Beach Lunch for Two

During the past two months in the Rockport area, we've neglected our "couple-ness" -- the bond we share. Between work (for Dar) and the Sandollar social club, we haven't made much time for just the two of us. So yesterday we savored a decadent and unconventional lunch together... to reconnect and escape from the recent sameness and routine that's dominated our lives.

We picked up two slices of home-made cheesecake from Jama's Kitchen in downtown Rockport (Dar selected the last piece of truffle; I, a center piece of white chocolate macadamia nut; to go). Jama's makes some of the best cheesecake I've ever had. Then we headed over to Rockport beach where we set up our beachchairs under a cabana a few feet from the water, stuck our toes in the warm sand, and nibbled on "lunch" while soaking in the sun, the bay views, and some good conversation. It was simple and it was great... one of those little events we'll remember forever.

Earlier in the day I had an appointment at the local tire shop. I'm in the process of installing a tire pressure monitoring system on the car (the toad). One of our neighbors limped into Rockport recently with a badly damaged Jeep Liberty ($4,000 damage) -- the result of a tire blowout while being towed behind their motorhome. A towed car is so insignificant in comparison to the size and weight of a motorhome that a blown tire on the car won't be apparent to the driver until chunks of rubber from a shredding tire start tearing off larger pieces of the car... fender liner, fender, bumper, brake lines, radiator, etc. In the worst cases the blown tire can get hot enough to ignite, setting fire to the car and eventually the motorhome too. We've been using an inadequate system of carefully watching for toad trouble in the rear-facing camera while driving, and stopping often for "toad checks". But our neighbor's problem was the last straw and we finally popped for a PressurePro tire pressure monitoring system.

The PressurePro is easily installed by the user. The reason I had to visit the tire shop is to have new, stiffer, valve stems installed and the tires balanced with the system in place. A small sensor, about the size of a walnut, is screwed on the valve stem of each tire to be monitored. The sensor constantly reads the pressure in the tire and wirelessly relays that information to a base-station mounted in the cockpit of the motorhome. If the tire pressure drops below a set level, an alarm alerts the driver to pull-over and investigate the problem -- hopefully before the tire goes completely flat. I'm counting on this thing for a little more peace-of-mind during our travels.

And the Safety Director is all smiles about it too.