Exploring Home Improvement and Family Adventures

This is episode number 328 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name's Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode late at night.

We're in the studio very, very, very late at night, and I'm just glad I remembered the intro.

Hey, there you go.

It's been a while since I've been here.

A long while.

It's been like, what? I don't know, like almost 2 months.

Yeah, it's been a minute.

Maybe 2 months.

Yep.

Since it's— since I've been here.

We lost your name placard on the door.

Yeah, I noticed that. No, well, you know, we'll, we'll find another better one. So anyway. How you doing, man?

I'm doing really good. So let's, let's get sponsors out the way.

All right. Who do you wanna start with?

Not out the way. We love our sponsors.

Who do you wanna start with?

Uh, Lone Star Appliance Repair. All right, guys, give Lone Star Appliance Repair because we know that your appliances got a little rumbly in the tumbly.

Especially like, if you're anything, if you're anything like around my house right now, all we have done is laundry.

is laundry.

That is all we have done for 2 months straight.

And things wore out.

I mean, like, seriously, we've had so many trips. We've been gone all summer. So we're, man, we are wearing out our—

Laundry is the worst part of traveling.

Yeah.

And you know who takes it in the pants is the washing machine.

They do.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, I'm hoping it does a good job. But, um, anyway, I, it, it's one of those things where even if you're not in the market for a new washer and dryer, you probably need to have that thing serviced.

Yeah, or cleaned.

Or exactly, clean it, make sure— and Lone Star Appliance Repair does these types of services. So give them a call if you're in, uh, you know, the market for, um, a new appliance. Maybe consider just fixing your old one.

Yeah.

And if you need some service, some repair, anything like that, give them a call, 936-647- 2364.

Awesome.

And next, we've got True Texas Solar and Roofing.

Yeah.

And, I'll tell you what, they, this, Josh and his team are doing a pretty outstanding job right now. I'm in contact with them regularly with some other things that, that we work on together. And they, they are still installing a ton of solar because things are good. Solar's still very viable. Yeah, it's still very viable, very helpful for anybody who wants to own their own energy source. And, uh, lots of really good things happening with that. But also they've been ramping up their roofing side like crazy.

So, which makes sense if you're starting to talk about solar, solar, because like, you know, the first thing people look at when they start talking about solar is like, is it going to damage my roof?

Right.

Like, what am I going to need to do if I have to replace my roof later on down the line? Should I just go ahead and replace that roof now? And the answer is probably yes.

Yeah.

If you're even asking the question. Yep. I mean, it's like, you know, I found like 2 or 3 shingles on the ground. It's probably fine.

It's probably not fine. Probably not fine. Well, and, and right now, I mean, uh, I was talking to my friend Eric, who we, we've had on the show before.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, he, he's got his, uh, you've, I haven't even told you about this, but he's got a brand new, um, insurance company that he has started. So he's, he's, he owns an insurance company now. And so, like—

I saw, I saw the announcement the other day. Yeah. Yeah. I was excited for him.

Yeah. Super excited for him. But, you know, I was even asking him, hey, we, we talk about insurance and roofing all the time. And he's like, yeah, it's a big deal. So if you have an opportunity to get a new roof as you're doing all of your solar stuff, do it. Or if you're just looking for roof repair, they are doing a great job. I promise you. Stand-up company. They're going to do the best job for you out there. Really, really great company. Give them a call, 936-286-8325.

Awesome.

All right.

So, well, I mean, just, just a couple of tidbits in, in homeowners news. I mean, we, we had mortgage rates, uh, this last week dropped to a 10-month low.

Oh, okay.

So that was pretty exciting for folks. I mean, the, the average rate dropped to a 6.57.

Oh, down in the 6s again.

Down to the 6s. Um, so doing good there. I mean, and so one of the things that it was, the article was mentioning that if you had like a $300,000 mortgage that you had financed at like 7.5%, if you refinance that mortgage right now, it could potentially save you up to like $200 a month.

Wow.

Um, just by refinancing at the rate that, that it's at right now. Now, if you, if you qualify.

Well, and there's a number of, uh, companies out there and you might just check with your lender because there's There's a lot of companies out there that were doing these, these crazy mortgage deals. It's like, look, we'll do, like, a, a certain number or maybe even an unlimited number of refinances up for, up to a certain amount of time.

Right.

With, you know, zero closing costs.

Yeah.

So I, you don't, you never know. I mean, just check into it because if it's gonna save you money, I mean, it's good.

Yeah. And, and you might need it because one of the other stories was, Uh, it's just reported that in 2025, uh, homeowners insurance premiums, uh, rose up, up 20%.

Oof.

Well, okay, that's not true. It, it was up 20% over from 2022 to 2024. Okay. And now it's going to be up an additional 8% just this year. Oh, so like, yes, it's been climbing, it's going to continue to climb. So you may need that additional $200.

Yeah.

Just to pay for your insurance.

Right.

So You know, not great news, but I mean, there's stuff. There's like, there's house bills and all kinds of stuff, but we're gonna spend some time catching up tonight.

Yeah.

Just, we haven't seen each other in a minute.

No, it's been a long time. It's been too long. It's been a really long time.

You've been putting some miles on the old Passport.

Yeah. Yeah, we have. We've— so I'll update you on some new devices that we've got that I think we'll probably wind up doing some product reviews on. One of them, probably the one that I'm most excited about, is a pool tester.

Okay.

Have I told you about this at all?

I think it's like a smart pool tester thing.

Well, yeah, in many ways it is, but it's also not.

It's a—

so it's a— It's a dumb pool tester? Well, so here's the thing. I have, since I've owned a pool, I've always taken my pool sample to Leslie's because it's very simple. You walk in, They test your water for free, and they tell you everything that you need to do. And if you need to buy any supplies, they have all of it.

Right.

So you can buy— I mean, it's brilliant. It's one of the most brilliant, you know, models of a business ever.

Right?

