Dallas/Fort Worth

Monday (11/16) to Sunday (11/22):

We made the trip from Lake Texoma to our next campground located near McKinney TX. The Shady Creek RV Park & Storage is located about 10 miles west of McKinney off of Hwy 380. We got the Duchess set up for our stay at this campground. On our trip south the Duchess and our Jeep both got extremely dirty with all of the road construction we had to go through.

Our site at the Shady Creek RV Campground

View of the campground

We were here to spend some time visiting with Mitch & Barb Mendrygal who have been firends of ours for several years. They are thinking about becoming full time RVers when Mitch retires in the next couple of years. They came out to the Duchess on Monday night for dinner, we met them for dinner on Tuesday night at their house. We spent a lot of time going our experiences as fulltimers and tried to answer their questions about this lifestyle.

Barb & Mitch

On Thursday we moved the motorhome south to the Dallas/Arlington KOA. This is an older KOA park located in an established part of town. The sites here are very close together with a large portion of the campground being occupied by semi-permanent residents.

Our site at the Dallas/Arlington KOA

Our friends, Karen & Bill Brunton, came to visit us on Thursday night after we had the Duchess all set up for the few days stay here. On Friday we made a visit to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum located on the SMU campus.

George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush

View of the entrance to the museum/library

We spent several hours touring the museum/library, seeing the various areas dedicated to different times during his presidency and viewing several short films along the way. They had a special exhibit showing various items/decorations from the 2003 White House Christmas.

Twisted metal from World Trade Center

Inside the library

Connie sitting in "The Oval Office"

Another view of the items in "The Oval Office"

The lighter side of President Bush

On Saturday, Pam & Carl Manganaro who are fellow full timers we met at the RV Dreams Rally in Michigan, came into Arlington from their campground in Waxahachie and we had a nice late lunch with them at Pappadeaux's. They started full timing in June so we were able to share our experiences of being on the road for this year. Unfortunately we forgot to take any pictures.

On Sunday we went over to Karen & Bill's house to watch the Cowboy football game and have some of Karen's chili. The chili was delicious and the Cowboy's actually won a game after 7 straight losses.