OT: I"m in the land of cheap fabric and opportunity!!!

I love shopping at High Fashion, especially on a Sunday afternoon. I don't think the traffic snarls aren't as bad as they were last year. If you get the Houston newspaper, you will find ads for the store sometimes and once in a while, a coupon with it. I am sorry to hear about the lack of stock at the Fry Road store, it's been a while since I've been there since the one on Hwy 529 & Hwy 6 is much closer to where I live. The Hancock's in that area is much better than the one on Jones Rd & Hwy 6, in my opinion. Emily

My bro is near Westheimer and Dairy-Ashford. There's a Hancock in the Kroger center at that intersection, and there's a SWLTH across W'heimer and perhaps a couple blocks towards downtown. Faces west. It's before you reach that huge new super wally world.

Lupe's is off a major arterial west of there. Great atmosphere--it's in a former house. Big sandbox outside. (You're thinking McPlaySpace, but this is locally owned.)

There's a great thrift called Value World, one of my faves. (Also in the Detroit area, which is how I know of them.) Kids clothes, barely worn or with the tags still on. T-shirts, 85 cents. And so forth. To get there, go east on W'heimer to a major street about 1-1/2 miles. Turn north. It's about 2 miles up on the west side.

There's another thrift/resale place called McValue or McFriendly or something like that. Like a Big Lots with all-new merch.

My other big Texas thing is Taco Cabana. Get there before they close! (Used to be one in Fort Wayne IN and I'd get one more TC fix before heading home.) And the Hispanic hypermarcado is pretty cool. Is it called Fiesta Mart?

Harwin is an east-west street a couple miles south of W'heimer and near the Sam Houston parkway. It's packed with Asian wholesalers of all types of goods. If you need a few dozen of almost anything, that's the place to go. They also sell "eaches" and it's a nice place to stock up on stuff for crafts fairs or GS troop gifts.

NASA would be good to go see while you're there (the "Houston, we have a problem" place). Other day trips: Galveston, Austin. A bit further: San Antonio (try to go sometime during Fiesta, next April).

Here's my chance to tell a Texas-specific joke: HEB and Whole Foods Market are fixin' to merge. They gonna call it Butt Whole Foods.

--Karen D. I really have to go see my bro!

I knew about the store on Westheimer, but I haven't been to it in 5-6 years; I knew they had enlarged the size, but didn't realize they carried fabric & patterns there. When we moved to Houston in 1999, we had a town house on Perthshire, near Dairy Ashford, across from Stratford High School. I traded at all the stores around the area of Westheimer. One of my favorite things to do then was to go for lunch at Luby's, then shop at Jo-Ann's, the thrift shop nearby and maybe Michael's, then get my cab home. Metro Lift has/had cards for seniors that enabled us to get a cab for $1.00 each way anywhere in the city, provided we made our appointment 24-hours in advance. Now we live outside the city, I can't take advantage of that anymore, and now must depend on DS to take me shopping when he has time. Emily

If you go to the High Fashion website, you can register for their email newsletter which announces their not-frequent-enough sales. Most sales seem to be in the 15% off range -- which doesn't really make it a sale (in my opinion) -- but I keep hoping for the 50% thing again!

Their website url is

-- and Kirsten,I was wrong when I thought they were on Main Street, they're actuallyon Louisiana ( parallel's Main) at 3101 Louisiana. I think I normallydrive down Main street from I-10 (I get off at the Smith Street/Theaterdistrict exit, go down several blocks, then turn east till I hit Main.Then head South on Main.) Once you get past downtown, you'lleventually see a tall Houston Community College (HCC) building on Main. Turn right there (I believe it's Elgin) and go a block or two toLouisiana. High Fashion is on the corner of Elgin and Louisiana.There's a really good hamburger place just a block away, too, butthey're closed on weekends.To get back to I-10, just head north on Louisiana. It'll lead straightto I-10.

You can also get their via 59, but I always get lost when I try that route.

CypSew wrote:

Reading the Smithsonian magazine last night, and in the travel section I found tour information here:

toll free: 1-866-842-7751 HTH,

Beverly

Thanks alot Beverly, I have bookmarked it. You are amazing at finding stuff.

Kirsten

You're welcome! Serendipity, I probably would have not even paid attention to that ad if your question had not been asked a couple of days ago. ;-)

Beverly

You might want to take a peek at one of the greatest manmade monuments in this country, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, if you have the time. If I had to recommend a must-see thing for anybody touring the US, that would be on the top of my list (followed by the Grand Canyon). It is absolutely amazing.

My brother recently sent me a link to some pictures taken on a cross-country plane trip, and the pilot took some absolutely glorious pics of the countryside. Scroll down several pages (it's about the 40th picture), you'll see Mt. Rushmore as you have probably never seen it before:

You're welcome. I was just blown away seeing pictures from that perspective.

Beverly

Looks like some beautiful country was crossed.

Not trying to be boastful but most of America is beautiful. Just avoid the big cities. As for me there are only a few places I want to be: Pennsylvania-my home where my ancestors settled in the 1700's. Switzerland-where the majority of them came from. Wales-where my paternal grandmother was from.

Born, raised and will be buried in Penn's woods,

,the "holy experiment".Sorry, just very passionate about it,AK in PA

Oh, I know most of it is lovely, with the occasional zit! ;)

My dad brought some awe-inspiring pix back from his 14 weeks there in

1969. I just hope the slides have survived! DH wants to scan them and a whole load more of Dad's pix for my mum, and put them on DVD's so she can look through them. I want copies of some, too. We'll have to hope, but it'll be a long term project! He took serious amounts of pictures for many years!

My father took lots of shots with his Agfa rangefinder way back when..... Quite a number of years later the SOB my mom married after Dad passed away did a quick and dirty job of moving them out of the house we had grown up in and tossed out virtually everything that had my fathers influence, including all the family photos over all the years.

But take a look at these

guy has a natural talent. And he is an amateur.Enjoy, AK in PA

How sad. Some folk are just plain mean.