Mhmm. They'll do something for you for free, and you can get all the things that you need here. And it, it worked really great. But there's 2 problems with that. The first problem being that anytime you need to test your water, you gotta go to the pool store. And, you know, the closest one to our house is 15 minutes away. And so by the time you do that, I mean, you're an hour wasted.

Yeah.

Just to test your water. And then you're buying premium pool products. They're, they're gonna be the most expensive type of place to buy pool products. So your time and premium, all that kind of stuff. But the problem is for someone like me who has no idea anything about chemistry, Like, it's a pretty simple solution. Well, this pool tester, um, it's, it's advanced, but it does a lot of what they do for you and automates it really, really well. So, uh, really, really cool device. Um, it's, it's an actual physical device that you put reagents in and test it. It's very precise. Very, very cool. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll do a review on that. The other thing is, um, our garage door. opener went

out.

Oh no.

And so we had to buy a new garage door opener. And so it was one of those deals.

It's like the last thing you expect to go out.

Oh, I know.

You know, it's like, oh, I know.

We were, and again, it seems like every time I leave for something, something breaks every summer. Um, so my wife calls me and she's like, the garage door won't open. I'm like, okay, is the power on? She's like, I don't know. Like, it's just not working.

And I was like, okay.

So I get home, sure enough. not working. So, you know, inside where the belt is to, to move the motor and all the things, um, that, that whole mechanism was stripped. And so you can replace it and it's really not, you know, it's like $30, $40 to replace if you can find the right part.

Right.

And, but it's like you have to crack open the case. Like it's a, it's a whole ordeal. And, uh, I started doing some research. My garage door opener was 15 years old.

Mhmm.

And it was kinda one of those deals where it's like, 15 years old, like, it's, it's time.

Yeah.

You need to replace the thing. So anyway, we'll get into what I did to figure out which one I used because I used ChatGPT actually to help me figure out which model I needed to purchase.

Nice.

To replace it.

Okay.

I got a smart one. It does all the things. Amazon can open my garage now.

Okay.

Securely. And, uh, it's got a camera on it. And so it's, it's really, really cool.

Have you, have you seen the ones, and I don't, if you did this, I don't mean to like spoil your episode or whatever. No. Like, but like the ones that you mount on the side?

Oh no, we didn't do that.

You didn't do that? Have you seen these?

No, dude. So it's just like, it's just like on the, like on the front wall, like on the side? Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.

So it doesn't take any headroom?

No headroom.

Ah, that's interesting.

Yeah.

Huh.

I've seen them, like, I see them mostly in like car guys' garages.

Right.

Or guys that have like bigger trucks.

Right.

Things like that.

Trying to get space.

Space, but like they're also just like super quiet and belt-driven.

Yeah.

Like they're, I think, what is it, Masterlift? Is that the—

Yeah, it's a brand.

I think that's the company that made the one that I saw.

Okay.

And there may be another brand, but—

I will say this one's super quiet. I mean, it's way quieter than my other one. There's some really cool features. in it.

Dude, there's, there's, there's something magical that we miss out from the ones that we had, at least when I was a kid.

Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. Like the whole neighborhood, dude, you're like, oh, that's the Hacketts, they're leaving.

Well, like you, you sort of announced your laziness to everyone because not everyone had an automatic garage door opener. It was just like, oh, hoity-toity over there got an automatic garage door opener. It's a pull start.

Right. It's a pull start. Yeah. I hope they got enough gasoline to run that thing.

Yeah. That's funny. Who do you think you are?

Oh, man. That's, that's pretty funny. Um, so anyway, honestly, it was one of those things that I was, I was dreading.

Uh-huh.

I would, because I was just like, I, like, I'm honestly in my brain, I'm sitting here going, do I call overhead doors?

Like, because anyway, because you don't know what you're getting into.

No. I mean, I, I really didn't.

And you, you'd probably never put one in, right?

I never had.

Yeah, me neither. Never put one in.

Right. Have you to this day?

To this day.

OK. Well, I—

Literally, I am the guy like sticking my— like thumbing my nose up because I don't have one. Right.

Exactly. That's funny. Like, it's just one of those things that you—

I've thought about it. Sure.

But you take for granted whenever you have one, and it just works. You show up to the—

you buy the house and it's already there. It's already there.

It's working. Everything's great. Maybe it's a little louder than I wish it was. Who cares? The dog cares. Our dog was like, didn't like it whenever the garage door opened. But anyway, I went through a very interesting process. I think you'll appreciate the process that I went through to figure out what I should get. And anyway, it was an interesting situation. But I got that done.

I'm ready to hear about it.

And then the other thing that I purchased, so this is another unique situation for our garage, is we air condition our garage.

Right.

Which is probably weird to most people, um, except that I— we bring our dogs in every night and we— we— they're crate trained. And so every night they, they come in and, and sleep in the cool, nice, uh, area. We don't really have a good place for them. They're outdoor dogs. They smell like— we don't bring them in our house. They never have been house dogs, but they come in our garage to cool off. And so in fact, some— sometimes in the summer here in Houston, it's so bad. So we'll let them come in and, and just cool off and rest. Um, and so we, we have a, a portable air conditioner in there. We've got in— we insulated— Steve Spoon came over and insulated our, uh,

our attic and our garage because it was not insulated. Our garage door was already insulated, had insulated panels in it.

Okay.

And so felt pretty good about all that, and I put a portable air conditioner in there. Well, that I bought it used from our friend Jared Williams, who helped fix this floor in here.

Yep.

And he had one he was trying to get rid of and I was like, well, I'll just buy it. And it worked great for a while, but then it kind of started petering out. So I bought a new portable air conditioner and this one is really different. It's cool. I considered going with a, like a mini split.

Yeah.

But I was like, ah, it's gonna be weird because Our garage is like on the opposite end of where I want the condenser fan to be and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, how long? I'm sitting there Googling, how long can I run a condensing line? Like, you know, and, uh, and it was going to be at a limit or I had to upgrade to a, to a more expensive model.

