Trip to Texas

Feb 12 - 17, Dave and I took a quick, but lovely trip to Texas to visit cousin Rhoda. We had a whopping big Texas time!

Our first adventure was taking the train from Normal to Dallas...a 19 hour trip with a couple hour delay thrown in for good measure. Our leg room was exceptional, with seats that went back and foot rests that came up. It was a good idea, but for some reason you could not get comfortable in these "recliners." I was amazed at how quiet the train ride was...so quiet during the night that I was afraid to even chew on the pretzels I had packed for fear I might wake somebody up!

I had been to the JFK museum before, but I wanted Dave to see it, so we spent a morning in downtown Dallas. The weather was beautiful that day, in the upper 70's.

Here Dave is having a Texan chat with some real cowboys down at the Ft. Worth Stockade. He had heard us talking about the stockade for a couple of days. When we got there and entered the first little shop, the first shop of about 3 blocks of shops, he looked at me like, "Oh no, this is SHOPPING!" 

But it wasn't long until he got intrigued with the architectural details and the anbiance of the place. Again, the weather was perfect, and we had a great time. These cowboys made sure to invite us to the "shoot-out" they were staging after the longhorn cattle drive. We hustled into position to watch Dave's new "friends" put on their show. It was the one joke of the entire trip. If you are ever at the stockade, don't bother with the Legends of Texas street show shoot out. It was a real snoozer.

The last day we took a tour of the AT&T Stadium. I'm not into football, but even I appreciated the beauty of that classy building, done up in real style. They were getting ready for a Motorcross dirt event, so we couldn't go onto the field, but the tour was interesting and well worth the time and money.

The train ride home was another long night in the chairs, with long delays due to the ice storms in the Midwest. But we used the extra time to rest up from the good time we were treated to by Rhoda and friend, Renae. Besides the events pictured above, we had some fabulous eating out and eating in, some good soaking in their hot spa tub, a visit to their church, and a tour of Rhoda's workplace.

If you ever get a chance...a trip to Dallas is a good idea!

ANOTHER TEST

It's a gorgeous day outside today. Well, the sun was shining brightly an hour ago, but it is hiding behind the clouds now. The beautiful white snow is everywhere. Sorry those of you from the south can't have some of it. Not a lot of news from here, but I will try to give you a little of what's been going on in our lives. Way back in December, we went to Jacksonville and spent Christmas week at the Jerry and Angela's house. Drake and Jason and their families were there for the Holiday also. We had a wonderful time; it had been a few years since we were all together. Heather Celis couldn't give up work time from Hardees, and we all missed her. From Jacksonville we went to our winter place in Indian Rocks Beach. Dave and Judy came to visit us for almost a week, and Kelsie drove over from Jacksonville and spent the weekend with us old fogies. We had some really fun times while all five of us were together - walking on the beach, laying in the sun, playing skippo, and eating out, and putting puzzles together. I think Kelsie saw us from a different perspective than she's used to. She kept asking us about things we did when we were young (like we're not "young" now??). Hope we didn't give her too much information!?!? We actually left our condo a couple days early. Jerry had a bad cough and I developed one also on the drive home. So we came home and collapsed for several days, but we're both going strong again. Now to see if this shows up on your computers!!