We have been playing tourist since we arrived here in Arlington and it has been fun. Today, we went over to Fort Worth and took a tour of the historic Stock Yards. The only problem was that I forgot to take my camera so we will just have to go back and take some pictures before we leave here - what a shame!!

This area is the largest historic Stock Yard left in the US. The the area that is remaining is now occupied by shops but at one time the cows, pigs, sheep, horses and mules were the occupants. The whole area is covered in bricks. This was done to prevent the livestock from walking in mud and to try to improve the cleanliness of the operation. I have the feeling that clean would not exactly be the word used to describe it back then. We have no idea how many bricks are in this area but it must have been millions

There are a few old buildings built in the early 1900's. One of these buildings is the Coliseum where rodeos are held every weekend. It also boasts of being the place were Enrico Caruso sang in 1920. Another building is where cattle auctions were held. A much different type of cattle auction is held there today. The cattle are shown on television screens and there are phones on which the bidding is done. The bulls being auctioned when we were there were in Montana. These is also a museum in this building and other businesses.

You can still see the old Armour and Swift packing plants across from the Stock Yard area. Both are closed now and the one building of the Swift plant is burned out. They said when it caught on fire, it burned for 3 weeks and smoldered for a year due to the amount of fat, etc that had permeated the building.

If you are ever in the area, be sure and visit. It is a part of Texas history and should not be missed. This was the last stop before heading the cattle north and it very interesting.

Laura and I also visited a friend of hers who just had a baby today. Afterwards, Laura, Jerry and I went to dinner. While we were eating, some severe weather moved into the area resulting in a "lovely" hail storm. We did get a bit of hail damage but nothing to bad. The weather up here seems to be a bit unpredictable.

April 4, 2007 - Arlington, TX - Today, we decided to visit the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. This is in the White Rock Lake area of Dallas and is incredible. There are 66 acres to explore but we certainly didn't cover it all. In addition, to the gardens, the Degolyer House is a part of the tour. This house was built in 1949 and is very interesting to see. The most amazing room is the library. Mr. Degolyer was a collector of rare books and amassed a library of 85,000 books and required a full time librarian. I took a large number of pictures including one of which shows how people dress here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We have found that people in this area dress up much more than in Houston. They dress to go to the mall, obviously to go to the Arboretum, and just about anywhere else. It is amazing to see the cultural differences between Houston and Dallas.

When we finished here, Jerry took me over to see an older section of Dallas near where he grew up. This subdivision is named Hollywood and consists of neat, old cottages which were built in the 1940. The subdivision has never gone downhill as many do. They even offer home tours at the end of April. I took a few pictures. I would love to see inside some of these but we will be long gone by the end of April so maybe some other time.

Sunday, April 8, 2007 - Arlington, TX - We are still in Arlington, TX and have absolutely had every kind of weather that you can imagine since we got here. Tuesday was 80 degrees and sunny, but that night there was a hail storm (did a little damage the car) and a tornado touched down not too far from where we are staying. The next few days were lovely with mild temperatures. THEN, Friday night it started turning cold...down in the 30s and we got up yesterday morning to snow showers. Snowed off and on most of the day. Then today it will be in the 50s.

We spent yesterday with Brock and Laura. We went to eat at a famous restaurant in Fort Worth called Joe T Garcia's and then went to Kimbell Museum to see an exhibit of Japanese art. We had a good time.

We were supposed to go to church with them this morning but all the weird weather seems to have made Jerry sick. He has a pretty bad cold so we stayed in and will see Brock and Laura later today.

We will leave here tomorrow for our BIG 60 mile trek to the other side of Dallas so that we can visit Jerry's son for a few days before moving on.
 

Monday, April 9, 2007 - Wylie, TX - Well, we moved today from Arlington to Wylie, TX - a grand total of about 60 miles!! We are now visiting Jerry's son - Jerry Jr. and his brother, Joe and his wife, Patti. We went to eat at one of favorite spots up here. A restaurant called Babe's Chicken. It is a great place and good food. You order your meat - you have a choice of about six - and then they bring out the vegetables family style - Mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, turnip greens, cream gravy and biscuits - YUMMY!!!! Jerry Jr. went with us and we had a great time. For those of you who know that I like a beer on occasion, you will know how much I appreciated the case of different beers that Jerry Jr. brought to me. He works for a beer distributor and I can always count on him for something interesting. What he brought was all Texas beer from St. Arnold's brewery in Houston. He says I can give them to the folks up north so they can see what real beer tastes like.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - Wylie, TX - Today, we went with Jerry Jr.'s over to the Bass Pro Shop in Mesquite, TX. This place is huge and we had a great time looking at the boats, etc that they had on display. I really enjoyed looking at all the taxidermy work that was on display. I know some folks would not like it but I did. They had everything on display from deer and bear to opossums and raccoons. It is amazing to me how they can look like they are so alive. We had lunch and then Jerry Jr. had to go to work. YUK! The rest of the day has been spent just hanging out and walking around the park with the dog. It is still a bit cool and very windy so you really can't stay out very long. The sun finally came out and I did take a few pictures of the bluebonnets.

We talked to Jerry's sister-in-law, Patti today and we will visit with them tomorrow so more later.

