Days 10 and 11 - Burleson and Cleburne Texas Visiting Charla and Deedra Bailey (and their families)

We drove from Northern Dallas to Southern Dallas to visit my nieces and their families. The weather cooperated nicely so we got to enjoy a lot of time outdoors. Unfortunately, the internet service did not cooperate nicely. In 2007, on our first cross country trip, the wifi at campgrounds was surprisingly fast. In 2014, the wifi is super slow. I think it must be a combination of two things: more users, and data restriction. Some campgrounds actually post that they throttle the data for users that are consuming too much bandwidth. Last night, it took 10 minutes to open my blog page. What this means is that I can't download pictures to our Flickr account. So you may only get a few small snapshots in the blog rather than an album. We'll see if we can find campgrounds with faster wifi as we move west.

Day 9 - May 18, 2014 - Dallas, Texas

Today was a great day spending time in Dallas with my good high school friend Jeff Terry and his son Spencer. There are many people in my network of friends near Washington DC that probably don't like this the border around this photo because it's the Dallas Cowboys, the long time arch rival to the Washington Redskins. This picture was taken on our tour of the Dallas Cowboys stadium, which is the largest domed structure in the world. The 1.5 hour tour was pretty impressive and included many unique facts. Who knew that the rivalry between the Cowboys and Redskins started when the owner of the Redskins tried to block the Cowboys from being added to the league. All owners had to vote "yes", and the Redskins were the only franchise to vote "No". The Cowboys owner outsmarted the Redskins by purchasing the rights to the song "Hail to the Redskins" and he didn't allow the Redskins to use the song until they voted "yes". I learned one more fact about myself. I can no longer out run my 11 year old son.......He beat me in a
race on the field.

We also enjoyed a round of golf at TopGolf, which is a highly advanced driving range where the golf balls have a radio frequency chip inside of them so that the players try to shoot near targets and the distance to the target is recorded.

Day 8 - Hot Springs, Arkansas to Dallas, Texas

Today we spent quite a bit of time on the road (~6 hours with stops) and covered about 313 miles. The highlight of the day was our evening campfire with a good high school friend of mine, Jeff Terry. We shared smores and stories around the campfire. Here is a smores shortcut: put the marshmallow between two chocolate chip cookies. It's absolutely delicious. On Sunday, we will be taking a tour of the Dallas Cowboys stadium built in 2009 with Jeff Terry and his son Spencer.

Day 7 - Hot Springs National Park, Hot Springs, Arkansas

From 1915 to about 1930 Hot Springs, Arkansas was equivalent to Orlando, Florida today. It was the place to go if you were rich or poor. Although there are many hot springs throughout the US, the water from these springs was thought to have medicinal qualities superior to any other hot spring water because of its purity, it's mineral content, and the heat source (radioactivity [very small amounts]) of the water. There were 21 bath houses (think spas) in operation that catered to all walks of life. Some of them are still in operation today and 100,000 "baths" are taken in the hot springs each year.
We toured a restored bath house, took a small hike to several hot springs (the water was almost too hot to touch), and went to an observation tower. We also filled up some water jugs using the free spigots they have throughout the town. I'm hoping the water has special mineral qualities to heal Bria from her picky food issues and her stubbornness. Better yet, perhaps it will heal me from getting so aggravated by both of those.

Day 6 - Memphis, Tennessee to Hot Springs, Arkansas

I guess you could call today a day of accidents. Thankfully, they surrounded us but nothing directly affected us. On the way to Hot Springs we passed a very unusual accident in which a tractor trailer (with 2 trailers) veered off into the woods and hit a tree. Here at our campsite, the neighboring camper had a branch fall and puncture the roof during high winds. Yesterday, when we were not here, our other neighbor had a branch fall and dent their truck. When the kids heard these stories they were asking me to move!
Today we passed the 1000 mile mark. To celebrate, I changed a tire on the travel trailer! It had a very unusual wear pattern. You can see from the picture the outside 1/4 of the tire wore down quickly but the edge is still intact and 3/4 of the tire is fine. I think there much be a tire defect or some suspension issue.The other 3 tires are just fine. I'll be monitoring the new tire very closely. Tomorrow we spend the day at Hot Springs National Park!

Days 4 and 5 - Moving across Tennessee

Today and yesterday were traveling days. The next real stop is Hot Springs National Park (we will arrive on Thursday). However, we have made the best of both days. We got the RV window leak repaired on Tuesday and the kids invented a new card game that we played together along with some other card games. Today we are staying at Graceland, which is Elvis' mansion. We elected not to pay the sizable entrance fee and just enjoy the views from a distance. The whole square mile seems to be devoted to Elvis. I've never seen so many Elvis stores in one place. We really weren't staying here because of Graceland, they just happened to have a nice campground on the property and it was on the way.

I don't watch much late night TV, but I've seen Jimmy Fallon's "Thank You" segment a couple times. I've got two for him: "Thank You, Mr. School Bus Driver for passing me on Interstate 40 in Tennessee and reminding me just how slow I was driving today." "Thank you daughter, for reminding me that the sewage pipe I hook up every day really does contain some gross stuff. I needed that reminder."

Day 3 - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

What a beautiful day! We began the morning with a 2.6 mile hike to Laurel Falls. (Great recommendation by the park ranger.) It wasn't too difficult and great for families because the path is paved. We even saw folks pushing strollers. After seeing the 80 foot falls, we made our way to Clingman's Dome, which is the third highest peak east of the Mississippi at 6643 feet. (The top 2 peaks are only 4 and 40 feet higher and both are nearby). The coolest part about the summit is that the park service has erected an observation tower. Unfortunately, the kids only wanted to stay up there for about 5 minutes. Total distance hiked for the day: 3.6 miles. Total distance I had to carry Bria: 0.1 miles (on the steepest part of course). She claimed she just couldn't make it any longer.....Within 10 minutes she was running up the path.