Yeah.

Okay. So anyway, but I've got a really cool unit. Uh, it works unbelievable. Like sometimes I'll just go out into my garage and be like, it's cooler out here than it is in my, in my house. So. Uh, we'll talk about that as well.

I've actually been looking into them too because my, my son's bedroom's on the 3rd floor.

Dude.

It gets a little toasty up in there sometimes and I'm like, that's not fair to him.

No. And it, I promise you something like this, it would work great up there. I mean, because it, it, it ports out the window.

Yeah.

Um, but a little spoiler alert, it has, uh, an intake from the outside.

Okay.

Which most of the older style units don't have.

Okay.

So it's got a fresh air intake on it, which means it's not pulling the air from the inside. It's pulling air from the outside. And the other thing that that does is, because a lot of, a lot of air conditioners like that, it winds up pulling air from under doors and creating cracks in windows.

Start slamming doors and stuff like that.

Exactly. It does all kinds of stuff and it winds up creating hotspots in the room. because it's pulling from this weird area. And so this way it's pulling all of it from the outside and immediately cooling it from its own source. So really kind of, kind of a cool, um, setup, but we'll, we'll talk about that at some point.

Cool.

So, um, but yeah, that's— look, I've been gone a lot this summer, more than I— probably more than any summer that I've had maybe in my life. Um, It was crazy, dude.

It was the same for my wife. Like, really? Yeah. So I mean, like, she, she just finished her 5th camp.

Mm-hmm.

5th.

Wow. Wow.

That's nuts. And then we have the 2 camps going on at our place here.

Yeah.

Over the first one's about to start tomorrow.

Yeah.

And then the other one's next week.

Right.

So we've got girls camp this week, boys camp next week.

Right.

Um, which is something my daughter's been doing for the last 3 years.

Tumble it. No, at least. Maybe 4. Maybe 4. It's, dude, it's so cool. I mean, for those people out there that don't realize, like, his daughter's dream is to own a camp someday.

Yeah. And she's going to, like, she, she, she, I mean, she's been running one for a while.

She's been running one for long enough.

Like, yeah. Yeah.

She's young too. So, um, she, she's doing cool stuff, man. Yeah. Really, really cool stuff. And not only that, like the way she gets other people involved, like young students involved helping and it's just really, really cool. So, but yeah, we've been, we've been gone. So, so I've, I've had, you know, multiple camps that I've been at, but also, um, we, we've, we did 3 pretty cool trips. One, um, was to Honduras and it's something that I do on a fairly regular basis, go there and help with our church. Uh, we go to a place down there called Mission Lazarus. And it, man, if you've never been to a third world country where you're not there just to like for tourism, right? It's a whole, it's,

it's, it's just different, man. Like it's a, it's a, it's a weird feeling, you know, cuz here you are. It's like, okay, I got a lot more money than you do. It's not because I feel rich, you know, it's not because I feel wealthy. It's just because I, it's, we live in a different, you know, economy, different situation, different reality, different reality. And they've got, they've got a lot of issues there, but one of the biggest issues they've got is they've got sanitary issues.

Mm-hmm.

And so, uh, we go down there and we build latrines for them. And if you don't know what a latrine is, cuz I didn't really know what a latrine was, that's what they call 'em down there.

It's a ditch.

It's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a glorified outhouse.

Yeah.

Is basically what it is. Um, and It's a, it's a really cool situation. The homeowner is, is required to dig a, to dig a hole. And, they're typically about 3 foot by, you know, a 3 foot round by 15 feet.

Mhmm.

And, a lot of them will get even smarter. They'll build a septic. And so they, they basically build a massive hole, probably, you know, 3 or 4 times that size. and they just run a pipe and it, it's really, really brilliant what, what a lot of 'em are doing. But, um, but we built, we built 12 of 'em while we were there.

Oh, wow.

And, uh, it's really, really good, man. 'Cause they just, when we take for granted that we can just walk, you know, to another room and flush. They don't have that, man. Like they just don't.

Anywhere?

No, they don't have, most places don't have running water. Mm-hmm. Um, And they're in these remote villages that just, they don't have electricity, they don't have water. And so, I mean, they can get water, but they have to walk it in, you know, on their shoulder or whatever. So it's a big, big deal. And man, it's really, really cool. And I'll tell you, like, it's, there's some, there's some amount of dignity that you get whenever you get to sit on a toilet, you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I— it's weird to say that for, for those of us who don't have to think about that, but, like, a lot of these people, they're not— they're just kinda going to the bathroom wherever they can.

Yeah.

And it's just super unsanitary. But really, really cool. If, if you ever wanna check out a really great mission place, if you're ever looking to donate any money or, or anything like that to mission work, look up Mission Lazarus. missionlazarus.org is the location. Really, really great place. I highly recommend looking to— they do all kinds of stuff. They've, they, they, they've got a school there. They do trade schools there as well. They've got a woodworking shop that I'm like, I would just love to spend a weekend.

Right.

They do leather making there. They do sewing. They do, man, just all, all sorts of really, really cool stuff. So they've got a coffee plantation up there that they— you haven't— they have an Airbnb at the coffee plantation that is on the side of this mountain that is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm convinced that, like, you wouldn't think about this, but Honduras has some big mountains.

Yeah.

And it's where we go. It's in the mountain region. And it's just, it's gorgeous up there. The coffee's delicious. And I don't like coffee, but I drink coffee all the time when I'm there because it's delicious. So So yeah, that's one place we went.

Yeah. You were talking about just how primitive it is there.

Yeah.

It made me think, I mean, we live in Texas, right? And a lot of, the problem with our lives being so short is we don't remember when we were without. And it wasn't but like 2 generations ago that there was no electricity in Texas.

Right, not that long ago.

Not that long ago.

Right.

It was in the late '50s. before Texas got electricity. And the only reason I know that is because that's what made LBJ's career. That was his big claim to fame, is he brought the electrical grid to Texas. That's what he did.

