Houston, Texas Self Serves???

[mjwalsh]

I have a Houston, Texas trip planned down the road where I fly in & rent a vehicle. I will have 3 days out of the 4 there that I could possibly check out some good self service car washes in that area. Since I would like to see some of the newer blow drys & Mosmatic, Drayco &/or other Z booms etc in action & other worthwhile "good wowies" ... I am thinking it will be of value to see some of them & worth the extra time & gasoline etc between sightseeing of the Space Center, Zoo & whatever else ??? Houston has to offer etc.

Since my Droid X has a GPS that accepts addresses, if anyone can share some addresses with me thru a post, a pm &/or email info at kingkoin dot com ... I would appreciate it.

Mike Walsh King Koin Country Bumpkin from North Dakota

 

[MikeV]

Mike, since you are going to the Space Center, you will be just a few blocks from my car wash in Seabrook. Stop by if you want. Maybe I can take you to some other car washes in the area.
Anchor Car Wash, 2001 E. Nasa Parkway (also called Nasa Rd 1), Seabrook, TX
Call me and let me know when you will be there.

 

[cleaning up mud]

Houston's big, which airport are you flying into?

Or did you fly into.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I am not sure if it was Houston or not, but it was the first and perhaps only location I saw vdors and Changers "In Jail' basicaly a cage cosntructed of rebar so you could reach your hand thru to deposit $ and retrieve items.

 

[mjwalsh]

Houston's big, which airport are you flying into?

Or did you fly into.

Fellow cleaning up mud guy,

The flight won't occur for over a month from now. The George Bush IAH north of downtown Houston. I will be staying within the Humble City area east of that specific International Airport. Let me know if you know of some good self serve bays. I kind of wanted to see some Z booms or similar multihose booms along with possibly a central boom blow dry. We have had our 180 degree boom blow dry since 1987 but some have told me that there have been some serious improvements to even the blow drys themselves. We are using only a one hose boom in the center of our bays. The rest of the booms for FB & Blow Dry are 180 degrees. I will also be open minded to possible checking out some quality laundromats &/or dog washes. Where it actually makes more sense to use credit cards ... yes that is what I will use.

I am not sure but Mike V might be encouraging me to be a stowaway on one of the Space Center's Mars flights but hopefully I have more sense than that. Maybe I am confusing him with some of the other friends on the car wash forum. It is not totally my fault that some people watched my 10 minute &/or 1 hour YouTube Video & recognized elements of themselves as partially that "rascal deficit maker person". I hope my middle twenties medical student nephew with a minor in history is not traumatized when he sits down with his popcorn & good wine in hand ... he was forwarned ... it was for mature audiences he was told ... when we got together along with other family during Christmas. BTW he was #1 many times in spelling bee competitions when he was growing up ... hopefully he will agree ... that new so called expert supervisor of the competition (as shown in the video) needs to be corrected properly & certainly not continued to be followed.

mike walsh from west central north dakota

 

[MEP001]

I am not sure if it was Houston or not, but it was the first and perhaps only location I saw vdors and Changers "In Jail' basicaly a cage cosntructed of rebar so you could reach your hand thru to deposit $ and retrieve items.

Crime in Houston is bad. I was working on a wash that had a cage like that around the changer and vendors - I was gone for five minutes and had left a ladder in a bay - it was gone when I got back. The wash was closed and blocked off to cars, so whoever stole it was on foot.

I've left the locks off a vendor several times and each time not only was all the product and money in place, the vendor had made sales.

 

[mjwalsh]

I got back from what I felt was a pretty productive & worthwhile trip to the 4th most populous city in the USA, Houston.

If it is OK with Bill, I would like to thank everyone who showed me great hospitality.

Mike Vukelich who I had a nice visit with also coached me on the driving since the GPS is only a partial solution. BTW, I did make it to my nephew's wedding in time despite a significant distance at less than 20mph in extremely heavy traffic on the sometimes over 75 mph freeways approaching closer to the downtown area.

On Friday morning armed with SS blow dry address in Cypress Park I did find not only the car wash but also a very gracious manager who I had a really good show & tell sharing type of visit. From there, John Coleman Company with James McGee gave me a very impressive tour of their plant. There were elements in the plant that resonated with me even more than the nasa level nine space tour that lasted an unexpected over 6 hours including a great meal break. One of the better tour guides was very interested in checking out my YouTube "helping the deficit" video if it could help NASA from being more at risk for "Congressional Budget Cuts".

Saturday, consisted of a very informative downtown area bus tour, then I went to the Natural Science Museum.

Up early on Sunday morning I checked out a laundromat & a JCC car wash in Humble. Then after I went to church at the ArchDiocese CoCathedral where Mike V's niece I believe is a Cantor on Sunday, I headed up to Joe's Car Wash on Montrose where the manager Cleve could not have been better. Incredibly that car wash was somewhat busy despite a drizzling rain. He also pointed me to another much lesser car wash & dog wash down the road. Then to the Health Museum & the Zoo.

Continued on next page

 

[mjwalsh]

Continued

For a north dakota boy or girl driving an unfamiliar rental car in that big of a city is something that I have mixed feelings about ... especially if the GPS loses its connection. I am also thankful for that percentage of "Good Samaritans" who saw my blinkers & allowed me to change lanes & who helped me when I was on foot. A lifelong Houstonian with a lot scars on his face sat next to me at a Jack in the Box Fast Food place. After he saw that I was the most naive person imaginable he warned me of some of the real dangers especially in a city of that size.

Since I was trying to get perspective from the trip, I could not help but to think that even if some of the huge numbers of big city self service car washes did & do go .... some in the direction of credit cards ... it is still a good idea to have the more practical dollar coins over just quarters only .... slots once enough healthy pressure is put on Congress to properly update the coin & currency.

mike walsh king koin of bismarck

 

[mjwalsh]

This was really nifty at Joe's Car Wash. It had a centralized retrieval for the Laurel Electronic Vendors with just one Coin Box needed.