Dallas, TX Area

Thursday.
We arrived at Hidden Cove Park Marina in The Colony, TX. At one time this was a Texas State Park but was sold to a private company. It is a very nice park but there are a few things they could do to enhance the camping experience, at least from my perspective and style of camping. The most important is the sewer hookups, not all sites have them, the PCV pipe is not buried deep enough to give a “normal” hookup.
The entrance is padlocked at 10 pm but you are given a code to the padlock if you come in after 10, why not install the key pad gate entrance or card reader, I suppose cost is a factor. The sites are fairly easy to get into and you are not sitting on top of the adjacent site. The Marina part comes from being on Lake Lewisville, it has a lot of fishing but from what I hear is primarily a boating lake.
Friday
Wal Mart was on the agenda today, we didn’t need many items but it always seems we take a trip to Wal Mart whenever we park for a few days. I guess we are always needing something.
Bill & Mable came to Dallas today to see some friends and they stayed the night at Teresa’s before joining their friends for the weekend. We went to eat at a Greek restaurant, I don’t remember the name, but the food was great. We got back to the campground just before they were going to lock the gate, so I didn’t get to try out my combination lock skills. I remember they weren’t too good in high school.
Saturday
Dallas Arboretum, if you are ever in the Dallas area this is a must visit. I am not a garden person but the flowers in this place are spectacular, tulips were in bloom when we were there, roses are coming up next I would love to see those. The different color of tulips was amazing, I did not realize there were that many different color of tulips.


Sunday
Cowboy Stadium is another must see in Dallas, regardless if you like the Cowboys or Jerry Jones this is a fabulous facility. We spent a couple of hours touring the place, the screen above the field is HUGE, I have seen it on TV but to see it in person gives a whole different perspective.

This is the tunnel through which the Cowboys enter the field.
Of course we have to have a picture of the cheerleaders.
Ray Roberts Park was our next stop for the day. This is still a state park and in many ways is much better than Hidden Cove and much cheaper. They have no sites with sewer, water and electric only, so most every camper had a blue boy underneath them. The sites were a bit closer together but they were still far enough apart to be private. They were all back ins and all of them had an iron pole to hang a lantern.
Monday
The Original Pancake House, http://www.originalpancakehouse.com/index.html. The signature Apple pancake is fabulous, it could pass for a desert, I would put some cinnamon vanilla ice cream on it.
Red Building Museum, http://www.oldred.org/, is the old courthouse used until it was outgrown and a new one was built across the street. I found it very interesting, we watched three videos each giving a different piece of history and then the exhibits in the area of the video gave more detail of that particular time. We didn’t get to see everything but what I did see was worth the price of admission.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, http://www.jfk.org/, is all about the Kennedy assassination and having lived through that period of time I found it very interesting in that there were aspects I had not heard before. A must visit for anyone in the Dallas area.
Tuesday
We had lunch with Beth & Ken, my youngest brother Larry’s sister-in-law, we stayed with them last March on our way to Mission, TX to pick up our truck. We ate at Stan’s,http://www.stanslakeview.com/, they have very good food, I had the shrimp Po-Boy and while it was good it wasn’t as good as Bubba’s in Thibodeaux, LA.
Wednesday
Today we went to the post office, Wal-Mart, Sally’s and gas station, then home for lunch. I I talked with Larry and Kathy and they told me Brad, nephew, was named Coach of the Year, http://www.thehawkeye.com/Story/All-HE-Hoenig-032311, congratulations Brad and all the girls on the team.
Our campsite here is good except for the sewer hookup, Have you every seen anything like this. There is no way to secure the hose from the camper to the sewer pcv pipe so I tried taping it to keep the hose from coming out. I didn’t do a very good job because it leaked bad, thankfully I only had the gray water tank valve open so the only thing that went onto the ground was laundry water. I am going to unhook everything this afternoon and then dump the black water, toilet, tank tomorrow at the dump station before we leave the campground.
Other than that this has been a very nice park.

We have had a great time down south this winter but now it is time to head for the north, a stop at the factory for a repair of the old dryer vent hole, Omaha to see the kids and finally Des Moines to visit with family and friends and go to a few appointments. May will begin another series of road trips and new adventures.
Dreams Do Come True.