That's amazing.

You know, and like, that's, that's not that long ago.

No, that's a person ago. Well, I mean, both of our parents were born in the '50s, right?

Yeah.

Were yours in the '50s?

Yeah, my dad in '52 and my mom in '56.

Yeah. Yeah, my mom, my parents are 51 and 53. And, and so you think that their parents didn't have electricity.

My dad was born in Texas. Yeah, there were parts of Texas that still didn't have electricity when he was born.

Unbelievable. But that's just so far out of my, my thought process. And I will tell you, we went to a few places. this year and Honduras's economy is growing and there are a lot of good things because of organizations like Mission Lazarus that are coming in. Things are, you can see year over year how things are getting better. But we went to this one little village and while it's so cool, man, like you go and you're helping.

Right.

Right? I mean, you're bringing these materials to them. It doesn't cost them anything other than digging the hole, which, let me tell you, I— okay, one of the things that, uh, was really difficult recently is, uh, we had to put one of our dogs down, right? Yeah, it was, it was a really sad situation. Um, but, uh, the, the vet, you know, gave me this—

The bag?

Well, yeah. But eventually they gave me a quote, or initially I should say, they gave me a quote of how much it was gonna cost. I was like, ooh.

Yeah.

Cool. And then I realized, oh, this is for burial stuff, like cremation, all this kind of stuff. And I was like, can I just take my dog home? We live on land. I can bury my dog. We don't live at the city limits. And they're like, oh, absolutely. So here's a bag, all that kind of stuff. Well, I had to dig a hole. Yeah.

And digging that hole sucks.

Yeah. Like, I'll tell you this, maybe I shouldn't say this.

I'm gonna say it anyway.

Like, I know why there's a lot of shallow graves in the world. I was just gonna say, like, like the most important hole of your life.

Uh-huh.

Like, if you, if you choose to need to dig a grave.

Yeah.

I know why there's a lot of shallow graves out there.

Yeah.

Because it's the most important hole of your life and you're like, that's probably good enough.

That's probably good. He's not gonna care.

No, no. And like, 'cause I mean, I, I dug a hole that was, you know, 3 feet deep.

Mm-hmm.

Roughly. Yeah. Um, and you know, big enough for my 25-pound dog and, uh, about, I about died.

Yeah.

I wanted a back, I wanted a, a backhoe really bad.

Mm-hmm.

I was like, I need, I'm like, how much does a Kubota cost right now? Like, I think it might be worth it. Um, because I'm out there with my pickaxe and my, my shovel dying in the heat. Yeah. And, and I'm like, these, these people are digging 10, 15-foot holes by 3 feet.

Uh-huh.

And I'm like, I don't know how they do it.

Dude, can I, can I give you a little tip?

Sure.

On that. So get you an auger tip for your Ryobi drill.

Oh, that. I hadn't considered that.

Yeah, they make them.

And then just start digging holes and just shoveling it out.

Yeah, little holes, little holes, and just like, and then scoop it out, scoop it out.

Where were you about 2 weeks ago?

You didn't call.

You didn't call.

And I hadn't seen them.

I have them. I hate life right now.

Um, dude, that's how I, that's how I've always dug fence post holes. Oh yeah. So, I mean, because you get down, I mean, you got to go down pretty deep, but it's a narrow hole. And so like you can get like a big auger, but like those are a booger to carry around.

And they're expensive. Well, we have to rent, even to rent them.

I, we have one and I still don't want to carry it around.

It's, it's heavy.

You know, if I have it like in the back of the mule or something like that, it's a different story. But still, it's like, again, I think I hate anything pull start these days.

Oh yeah.

Like now that everything can be electric. Yeah.

Pull start's stupid.

No, you're not wrong. And so, but like, we, it's a pull start and it'll dig a hole.

Yeah.

But like, it'll also, like, if it gets hung up on something, it'll fling you like nobody's business.

Yeah.

And it could hurt somebody. Yeah. You know, so the, the smaller auger tips that you can get for your drill.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Great.

Beautiful.

Okay.

Now, I mean, like, it, if it's, if it's, if you're just drilling into rock, sure. It's not gonna do anything.

Well, that's, it is what it is on that. Yeah. But honestly, like, thankfully, where I was digging, I didn't have too many roots. I was surprised I didn't, especially where I was digging. I was surprised I didn't have more issues than I did. But it goes back to, we're working on, in this little village building, we had 3 latrines we were building in this area. And, you know, I don't speak Spanish. But they do. And so we're communicating in lots of different ways. And we do have, some translators here and there. Um, but at one point he, he asked, do you want a Coke? And I was like, uh, sure. And his wife, like, they, they are so hospitable because they're like, look, you're bringing this

thing for us. That's one of the most important parts of our life, you know? Um, and I was like, sure, I'll, I'll take a Coke. It's, it's almost, It's almost, um, rude to say no, right?

Right.

Um, but I'll take a Coke. I'm a little hot right now. And she brings out ice cold Coke and they had a refrigerator. And it was bizarre that they had electricity and a refrigerator, but I'm like, man, they're doing pretty well. You know? I mean, that's, that's a luxury. Um, and so, you know, we just take so many things for granted. where we live. And, uh, you know, I, I'm, I'm continually humbled and blessed whenever I go there and just go, man, I, we've, we've got it so nice.

Yeah.

You know? So, um, anyway, any other questions on that trip? 'Cause I mean, that was a, that was a good one. I mean, you, and you're aware of that trip.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Uh, you've never been, have you?

Not to Honduras.

Yeah. But you've done plenty of those types of trips.

I've done a lot of, a lot of work in like southern Mexico. Yeah. Yeah. So like San Luis Potosí.

Yeah.

Um, places like that.

Yeah.

Um, but, but yeah, never, never Honduras. My wife, uh, um, dude, I had to calm her down.

Oh, really?