Saturday, April 14, 2007 - Wylie, TX - Well, although we should be out of Texas by now, we are not. We were all hooked up and on our way when I told Jerry that I smelled something like antifreeze. Guess what, it was antifreeze and it looked like to was coming from the head of the engine and not from any hoses. After two hours, about 25 phone calls of our own and one to our insurance company's road side assistance program, the insurance company finally found someone in the area to work on the motorhome. If they had not found this one company, we would have had to get it towed 83 miles to a place on the far west side of Fort Worth. Not exactly the direction we were supposed to be heading.

The place that finally did work on it is called RV Liquidators and would definitely never been on my list of places to check but we were grateful to find some place close to where we already were. To make things even better, Jerry's brother and sister-in-law live very close and we were able to stay with them.

Friday, the shop called to tell us that we were certainly very lucky people because it was just a hose that had been crimped close to the exhaust manifold when we had some work done in Houston and it had developed a small hole. The way it was positioned however, made it look like it was coming from the engine itself. Feeling very fortunate, we decided to let them replace all the belts, hoses, do an oil change and replace some other small front end parts.

They called today to let us know it was ready, so we went to pick it up. We were almost back out to the COE park where we were going to finish out the weekend here in Wylie when the front end began to shimmy very hard. Jerry almost could not keep it on the road. He gradually sped back up and it happened again. I have to tell you that I was very scared. We called the shop and they said to bring it back....so we turned around and drove rather slowly back. They looked at it and couldn't readily tell what the problem might be but felt that some work they did on the front end may have highlighted another problem. We are grateful that we found an honest shop to work on the RV. They easily could have ripped us off by telling us it was a head gasket or something even more expensive like a new engine.

Needless to say, they now have the RV again and we will be here in Wylie until Wednesday. We decided that since we were going to be here through Monday, we might as well stay and go see Laura skate in a Spring show Tuesday night.

We have really enjoyed our visit with Joe and Patti and will see Jerry Jr. again tonight as well. If we had to have engine problems, it happened in a great place.

Saturday, April 21 - North Little Rock, AR - We are currently on our way from North Little Rock, Arkansas to Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, I am writing this as we go down the interstate. I think that is so cool.

Anyway, we just spent two days in the most amazing park. When you see the pictures, you won't believe that it is a city park. This place is a well kept secret apparently as it was never full. When you drive out of the park you are very close to Interstate 40 and right in the middle of North Little Rock. The park is very heavily wooded and looks much like the state parks in Texas. The difference being is that if you need to make a Wal-Mart run, the closest one is about 3 miles away.

In addition to enjoying the lovely park, I had the opportunity to see my uncle whom I had not seen in about 5 years. We had a great visit. Since we were a week late in getting here due to the mechanical problems we had with the RV, we only had Thursday night and Friday morning as he and his wife were going out of town. Had we been here last weekend as planned we would have had more time. But after 5 years, we were both just happy to get any time we could.

Hopefully, we will be in Nashville by about 4 PM and we have tickets to the 6:30 Grand Ole Opry. I know it is a bit touristy, but hey, we are perpetual tourist and we might as well act like one some of the time. Tomorrow we will be on the road again headed to Kentucky to visit some RVing friends. Just more miles under us on the way to Maine!!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Well, we made it to Nashville much earlier than expected so it gave us a little time to slow down before having dinner and going to the Grand Ole Opry. Neither Jerry nor I knew exactly what to expect from the Opry but, it was a really wonderful experience. Not only was the performances good, but since it is broadcast live on both radio and television, it was interesting to watch the activity between songs (during commercials). Only one hour is broadcast on television and the work of the camera men was fascinating to watch. Handheld cameras were utilized and it was always a two man (or woman) team - one working the camera and one person behind rolling in or unrolling the cord as necessary.

The auditorium in which this is held is the "new" Opry house built in the 1970's and since the original Ryman Auditorium had been a church, they continued the tradition here by utilizing church pews for seats. It was a bit of a surprise. I have to admit that they were not the most comfortable seats in the world either for the 2.5 hours of the show.

What little we have seen of Nashville, it is a beautiful town. Maybe we will come back another time and see more of it - at least I hope so.

Monday, April 30, 2007 - Terre Haute, IN - I realize it has been a while since our last update but we have been having a great time visiting friends. Our first stop was Shepherdsville, Kentucky, where we visited with Bill and Marilyn Wise. These folks played a big part in getting Jerry and I together. If Marilyn and Bill, had not encouraged Jerry to put his name out there on the web, we probably would have never met. We spent a few days with them meeting their family, seeing Louisville, and just catching up on the happenings since we last saw each other.

The past week has been spent in Terre Haute, Indiana with one of my oldest friends and her family. Ticia, David, Nathan and Emily showed us a wonderful time by taking us camping. They have a Thousand Trails membership and use a park about 20 miles from their home. We had a great weekend their meeting their friends, sitting around a campfire and just generally chilling out.

We had a little crisis today as KC got up with his mouth all swollen and not acting very well. Ticia was able to recommend a vet and we think we have things under control. It seems he has an infection around one of his front teeth so he got a antibiotic shot and some to take by mouth. He still acts like a pretty sick puppy but he is better than he was this morning.

This evening, we had dinner with Ticia and the kids as Dave had a meeting. We said our good-byes and will head out in the morning.

The past week and a half have been great fun and we have greatly enjoyed getting a chance to visit with friends we don't get to see very often.

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