretty good. Tonight, she is fixing pitas with chicken fajita strips.

Dad is off tomorrow!  I am going to the vet for my distemper vaccine.  Mama thought it was due at the end of the month, but I am set to expire on the 7th.  We will show the vet my corn, but Mama said unless they are greyhound savvy, they probably won't know much.  Dad wants her to take the  printouts on how to remove corns, but she will not ask them to do it if they don't seem to have any knowledge on it. 

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Excited That Dad Is Off Tomorrow

Houston Museum of Natural Science

I am going to start off the blog this morning telling you what we did yesterday and Joey will finish up with his thoughts.

Yesterday, we visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It is located near downtown and is about a 45 minute drive from our RV park.  There is a parking garage that is attached.  It is $10 to park.  It was very nice to just park in the garage and walk directly into the museum. We did not have to walk outside.  The museum has various prices.  If you want to see the permanent exhibits, the price is $15.  They have a Titanic exhibit which is $27.  We decided not to see that one since we visited the Titanic Museum in Branson, MO and saw a lot there. Jeff surprised me by adding the butterfly exhibit onto our tour. It was $8 a person.  I thought it was a little pricey when we were already spending $15 a person for the main exhibit, but I did really enjoy it.  You are able to watch butterflies hatch and then walk out into an area where they are flying all over. There is a McDonald's inside the museum which I was very happy about for a few reasons.  1) I have not had McDonald's in eight weeks and I had been wanting it.  2) The food prices were about $.50 more than other McDonald's, so they were not inflated by much.  3) The food was good, unlike the food we had at NASA and McDonald's cost less.

I really was not looking forward to seeing the museum, but we heard many good things about it.  There were things that I enjoyed seeing such as gems, shells, butterflies and I found some of the items from the Arctic and Indians interesting.  Jeff enjoyed the dinosaurs and there were a lot of them, 30 to be exact. I thought we would never get through that exhibit.  It was the size of a football field.

Termite mound.  Jeff said he saw these in St. Thomas

A chart that we were given as we entered the area with the live butterflies.

Waterfall in butterfly area

Ceiling in butterfly area.

One of the many gemstone carvings of Harold Van Pelt

One of the 30 dinosaurs in the Hall of Paleontology

...and another one

Giant Armadillo - supposedly like were quite large at one time.

Largest snail shell in the world

Another view of the shell

More shells

Gold nugget

Another dinosaur as seen from the second floor.

There is a room with jewelry and very large gem stones.  It was dark inside with only lights on the gems and jewelry.  I did not take photos there.

We arrived early around 10 a.m. and left at 2 p.m.  There were large lines to get in as we were leaving, so I am glad we arrived early.

Last night, we decided we wanted Mexican for dinner.  There are many restaurants near us, so I decided to check the reviews. We finally decided on Lupe Tortilla.  The reviews said that they had the best fajitas in Houston and also their tortillas are homemade and paper thin and just the best.  I decided I had to see for myself.  They serve a salsa that is not traditional. I am not quite sure how to describe it. It has tomatoes, onions and maybe a few peppers.  It is not a red base though.  It is clear. They also bring a hot bean type of dip with the tortilla chips.  I really liked both of them.  I ordered the The Original “Beeg Sucker” Burrito Flour tortilla filled con beef, frijoles, covered con chili gravy queso. Served with tomatoes, onions and shredded lettuce. I chose to upgrade it to the fajita beef instead of regular ground beef for $3 more.  It was really good.  I loved the fajita beef and the chili sauce was really good.

Burrito

Jeff ordered the fajitas with chicken, beef and shrimp. He also ordered a side of grilled corn on the cob.  His food took up half the table. I asked him if he thought they were the best fajitas he has ever had and he said they were good, but probably not the best. We have found that in Houston, fajitas are not served with green peppers like we are used to in Missouri. This one had one pepper.  It is interesting to see the differences in food here compared to at home.  Most of the Mexican restaurants here serve two types of salsas with their tortilla chips and I like that. 

My attempt at showing Jeff's food.  It is not all in this photo. 

The hats are the lights.  First time I have seen that.

Here is Joey's report:

I am doing really good wearing my boot!  I love that I can go wherever I want now.  I can walk on the gravel and the asphalt.  It's very likely that the next place we stay at will not have as much grass, so I'm glad I can walk on other surfaces without hopping.  You should have seen me this morning. I walked to the far lake and then we walked all the way to the other end of the park and to the firehouse.

How do I look?  Mama says I look pretty spiffy.

Walking with Dad yesterday.

That's all I have to say today.  Mama seems to have talked enough for both of us.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Likes Being Booted

I Got The Boot!

Ha ha..... This morning, Mama and Dad measured me for a Thera-paw boot.  They were really confused by the measurements, so they called the company but they are closed until Monday.  Mama started looking for any place in Houston that sells them.  She found that Greyhound Pets of America, Houston carried them. Dad called them to see if they could help us determine the size and they said we were welcome to come by and try them on.  We piled in the car and off we went.  It was an hour drive, of course.  The people were very nice and Mama explained to them my history and my limping. She said that she thought is was a corn, but she couldn't find one.  There was a man there who they said was a greyhound guru who looked at my foot and within 3 seconds, said "Yep, he has a corn."  Can you believe that?  It is really small.  Mama still didn't see it until they pointed it out to her.  She told them how the Previcox had been helping me and she thought that I had arthritis again.  They said it could be, but I definitely have a corn.  Now, I have to get rid of it.  So, for all of you who said "it sounds like a corn",  you were right.  Mama feels really stupid for not being able to see it. She poked, squeezed and rubbed my pads and didn't feel or see it and I never reacted.  I guess we will know for sure once the corn is gone if the arthritis is back.

We have been reading the websites on how to get rid of the corn.  Does anyone have any tips?

I wore my boot tonight and I was allowed to walk on the gravel and the pavement.  I walked pretty good with it.  I feel like a clown though.  I didn't hop.  I walked on my foot.

Oh, I have to tell you what happened on my walk tonight.  Dad told Mama to stop.  He said there is a snake.  She screamed really loud and jumped up in the air.  He then said, "YOU JUST STEPPED ON IT!". She screamed really loud again. There were men outside and they laughed.  It was a non-poisonous one, so it was okay, but you should have heard her screaming.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Got The Boot