Yes. So she's, she's going to Guatemala.

Okay.

Um, in September.

All right.

And she was going, I think she was going the first week in September and we were at another camp. the one camp that all of us went to, all 5 of us, which was awesome. And she comes up to me and she goes, hey, you want to go to Zambia?

Oh. And I was like, Zambia?

Why? Why? What for? And she's like, well, there's a missions organization that wants me to— I mean, for those of you that don't know, my wife is a missions pastor. I mean, she does a lot of missions and camps and Yep. All that kind of stuff. And she goes, there's a missions organization that wants me to come check out what they do, and they want us to come.

Oh.

And I was like, okay, when? And she goes, well, it's the day after I get back from Guatemala.

Oh my goodness.

And I'm just like—

Speaking of laundry, that's a lot.

I'm like, do I want to go to Zambia? I would love to go to Zambia. Yeah. That sounds insane.

It does.

And she goes, oh, we can do it. I said, let's talk to your boss. Let's see what he thinks.

Your boss.

Let's talk to your boss. So we go and talk to her boss and he's like, under no circumstances should you do that. No, no, this is not a thing. You can go later. You don't have to go now.

Now, right.

No, like there's plenty of time to go check it out. It doesn't have to be right then.

Yeah.

So we may end up going, Sure. I don't know when, but it's not going to be after Guatemala.

Not the day after, for sure. What's wrong with you, Walt? Oh man. Well, so we get back from Honduras. I have another camp to go to. And then this was where the craziness ensues. So I went to a camp, got back on Friday night, and then we left. Well, all my family came in on Saturday and then we left Sunday morning. Uh, on a cruise. So my parents' 50th anniversary was in June. Really, really cool. Yeah.

Uh, happy anniversary, guys.

Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things that I'm kind of proud of, you know?

Oh, absolutely.

You should be proud of that. I mean, it's just a huge, huge accomplishment.

And, uh, 50 years, they still like each other.

They still like each other. Yep. And, uh, you know, so I've got a brother and a sister and, and there's 13 of us in total with grandkids. And, uh, so we went on a cruise as a, a Royal Caribbean cruise and shout out to, uh, JJ Kuykendall.

Yes, it's Kuykendall.

Not Kirkendall. It is spelled the same, but it's JJ Kuykendall with Cruise Planners. She's awesome. If you're ever looking for, you know, a cruise planner, she did a great, great job. And we know a number of travel agents. Use a travel agent, please.

Yes.

There's no reason not to.

No.

And so we went on the Harmony of the Seas, which is one of their massive ships. And dude, like, have y'all been on many cruises?

Uh, not in recent years.

Okay.

I mean, when we were younger married and we didn't have children.

Yeah.

Yeah, we didn't. We did some cruising. Yeah. Um, we've never done one with our kids.

Okay.

Ever.

Well, it, I'll tell you, like, there's the, these ships are so different now because they're, they're building them bigger. and better than ever. Like, this ship was so big that on the last day I found a couple places I'd never seen before on the ship. Like, I'm like, I've been on this for 7 days and I'm seeing new places I didn't even know existed.

Yeah.

Um, pretty unbelievable. Um, I was, I was disappointed. Now, I don't, I didn't see their teen area. My daughter is, uh, 12. She'll be 13 this month. She was 12 at the time, so she couldn't go to the teen area. Uh, I heard it was, it was okay, but, uh, their, their under age, under that age, like areas to be were junk. It was awful. Like it, it was the equivalent of like a room, like, like an empty room that they were like, hey, come hang out in here. It was pretty bad. But everything else, dude, like the entertainment deck was unbelievable. They had 2, um, boogie board and surf.

Oh, nice.

Uh, yeah, 2 of those.

Wave pool, kind of.

Yeah, like, yeah, Wave Riders.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, there's 2 of those. There was miniature golf. They had a couple of basketball courts up there. I think some of them have like, um, what do you call it, like zipline?

Zipline.

Yeah, this takes you like around the ship or something. This one had a zipline on it. Um, we saw some that had a roller coaster on them. We— ours didn't. Uh, we saw one with like a massive ropes course.

Oh, cool.

Really, really cool. Um, but I mean, this— one of the things that Royal does really well is they've got Broadway-level shows on there and like massive theaters. Yeah. And like, that was one theater that they had. They had another theater that, um, was an ice skating rink. And I, I started counting. They— that ice skating rink alone had seating for 800.

Oh my gosh.

And it looked super small, but it had 800 seats in it. And we got to go ice skating. You can go ice skating, and then they have ice skating shows. And, um, I mean, just food for days.

Yeah.

They serve.

I've always had a better experience on Royal Caribbean than I have— and to be fair, I've never been on a Disney cruise.

No, that's another level.

Um, but between them and Carnival and— Carnival's just really more like, I want to get drunk.

Yeah.

Kind of a boat. Yeah. Seems to be.

It is. It is the, the, the, like the bottom rung. And I don't say that in a mean way. Like if you, if you were to look up chat on ChatGPT right now and go, hey, give me like rank the cruise lines. Carnival's at the lowest.

Carnival's at the bottom.

It just is. Um, and I'm not trying to be mean or rude to them because I like Carnival.

I've been on some Carnival cruises and they were, they weren't bad.

No.

No. But like, I've just always had a better experience on Royal Caribbean.

Right. Food-wise. Yeah.

Passenger-wise.

Entertainment.

Yeah, I mean, it's just all around just a better experience and not that much more expensive, to be honest.

What was bizarre to me, one of the stats that they told us while we were on the boat is they serve 45,000 meals a day.

Oh my gosh.

On that ship. 45,000.

That's insane.

And I'm sitting here going, how many meals are some of you people eating? Like—

Yeah, no, well, yeah, yeah. That'd be good.

You're eating 7 meals a day?

Why? Yeah.

Why are you eating 7 meals a day?

Because you can.

Because you can.

Because it's there.

