Tuesday, January 27, 2015
We are at Lake Mineral Wells
State Park, west of Dallas, parked in site overlooking the lake. At least we can see the lake through the
trees. Our big window is facing west and
we had a great view of the sunset last night.
Sorry for the long silence,
but it’s been a busy month in Dallas.
With 4 adults, an active 2 year old and 3 dogs, there was a lot going
on.
In my last post, we were at
Tyler State Park, east of Dallas. We
spent the night there and then headed for McKinney, Texas. We were looking to get an automated blind for
the rear window and there is a manufacturer there who will install them. It’s almost on the way to Natasha’s.
We had driven for maybe half
an hour when the tire pressure alarm went off.
One of the trailer tires was losing air pressure. Those of you who know my husband know he is a
gadget freak and when I first heard about the tire pressure monitoring system,
I must admit I rolled my eyes. But every
safety seminar we went to mentioned that the majority of accidents with RV’s
have something to do with tires, so we installed a system. Mostly it annoys us by not recognizing that
we don’t have the trailer attached to the truck. But that day Steve could see that we had a
slow leak.
Thank god for cell phones
and the Internet. I determined that
there were two tire dealers in a town ahead on our route. Steve was pretty sure we’d be okay until we
got there and we were.
The tire and brake place we
pulled into was out of town a bit and had a newish look to it. They weren’t busy and took us right
away. I was going to help Steve back the
trailer, but the owner said he would and invited Obi and I to wait in the
waiting room.
Now I’ve been in automotive
parts stores and tire stores before, typically somewhat dingy places with lots
of metal shelving. That’s not what greeted
me here. The floors were polished and
stained concrete, beautiful but no farmer was going to feel bad walking in with
his muddy boots. Two of the walls were
glass as in most showrooms and the other two walls were knotty pine. Fresh, clear knotty pine with cutouts along
one wall displaying chrome wheels like sculpture.
The large service desk was
circular with supports of diamond plate and panels of something that looked
like pegboard only the holes were square.
The pegboard was blue and mounted with chrome bolts over a red
background. There were chairs facing a
flat screen TV. The whole thing was perfect.
Decorated, but comfortable.
Turns out the owner was the
decorator. He said he’s helped a few
people decorate, but only knows how to do red neck decorating. He does it well. I’d love to see what he’d do with a trailer.
As for the tire, we had
managed to pick up a screw in the tire and they got it out and patched the tire
for us. Total charge $10. So if you are ever near Emory, Texas, check
out Emory Tire and Wheel. It’s a great
place!
We headed on to McKinney,
where we met with the shade people and made an appointment to drop the trailer
off on the 15th of January.
Somehow replacing the rear window shade with an automated shade morphed into
replacing 7 shades. We had day/night
pleated shades in all the windows and they work well, except in the back
window. It’s so wide (about 7 feet) that
it doesn’t want to stay up and really takes two people to raise and lower
it. We made it even harder when we
installed a desk in front of it, so I thought we should get a motorized shade
for that window. The new shades do look
nice and Steve’s having fun playing with the remote control.
We arrived at Natasha’s that
day and mostly got settled in. Maria
came home from her day care Christmas Party wearing the dress Natasha had made
her. She was always a bit shy when she
first got home from day care, but it didn’t last long.
Our friend, Melinda, bakes wonderful Christmas cookies and was kind enough to send us some at Natasha's. She also included a small tin of cookies just for Maria. She thought they were special and didn't want to share.
Christmas morning brought
presents and one of Maria’s favorites was Duplos, large blocks made by Legos. She and Steve played with them a lot the
whole time we were there. Once I got it
assembled, she also enjoyed the kitchen her Uncle John and Aunt Enza sent. It came with a play cell phone, which I also
had to put together. She immediately
took the phone and “called” her dad and talked about mommy. She’s not quite talking, but very close.
It’s getting late and Steve
wants me up early tomorrow, so I’ll sign off for now.
Take care, everyone!
Deb
