Texas by the Numbers

 McKinney, TX

Our time in The Lonestar State until we return in January

Packing Day

Today is packing day and that isn't very interesting so Texas by the Numbers it is!

Texas by the Numbers

We will have just over 1000 miles of Texas highways driven (this doesn't include side streets or county roads) at the end of the day.

We add another 100 miles on the way out. 

This map is really hard to see.  The bold lines are the highways we have traveled in Texas.

We added 35 new counties to our county total

We still have a long way to go to finish Texas.

We added 2 New Tiki Bars to our list

Swizzle in Dallas, TX

4 Kahunas in Fort Worth, TX

We added Texas Pinball to our list of places we have played.

Arcade 92 Retro Arcade and Bar

We added Public Transit to our list

- Dart Rail Red Line

- Dart Rail Orange Line

- Dart Bus Route 3

We added 3 new places where we have spent the night in Texas

Amarillo, McKinney, and Longview Texas

We added 1 new Brewery to our list

Siren Rock Brewing in Rockwall, TX

We went Thrift Store Shopping in a new state (Texas)

We visited 6 new museums

Morton Museum of Cooke County Gainesville, TX

Colin County History Museum McKinney, TX

Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary, McKinney, TX

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Perot Museum, Dallas, TX

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX

We went to the movie theater 3 times and saw;

- Thor: Love and Thunder

- The Gray Man

- Nope

We visited 1 new Farmers Market

We went to our first Guinea Pig /  Rabbit Show as well as our first Dressage Competition.

Keep your fingers outside of the cage at all times

Simon and Sharon doing their thang

To quote Ferris Bueller, "Nothing - wha - what do you mean nothing good? We've seen everything good. We've seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!" (we didn't eat pancreas but we did have Ramen)

The "whole" city!

Went to a museum

Priceless work of art

Not pancreas

So to wrap up McKinney, we didn't do as much as we waned to do because it was really hot and we were far from public transit, but we did do a lot and had a great time doing it.  We even got to catch up on some of the shows we love and I got to watch quite a bit of the World Series of Poker.  Most importantly we got to spend time with family we haven't seen in a long time.  We got to hang out with Sharon (Donna's Sister) and we got to know Erika (our niece) a lot better.  We got to trade experiences.  We showed them some of the things we love and they showed us some of the things they love.  It was a cultural exchange! Next stop, Tulsa, OK.  You can read about it here (kidding, I can't link to a place I haven't visited and a post I haven't done yet).

If you didn't get to see yesterday's post you can check it out here.  

Bonnie Wenk Dog Park and Game Night

 McKinney, TX

Bonnie Wenk Dog Park

Back to the Dog Park

This morning we took Francis back to Bonnie Wenk Dog Park.  He enjoyed running around and smelling other dogs.  It was pretty warm so all of the dogs were pretty mellow.  I looked up Bonnie Wenk and found out she was a local environmentalist and was active in the local City Council.  The park opened in 2013 and Kyle Brooks & the Rhythm & Beards performed on the lawn that evening.  It appears that the park has outlasted the band because I can't find anything about Kyle or the Beards.  You can read about her here if you are interested.  

They have a place where kids and dogs can play in the water.  I waited until the kids were out of the shot to take the photo.

Donna and Francis enjoying the shade

Francis keeping his distance

Errands and Game Night

After dropping Francis off at home, we went out to run errands.  I mailed my big camera to a friend to borrow / check out to see if he wants to buy it.  I am not using it and it is taking up a lot of room. We also picked up dessert items for tonight.  Sharon and Erika came over for game night.  They brought dinner and we provided the dessert.  There are a few board games here at the house so we played Clue.  In the end I lost.  I knew the killer and the weapon and was down to 1 of 3 rooms and I guessed wrong.  They were all closing in so I felt I had to take a chance.  I didn't feel so bad because I only wrongly accused the location, I still got the right killer.  

The rest of our stay here consists of packing up on Friday and leaving Saturday morning.  We are ready for a new adventure!

If you didn't read about yesterday, you can see it here.

Nope is a Yep!

 McKinney, TX

Another Movie Day

Today we went to Moviehouse and Eater again for their $6 Tuesdays.  It's a great way to beat the heat and we are remembering how much fun it is to see reasonably priced movies.  When we were dating we would see multiple moves in a week or even sometimes in a day.  We let Sharon know and she decided to come along after making sure it wasn't a slasher horror movie.  Nope is another great movie by Jordan Peele.  The three of us really enjoyed it.  

Nope was playing on quite a few screens

Thrift Store Shopping

Donna and I haven't been thrift store shopping since we got to Texas so the three of us went to Goodwill after the movie.  I looked for the usual shirts related to breweries, Tiki, and I also want one that says Dallas or McKinney on it somewhere.  I didn't find anything.  It seemed like this thrift store had very low inventory in the men's section except for suits and long pants.  Donna did find a nice pair of lounging shorts that looked pretty Tiki so it was a good stop.  The rest of the day I played Hollow Knight and we watched Disney+.  It was a pretty chill day.

I did take a few photos on our evening walk so I could remember where we stayed and how it looked.  

I was looking around for photos to take and didn't notice I was walking through sprinklers

The hidden Peace, Love, Unity, Hope, McKinney sign

Some historic houses have permits to use a lot of water to keep their yards nice.  Others do not and have to let the grass die in the heat.

This is where the fire ants live.  See the relevant post about fire ants here.

If you didn't read yesterday's post check it out here.  

Downtown McKinney and Airbnb Host Policy Change

 McKinney, TX

Viva McKinney!

Downtown McKinney, TX

Today is the last Saturday we will be in McKinney so we decided to go to the farmers market again.  We saw a knife sharpener there so we brought our chefs knife.  It's getting really dull and honing wasn't helping.  We had tried to get it sharpened in Kirkland before we left but the knife store moved to Seattle and we weren't going into Seattle just to sharpen our knife.  While we were walking around I took the opportunity to take more photos of Downtown McKinney.

This eatery used to be a gas station so they have the old pumps on display.

Howdy Honey!  Is he talking to me?

The local comic book shop.

Little Sebastian!

Sharpening was $1 an inch.

No thank you.

I sampled the Wild Turkey Whiskey caramel.  It was just okay IMHO.

Donna had been complaining about her wallet recently and how old it is.  It is falling apart at the seams.

These wallets came with a $1,000,000 Babe Ruth Bill so we bought one for Donna.

Purple micro greens

Santa!  I assume the no photos sign is for the inside.

Cool bike mural

More Petroliana

Our sharp knife!

And Donna's functional souvenir from Texas.

Airbnb Policy Change

As we look for future stays we are sure to keep on top of the latest Airbnb Scams.  The most common one is listing the same property multiple times at different price points and accepting requests to stay.  Just before your stay, the host tells all of the lower priced stays that the unit is no longer available for some reason and offers a different unit for your stay.  This different unit is less desirable than the unit listed.  This hasn't happened to us but we have read reviews by people this has happened to.  Airbnb just announced they are upping the Host Last Minute Cancelation Fee from $100 to $1000 in hopes to end this scam.  You can read about it here if you are curious.

Oh and this doesn't deserve its own subheading but I bought Hollow Knight and am trying to play through it.  Erika showed it to me and I liked it a lot.  I am stuck on what's maybe the 2nd boss.  Get Better Noob!

If you didn't read about our future plans in the post from yesterday you can check it out here.