If you want pizza, like good pizza, they have a pizzeria there that's just, they serve pizza 24/7.

Yeah.

And if you want pizza, just go get it. And it's good pizza. Um, anyway, we, it was a, it was a Western Caribbean cruise sailed out of Galveston, which is super convenient for us, right?

Oh yeah.

I mean, so easy. And, um, man, like we stopped it, we stopped it back in Honduras at Roatan. That was one of the stops. We also stopped at, uh, Costa Maya and then, um, Cozumel. And man, it was just, it was wonderful.

Y'all do any excursions or anything?

We, we did not. My brother did one. We didn't because of the next trip I'm gonna tell you about. Uh, we just couldn't afford much else, but the, the ports were nice. There's plenty of stuff to do back on the ship. We did go, we didn't do an excursion, but we took a taxi in Costa Maya to a beach that was kind of a nice beach area. And so we did that. It was fun. One of the things that my wife and I talked about was the next cruise we go on, we wanna be able to do excursions.

Yeah.

But you know, they're expensive.

Yeah.

They can be, you know, $70, $80 at the cheapest and up to you know, $200 or $300, $400 per person, right? Um, on some of these. And so, you know, you kind of got to be prepared for that on top of everything else. I, I know that whenever it comes to like Disney cruises, that's where your, your kids club areas get, get a lot better.

Yeah.

The service is even better. The, the food is, is even— they don't nickel and dime you on anything. So there's a lot of things that, that Disney does that to just ratchet up things. But—

Well, here's, here's what I'll say about if you do a Western Caribbean cruise, and I think it's Costa Maya, uh, if you can do the, um, the Mayan ruins.

Yeah.

With the cenote tour.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, the Mayan ruins, those are cool.

They are.

Don't get me wrong. I mean, like, yeah, like, go see them.

Yeah.

But like the cenotes, that's cool.

Is it?

It's the underwater caves.

Sure.

Um, not underwater. Well, underground caves in water.

In water. Yeah.

And so like you have land entrances through water, right? And then you go underground in water.

That's cool.

It's super cool. Interesting. And totally, I mean, like whatever, whatever that cost, I think it was $100 a person or something when we went.

Wow.

I don't know what it is these days, but like, I mean, most of them, if it's a Western Caribbean, you're gonna have a cenote.

Yeah.

That you can go.

And it's, it's not, it's probably the place.

It's not close. I mean, like it's, you have to travel. Yeah. Like it's, it's about an hour drive.

Yeah. So, which is, which is okay. One, one of the things I will tell you, just if you're, if you're going on a cruise and, and you're thinking about like swimming with dolphins or like doing the, like the sloth experience or something like that, you do some research.

Oh yeah.

Because Mexico has just changed all their laws.

Oh, really?

To where you can't swim with dolphins anymore.

Oh, really?

You can't, you can't hold sloths anymore. Like, that's, that, that's a, it's a no-no.

Really?

And Roatan, uh, Honduras, they, they changed their law too. Like, so yeah. And I don't know.

I'm glad I did that at one point then. Yeah.

Yeah. I've not done it. You can still do some experiences with the animals. Uh, you can see 'em, you can, you know, be near them, but you like, yeah, you can't, can't like swim on them, ride them. Like, you can't do that anymore. So there's some, there's some things like a lot of people were upset on our cruise because they're like, yeah, we had paid for it. And then, you know, they were like, well, we'll refund your money. We're like, we don't want to refund it. We want the experience. It's like, well, it's against the law. So like, if you want to, if you want to go to jail, then, you know.

So I can imagine why they did though, man. Like when I did it, I was shocked at what all they let me do. Sure. with the dolphin. I wasn't, I wasn't being cruel or anything like that. I just like, someone, someone gave it to me as a gift to go and do. And like, uh, like 2, uh, the dolphin came and like pushed from my feet.

Oh yeah.

And like threw me up out of the water. I got to hang on to the dorsal fin and he drug me along. I mean, like all kinds of fun stuff, man.

Unbelievable.

The stuff you like, you always think about, like that would be a really cool Yeah. So it was that and then, uh, got to hang out with manatees.

Oh, cool.

Um, so I mean, kind of sad that they're not doing that, but like also like I understand people are like, it's probably not the nicest thing to the animal.

It's conservation.

I mean, it really is, you know?

Yeah. No, I get it. Um, the last one that I'll tell you about, and we'll kind of motor through this too, uh, we went to a place I'd never heard of before called Anguilla. Have you heard of Anguilla?

Is that how you say it?

It is.

I've always said like Angola.

Nope. It's Anguilla.

Anguilla.

And it is off the coast of St. Martin.

Okay. Um, St. Martin I've been to.

Yeah. Uh, so you were really close.

Yeah.

Uh, so Anguilla is, uh, 35 square miles.

'Cause it's St. Martin's the one with the pirate museum, right?

Uh, I've never been to St. Martin, so I don't know.

Okay.

Um, but we, we flew into Anguilla. It's, it's, you know, very recently that they've, uh, built and, and used an airport there. Um, and they're building onto it now. But it's like, if you start, if you start like Googling Anguilla, like one of the first things that's gonna pop up is like Jay-Z and Beyoncé's wedding.

Oh gosh. Right. Okay.

Like, um, it's a beautiful island, 35 square miles. It's like 16 miles at its longest and 4 miles at its widest. It's, it's just really tiny. Um, but my brother-in-law was getting married there and, uh, we, we stayed, man, it was swanky. We stayed at the Four Seasons.

Okay.

And they had, private island, I mean, private, uh, beach access and like all this kind of stuff. It was unbelievable. They stayed, well, so they, they reserved the penthouse for the last 3 nights of their wedding. So they were there for a week. Um, so the last 3 nights, the night they got married and, and maybe a couple nights after, they reserved the penthouse. When they got there, I guess no one had rented it for the rest of the time. They were like, hey, we're gonna upgrade you for the week.

Oh, nice.

