State Fair

 

Ok we couldn't resist a fair and the State Fair of Texas is it for Dallas.

 

As we hadn't been to a state fair for a while it was a bit of a surprise. Hey, the fairgrounds are normally dirt, right, and there are a lot of animals and all the things that they eat and then get rid of, there were sideshows of all kinds of weird misfits of humanity .... sorry, that was somewhere else, apparently a bit of time ago.

The venue here is on the east side of Dallas. The midway is a huge area of concrete and permanent structures slick and clean with many places to eat anything fried and many places to spend money on games of "not much chance" and plenty of rides for all ages.

We did have a great time for several hours on a beautiful day with the grandson. Here's g'ma in her glory showing both son-in-law and grandson her normal driving expertise on the streets of Dallas. In spite of my missing the nastiness of fairs gone past this was a wonderful place for the young folks and Ev had a super, but tiring time.

And the new Big Tex (after he burned down last year) booms out a continuing dialog on the place and the events to come.

We had a great day at the fair and ate way too much fried stuff .... but way good ... I mean they even have deep fried butter.

We took the light rail system from near Leigh's house and it stopped right at the fairgrounds so after a super fun day for all the ride home was really smooth as well ... no parking or freeway hassle.

Aged To Perfection

 

This time of year is always the celebration of the elders and this year isn't any different.

 

 

Here's the mob again at Cenare's in College Station. The mob has thinned a bit from previous years but for the fortunate few it was great. The hosts and chefs at Cenare are used to the annual migration of the Gunn clan to fete the old professor and every year is more special than the last as this was NUMBER 98! 

The owner then brought a piece of tiramisu with the numbers 98 on it ... yeah, many ensuing jokes about the damage that 98 candles would do to the restaurant!

A glass of wine and a good piece of Italian inspired tilapia set the tone for some more old (almost a century) stories and thoughts of his long and productive career.

It was a super night but still wish Mom could have been there. She's doing well but not up the process of going out into the restaurant melee of College Station with around 60,000 Aggies also looking for dinner.

Speaking of Texas A & M and the Aggies it is always a challenge for anyone to come in there and try to book something especially on a home game weekend. Both our favorite parks were booked from earlier this year, so we chanced a new one which just opened in July.

This was Karsten's RV Resort and they had just one spot left. As you can see above the terrain is typical Texas cow pasture and grass. This is a new resort and we got their normal weekly price of $160; the cheapest hotel in town was a Ramada for $160 single for one night.

While the pads were concrete and long they were very narrow and getting around the bus in a Texas frog-choker would be pretty muddy. The sites were very close together to maximise dollar return, but the oddest thing about them was the preferred parking spaces.

If you look above, that generally is our porch side where we would put out our awning and chairs. our car would be parked to the right of where it currently is .... basically it is our lawn over to the power post. Nah. The concrete guest pad for the neighbor sits in our lawn ... weird.

Hey ... any safe port in the storm, eh ... and it was cheap. Speaking of cheap we filled up when we left with a tank of fuel for $3.32 a gallon ... gotta keep on driving!

Freightliner Heaven

 

OK we had the loud noise coming from the engine after we left the last stop in Terrell. Combined with the fact that we needed a 40,000 mile service (wow) on the Flying Scotsman we headed to the Freightliner repair shop in Dallas.

 

Yes, bad picture below, but this is the most impressive place. Very reminiscent of aircraft maintenance life. There is over 200 acres of concrete ramp and more than 75 stalls for machines. There's even a garage (hanger) with functioning engine/chassis for the trainees.

 

They put a stethoscope to the engine (access through the bedroom floor) and found that the alternator had fried itself. That with the normal service including a bad seal in a front wheel came to over $2300.

 

 

At the facility they have 50 amp hookups so that if you need to stay with your RV home for the repair you can. And the security and professional help is beyond awesome.

Once the repair work was done we needed to clean off the 2000 miles of road grime before parking in the storage area, hence the truck wash.

This is a first time in a mega sized car wash. For your $75 there are 5 guys that pressure wash and brush your vehicle to perfection .... really neat.

And come out the other end and get hand dried and wheels polished as well.

After this super clean up job we were able to get the bus over to her new storage place on Arapaho Road in Addison where it will sit for a time until we get more repair done.