All of the rain in the southwest this spring meant that the wildflowers along the Texas roads are really blooming.    A fitting tribute to Ladybird Johnson.   The bluebells were also blooming but because the grass is so lush and the windows on the motorhome were covered with bugs, I couldn’t get a real good picture of them.   Blue mixed with green is hard to distinguish.

The reason for our coming to Texas was to help Megan celebrate another birthday!    Kenneth made birthday cupcakes one day for her - and she had to take a few minutes to blow out the ‘trick’ birthday candles!

One day was spent putting together a new “smoker-griller” for their patio.  Believe it or not, it took two PhDs and two MS grads to put it together - - hardest part was deciphering the picture graphs that formed the ‘instructions’!

The result was a nice sized grill - they can grill on Sundays a lot of meat that makes for meals during the week.   

And for us, it meant some really great grilled chicken - made with onion-free marinades and other healthy options for Dave.

We stayed at the Vineyards Campground in Grapevine this year, which is about 9 miles north of the kids (or 40 minutes driving time during rush hour!).   It is a city park that was always nice but has become VERY EXPENSIVE, but it was the closest we could get to the kids, so we treated ourselves this year.   One of the first things we had to do after getting set up was wash the front of the car - - pulling a white car behind a motorhome means lost of grime on the car.   Especially since we were not unhooking everynight, the first time I noticed the grime I had a minor panic that something was leaking - - turns out just all of the road grime being from driving through construction areas and on new asphalt roads in RV parks!    So now I have relaxed a little, but know that while it is just a little dirty after 2 days, by day four she really needs to be wiped down!

We did have a view of the lake from our front window - which was very high because of all of the rain that they have had (including one day while we were there) this spring.

We took Megan out to eat on her birthday - unfortunately Kenneth was teaching that night and missed out.   But we had an enjoyable time with her.

We also did the “Arts in the Square” festival in Southlake - - all kinds of arts in an area where we walked for a few hours and looked at all of the things that (a) couldn’t fit in the coach or (2) we can’t afford!   And in addition to art, of course there was food trucks and Megan got a Corn Dog!

Unfortunately, our time with them came to an end and we are moving on to our next stop - - more to come shortly.