So This place, dude, like this penthouse, it's, uh, the inside, hang with me, the inside was 3,500 square foot.

Oh my gosh.

It was 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. Yeah, it had a half bath in it, a guest bath. Um, full kitchen, uh, you know, full-on oven, uh, gas stove, like full cooking facilities. Um, big massive dining room, living room. It was unbelievable. And it all opened out onto a 2,800 square square foot deck.

Oh my gosh.

With a full outdoor kitchen, with like a wine fridge out there and like full-on everything. That was unbelievable. Outdoor showers out there, like crazy, just overlooking one of the most beautiful oceans you've ever seen. In fact, one of the workers there said, oh, y'all are staying in the Michael Jordan room. Which is what they call it because that's where Michael Jordan stays when he goes there. Um, which apparently he was there like 3 weeks before we got there. So, um, man, I, I'm sure there are— it, it, it's an expensive place. I don't know if everywhere on the island is, is expensive, but, um, oh, it is. I, but I think it is like from what I could tell.

You mean like to stay or to eat? Yes. Both. Yeah.

Like, I mean, they, they—

I think that's pretty much true of like all of the, the American Caribbean islands.

Right. Like, I mean, and I think the British Virgin Islands are even worse. I think, well, this one is owned by, uh, the UK.

Oh, this is British Virgin Island?

Okay. It is.

Okay. Um, I think those are more expensive than the American ones.

I think you're probably right. And I, and they know, they know you're there to spend money and they know you probably have it and just put it on a credit card, you know?

Yeah.

Um, but I mean, like, for example, if you wanted room service, you could get room service. This was not an all-inclusive resort. Um, if you wanted room service, there was a 33% tax and gratuity.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, if you want a burger, it's $28 plus 33%, you know? Um, but man, it was, it was awesome. I, I mean, I need to, I'll show you at some point, like some of the pictures. Uh, we went out on an excursion, one excursion. There were 26 people at the wedding. We all got on one boat and this wasn't a, like a, this was a speedboat. I mean, it was unbelievable. There were, there are 4 of these boats in the world. It's some sort of, they call it inflatable boat.

Mm-hmm.

Just because the, the sides have a big, massive, uh, like inflatable tube, basically.

A pontoon kind of a deal?

Yeah. Kind of. but, but like plastic. And, but the thing was massive. Unbelievable. Very, very cool. It was all custom. And really, really cool experience. We got to go snorkeling in some really nice places. And I mean, it's, it's one of those deals where you get out to, to like the ocean and it's like 20 feet deep. Yeah. And you just see clearly.

All the way down to the bottom.

Everything.

Did you go snorkeling?

We did. Nice.

Yeah, we went snorkeling a bunch.

What I will tell you, that I learned seems common sense, but it didn't occur to me until the time.

Your beard? Yep.

Sucks.

Yep.

The mustache will not allow that mask to, uh, seal, and you just gotta kind of deal with it. Um, you know, get it tight.

Like one of the full face ones?

Well, I— so first of all, my beard's big enough that a full face one wouldn't work. I mean, in order to kind of get this mane out of the way. Um, but I, I've heard that those are really cool.

Oh yeah, they are.

But, um, it still wouldn't have worked on me, uh, not unless I got rid of this thing. Uh, but I, I was able to seal really well most of the way around. It was just I would always have kind of like this constant water line on, you know, where my, where my nose was basically. So I had to be very careful to Not inhale. Right. Um, but man, it was, it was so much fun. We, we had a, we had a really good time. So, um, if you're ever looking to, to go on kind of a unique, uh, vacation, you've got some saved up money, that sort of thing. I will tell you the worst part of it. The worst part of it was the travel.

Just getting there?

Yeah, because it's not— I mean, we were on the plane for maybe 6 and a half hours, something like that total. We had to fly to Miami and then fly, uh, some people would, if you're flying Delta, maybe Atlanta or something, but the flight times are terrible. Like they, they have—

Oh, like when they, when they arrive and when they leave?

Yes. They have 2 flights that come in a day and they come in around 3:30, 4 o'clock. So our wake up time to leave to go to the airport on the day we left was 3 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah.

And then we got home at 1:30 in the morning. But we'd come from Eastern time, so it felt like 2:30 in the morning.

Yeah.

So you're, you're wiped no matter what. You leave tired and you arrive home tired.

Yeah.

Like, I'll say—

If you go straight through.

If you, if, yeah, if you, if you do it that way, that's kind of the way it's gonna happen. You're gonna get home, you're gonna leave really, really, really early. You're gonna get home really, really late.

Yeah.

And it made me think like, know what your goals are. And this is where a travel agent's really gonna help. Know what your goals are, because if your goal is to have a, like, a nice relaxing beach vacation, I would highly recommend going to, like, especially if you live where we do, um, like, go to Cozumel, man, because it's, it's like a 2-hour flight.

Mm-hmm.

And it's direct, like Southwest has direct flights. You can get them for super cheap and you can be there in a couple of hours and, uh, you get an all-inclusive for cheap.

Yeah.

For cheap.

Yeah. You, you can, but like, I've, I've not been to Cozumel. Well, that's not true. I have been to Cozumel. Um, they're, the beaches can't compare.

They're different.

The water can't compare.

They're different.

Um, like it's just, it's night and day for me.

Yep.

So, I mean, like if you're looking, if you're looking for like pristine beaches and clear waters and you wanna swim with a sea turtle randomly.

Yeah.

I mean, or you can do that there. Or a stingray.

Yeah. You know, we, we saw stingrays.

Yeah.

I, I will tell you, there are some unbelievable places in Cozumel.

Oh no, there are.

There are. But they're different. Uh, Bahamas, similar. I mean, just the colors that you see are, are off the charts.

Did you guys get to go out in any reefs or anything like that?

No. Well, so It is interesting. I probably should have asked some more questions, but I thought I would see more reefs than I did. But they had a massive hurricane about 7 or 8 years ago that wiped out the majority of the island. And my understanding is a lot of times when that happens, it tears up the reefs like crazy.

