Brownsville, Texas Did we mention that OU thrashed UT.......63-14?? Did we mention that OU are National Champions?? Just in case you all forgot the 63-14 score! We had Bevo burgers for dinner!! It's a long way to Texas!! (Via Arkansas yet again!!) Sunday Nov 12 - We left Branson in heavy rain following Arkie and Milo to Conway, Arkansas. We met Arkie's parents and taught Milo how to make instant coffee…so the stopover wasn't a complete waste! We left Conway at 6pm and headed towards Texas in absolute torrential rain. Mark and I played trivia in the car with the help of the laptop..anything to try to keep him awake. He wanted to drive all night and so he stopped for some caffeine tablets. They didn't have the No Doze brand that he was used to, so he purchased another brand which came highly recommended by the cashier. She claimed they were the ‘tablets of choice’ by the Truckers….so who was he to question the word of someone so qualified. He took two when we left, then a couple of hours later took 2 more…and finally a couple of hours later took the last two. Inspection of the package said to take two every 6-8 hours. He obviously took way too many! He would have driven back to Venezuela if I hadn't of made him finally stop at 4am in San Antoine! It was a useless $45 paid to the Motel 6, because he just couldn't get to sleep..even with me having talked to him for hours..go figure!! I can usually put anyone to sleep in 20 minutes just by talking! I would have been better off letting him drive though. All he did was keep me up by jabbering incoherently until morning! Monday Nov 13 - Lucky for us our hotel was in the same carpark as McDonalds, so after a hearty breakfast, we headed off for his sister Cathy's house in Brownsville, arriving there around lunchtime. With 3 days stay at Cathy and John’s, Mark disappeared on his beloved Harley (which John has been taking excellent care of) and I decided to go to a real dentist (as opposed to going to one in Venezuela). Cathy recommended the family dentist which had the amazing real name of Rudy Valle!! They rushed me through in a few short hours over 2 days for a nice cost of $450 but my choppers feel much better for it. For all you Snow Village enthusiasts, Cathy has an awesome village that takes her a week to put up every Christmas and crosses 2 rooms. It lights up at night and has a train that goes around, burglars robbing banks..all kinds of things! You can see her village HERE.  John BBQ’d awesome venison kebabs and Cathy drove us everywhere we needed to go. Cathy and John have their own construction business and live very busy lives with 2 young children, but they gave up a lot of precious time for us while we were there. Mark also got to see my extensive Barbie collection that poor Cathy has been safely storing in every closet of her home for over a year! Brownsville is very close to South Padre Island, a beautiful and popular Spring Break resort on the Gulf of Mexico. It's also close to the Mexican border and it was very easy for us to just 'pop' over for dinner one night. Many, many thanks to Cathy and John for giving us free reign in their home and for their continual help while we live here in Venezuela…and to sweet nieces Ashley, who gave up her room for us and to Chelsey for being Chelsey! Mexico!! Mexico looks a lot like Adicora too! Sister Cathy, Ma Strider & Brother-in-law John Too many margueritas I think!! Are we sure there's enough liquor in that desert? The restaurant is inside a Pharmacy! Cathy & Mark waiting for the plane to leave Cathy & Helen, still waiting 2 hours later Houston, Texas Arriving Houston Thursday Nov 16 - We left Brownsville and our car and flew onto Houston today. Sammie kind of picked us up from the airport. We were waiting for nearly an hour in the public pick-up while she was waiting for the same amount of time in the private carpark in the rear. Only after I decided to go and look through the airport for a person I had never met, did I hear a hesitant voice call.."Helen??" After managing to finally find each other, we checked into the hotel, had our OU/TX gif"t exchange and then headed next door for some ribs. We needed some good old-fashioned entertainment for our one night in Houston, but instead of a bar, we chose a local Carnival! We froze on a giant ferris-wheel and sammie and I burned lots of rubber in the bumper-cars..how old are we??? One bottle of fruity vodka and a broken laptop later, sammie said her goodbye's at the hotel and we tried to discreetly pack 2 weeks worth of kitchen utensils that we had bought from Wal-mart to take back with us, into our bags. It was our last night in the US and we certainly had no ambition to return to Venezuela! Thanks for a fun night sammie and it was great to finally meet you after 5 years!! We offer the following photographs without comment!! Leaving Miami and the USA :( Friday Nov 17 - We caught the hotel shuttle in time for our 6am flight to Miami. Miserable and already homesick for the US, we started to brace ourselves for our return journey. Just at the time we were supposed to take off, a drama was ensuing in the back galley. It seemed that a passenger had taken ill and was having convulsions. This of course delayed us...2 whole hours while paramedics and airline crews tried to help her. To make matters worse, after they removed the passenger, the stewardess made an announcement that all our food and the galley had been contaminated and removed and that they wouldn't be able to feed us on this flight. Did I mention that we were flying American Airlines?? Well we hadn't eaten anything except a piece of fruit from our morning Houston flight and this was now a 2.5 hour lunch-time flight! They did manage to find us some uncontaminated water and some cookies to feed us, which was big of them. We were so miserable already that this just added to it. Of course this delay made us miss our connecting little 12 seater flight in Aruba and after an hour wait, we managed to catch the last flight back to Venezuela. We arrived home at our house at around 8pm that night and I can say that we were NOT glad to be there! The transition back has been difficult after tasting the comforts of home again! Thank you to everyone who had us as guests in their homes and to everyone else that we met. You made our short 2 weeks a lasting memory and we can't wait to get back...for good!! You are listening to: Yellow Rose Of Texas Back to The USA page!! 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