Hank – Our plans are to take it easy for a few days. We got a rental car to get around in. Today we stayed in Houston. Tomorrow we visit Austin. On Sunday we go to San Antonio to visit Father George, a priest and friend from our Fairchild AFB days. We’ll return to Houston on Tuesday and then get back on the bikes on Wednesday. Robin and Sheila were kind enough to store our bicycles at their house and host us again on Tuesday night.

We drove to the Gerald D. Hines Waterfall Park and checked out the waterfall. It’s pretty cool. Next door is the Williams Tower, which we would have gone up to but the top was encased in low clouds. No sense going to the top of a tower if you can’t see anything from up there.

Kathy wanted to have some routine maintenance time, that is, her hair and eyebrows done. I dropped her off and then took off for a couple of hours. Since we were near Humble, I decided to do some exploring.

First of all, the city of Humble’s name is not pronounced with the “h”. It’s pronounced “umble”. Although I couldn’t find a reference stating so, I was told it was because the person for whom it is named pronounced his last name that way because he was from England. If true, then he was probably from London and spoke a dialect that doesn’t pronounce the beginning “h” in words. That’s my thoughts anyway.

I went to the Post Office and mailed a bunch of license plates home. Two were Louisiana plates I found on the road side. Three were Texas plates I got from Robin, our Warm Showers host. He had several sets of doubles and said I could take one of any of the pairs. I took three, one each of the three different designs he had. That was very nice of him. I offered to buy them but he wouldn’t allow it. So I have plenty of license plate guitar material waiting for me when I get home.

Next I went to the Humble City Museum. The website says they’re closed because they still haven’t recovered from the damage from Hurricane Harvey. The building is locked but there’s no sign on the door explaining anything. Next door to the museum I found the Green Oaks Tavern. I recognized the name because Jonn plays there sometimes, too.

I walked over to the Humble City Cafe to have a snack and kill some time. Inside there’s a tonsof old signs, including some of Humble Oil. I hadn’t made that connection before, but Humble, Texas was an oil boom town in the early 1900’s. The fields here are still producing oil. Humble Oil also included other brand names, which wasn’t working out for the company. All of it was renamed Exxon in 1973. I’m sure you’ve heard of Exxon.

While reading up on Humble I found an article about a Negro Cemetery. When Humble incorporated as a city in 1933 the city council passed a segregation law that stated blacks could not live in the city. They were required to move out and they had to disinter their dead and move their bodies, too. The cemetery the bodies were moved to was on private land. The land changed ownership over the years and the cemetery fell into disrepair. A local church cleaned it up in 2005. Now it’s called the Pipe Yard Cemetery but I don’t know why. The location of the cemetery is pretty vague.

According to Wikipedia, “It is located about 200 yards north of the FM 1960 by-pass which runs along the north side of Humble and east of the railroad tracks and U.S. Highway 59.”

I looked at the map on my phone and found the area that fit the description. It’s there alright but you wouldn’t know it unless you knew to look for it. There are very few markers because they’ve been damaged or vandalized over the years. Tall metal stakes mark the graves that aren’t laid out in a pattern. Of the remaining markers the most recent is of a World War I veteran who was buried there in 1956.

We checked into the same hotel as Kathy’s brother, Stan, and his wife, Rhonda. They showed up later in the evening. We went out to dinner and had a great time catching up. We haven’t seen them in a handful of years.

Kathy – Well we had a nice visit this morning with Sheila and Robin before we headed out. They are really kind people and we so appreciate all their hospitality.

Today was spent seeing a few sights, getting my maintenance work done – hair and eyebrows touched up (it’s hard being a gal on the road) and spending time with my brother Stanley and his wife Rhonda.

The waterfall sits in the middle of Houston and is massive. It is very pretty and surrounded by large old oak trees along with tall high rise buildings.

I normally need my hair colored back to my original brown color every four months or so. The sun bleaches it out too much. So it was great that Miss Betty could fit me in. She is this really fantastic cosmologist that is a wiz at hair coloring. I’m thankful to have met her and love the magic she worked on my hair. Thank you Betty!

So my brother Stanley is in the Air Force stationed in San Antonio, Texas. He is leaving today on his way to his new assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He and his wife Rhonda were kind enough to meet us in Houston this evening for dinner. It was so great to spend time with these two wonderful people. I simple love and adore my little-big brother and I’m very proud of all his amazing life accomplishments.  Rhonda is pretty awesome too!  Stanley and Rhonda were high school sweethearts and have been together since creating a pretty sweet life journey.  Since we don’t get to see each other often our time together tonight was very special.  We could have chatted for hours on end but we finally had to call it a night since everyone was pretty tired.  Looking forward to a few more hours with them in the morning before we go our separate ways.

A couple of notes… 

If you would like to view older blog entries please click on the months below:

• May 2018
• June 2018
• July 2018
• August 2018
• September 2018
• October 2018
• November 2018
• December 2018
• If you would like to comment on a blog post, please click on the post title (or header), scroll to the bottom and you will then see the comments section where you can add your thoughts. We look forward to your comment and encouraging words. Thank you!
• If you would like to see our current location click here:  Current Location where you can see our daily travels.
• To see all the photos related to a blog post, simply click on one of the photos and it will move over (either to the left or right) to the next photo.
• If you would like to “follow” our blog, please click here: Home Page  and look in the bottom right corner on your computer where you will see a “+Follow” link (If you are viewing our blog on your cell phone, the location may vary depending on cell phones.  Please look around to find this area).  Once you click on the “+Follow” link, just enter your email address there (only we can see it) and then go to your personal email to accept the ‘follow request email’ that you will receive. Once this is done, anytime we write a new blog post you will automatically get an email letting you know so you can read it at your leisure. Another option is to bookmark our site and view when you like:  www.HankandKathyGreer.com