Oh yeah, it does.

And those things take, or it can, thousands of years to come back sometimes. So I'm curious if we just didn't see some of that kind of stuff because it doesn't exist in that area until you maybe go out further or something like that, or if it had just been destroyed and we didn't—

A lot of times some of the, like on islands like that, you need to find like a deep lagoon.

Yeah.

Where there's kind of reefs out in the middle, 'cause those things can be protected during hurricanes.

Sure.

And then they last a little bit longer.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, yeah, gorgeous place of the world, man.

It is one of those places that I will tell you, if you've never been Eastern Caribbean, find a way to get there. I mean, the US Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, gorgeous, unique places that God has created for us to enjoy. Yeah. And It's one of those deals where I'm— it was a lot of money, but doesn't— that is one of those things that you—

You don't regret spending any of it.

No one will ever be able to take the experience away. One of those types of things. So it's how I felt whenever I went to Alaska. It's like, oh my goodness, this place is just unbelievable. And so if you have the option to go to some of those places, take it, you know? And my kids, man, they had, we, we had so much fun. Like they just wanted to play the whole time and we did. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

I mean, when things are gorgeous like that, man, you just wanna be out in it the whole time.

Yeah. Well, and it wasn't, it wasn't super hot. I mean, it was warm, but like the water was cool. It wasn't cold. It wasn't hot. It was like this perfect temperature. Yeah.

Um, in the middle of the summer, in, in the middle of summer. Yeah.

The sunsets were unbelievable. Um, the people there were so nice. Al, you wanna tell, Let me tell you one of the craziest things that I didn't see.

Mm-hmm.

I didn't see a single gun while I was there.

Really?

Not in the airport. Not, uh, not anywhere. Not security people. There were security people around both at the hotel, you know, like I didn't see a gun anywhere in the airport anywhere. Um, and I asked a guy, so, so the guy that drove our taxi from the hotel back to the airport. He was a former police officer and I asked him, I said, hey, I haven't seen any guns. And he goes, well, guns are illegal here.

Yeah. I was gonna say it's British Island.

And I said, okay, what do you, what do you mean by that? And he said, well, here's what I mean. You can't own a gun here. Only police officers can own a gun. If you are found with a gun, that's illegal and they all are. It's an automatic 14-year prison sentence.

Mm-hmm.

No questions asked. He said, you get no due process. You go to jail for 14 years.

Yeah.

So people don't have guns. And he said, look around. Why would you need a gun here?

Mm-hmm.

It's paradise. And I was like, good point. Good point. It was just odd. Yeah. No, it is. It, it's just not something, especially here in Texas, you know, everybody's got a gun. Their open carry is If you, you know, yeah, see a guy at Kroger with, with a gun on, you know, and everybody's pretty polite. Yeah. And right. But it was, it was a pretty cool— that, that was one of those things that was kind of like, oh, okay, interesting, interesting. So anyway, that—

I mean, I'm interested to know what the crime is like there.

Well, they don't have much.

I, I would imagine not.

Yeah. They, they— he said, he said crime is extremely low because most of it comes from tourists. Yeah. Yeah.

I would imagine. Well, and like we, when we were at St. John, you know, it's a stone's throw away from, yeah. Uh, British Virgin Islands. Right. I don't remember which one.

Yeah.

Um, but like they, we were out on a boat and our captain was like, well, we can't go that far over that way because we'll get in trouble.

Mm-hmm.

I was like, why? And he goes, cuz that's the British Virgin Islands. They don't want us over there. Ah. And I was like, oh, okay. They got it on pretty tight lockdown. Right.

So yeah, it is interesting because like, you know, they drive on the left side of the road and—

Well, that's true in the US Virgin Islands.

Yes. All of them over there.

Yeah.

So it's a, it's a unique experience. My kids were freaking out. Um, it was pretty—

Did you drive?

No, no, no, no, I did not. Um, I drove in Honduras, which is super fun. Um, driving, you know, 4-wheel drive manual vehicles up and down some roads that have to have 4-wheel drives.

Heck yeah.

So much fun. Um, but no, I did not try to drive there. I didn't need to. But what was one of the most hilarious things is we were getting in the, that same taxi to go back to the airport. And, um, because of the number of people we had in trying to get back, uh, the driver got into the car and, uh, and no, he had not gotten in the car yet. He was saying, hey, go ahead and load up. We'll, we'll take off. And so, uh, my wife went to get in the front seat and she got into the driver's side because she thought that was the— she was like, oh, I guess I'm not driving. So she sat in what we would consider the

driver's side, which is the passenger side, the left side. And she said it was super awkward.

Yeah.

Like just really, really weird sitting in the front. You know, you got these cars coming at you in a weird way.

It's just So here's what's weird about the US Virgin Islands is you do drive on the left-hand side of the road.

Oh yeah.

But they're American cars.

Yeah. Yeah. Which some of them there are as well with the steering wheel still on the left. Yeah. But there was quite a few that had the steering wheel on the right.

So that's gotta be confusing.

Oh, well, and can you imagine driving a manual? Because the clutch is on the wrong side too.

Uh, that, that would be weird.

Yeah.

Is it though?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

It is. So your, your, your gas pedal's on the left.

I mean, I could figure it out, but like, it, it'd take me a couple of days.

It would take a couple of days. I'm with you. Yeah, for sure. So we, we had a great time, man. So many, so many cool places out there. And, um, you know, it's not normal for us to take those types of vacations back to back and just happened to be some pretty cool family situations happening with the wedding and then the anniversary. But man, I'm glad to be home.

I bet.

I am glad to be home. We're glad you're back. Yeah, it'll be good to kind of get back in the routine, all that kind of stuff. I need to go catch up on episodes that you've done because you've done quite a bit of stuff while I was gone.

We had some fun ones.

Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I think that'll wrap it up for today.

Cool.

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