A trip to Arlington, Texas for Special Olympics

For the last three years we have made a trip to Arlington, Texas to bring our grandson to the Texas State Special Olympics basketball tournament. Maybe this is the fourth year, I can’t seem to remember. The first few years we brought our camper up here and stayed at the Tree Top Care Free RV Park. Last year we just drove up and stayed in the hotel with everyone else and had planned to do that again this year. However, there was a glitch in our plans.

We have a dog and a cat that allow us to travel with them but they decided that they didn’t want to come this year. Therefore, we had made plans to have someone stay in the house and take care of them while we were gone since they don’t like being left in a boarding facility. The person who was going to do the duty decided to move to San Antonio. So the choice was to send the pets to boarding or hook up the camper and bring them up here. The pets voted on the camper so here we are. Maybe I should say, here I am with the dog and cat in the camper. The wife and grandson are in the hotel with all of the other special Olympic participants. I guess it sounds silly, but it was actually cheaper to bring the camper up here with the pets in tow than to leave them both in the boarding kennels. This way the pets are happier and I’m not having to stay in a hotel.

As we were packing the camper yesterday, my wife and I had the same revalation. It doesn’t matter whether we are going on a long trip or a short trip, the preparation takes about the same amount of time. Even though we don’t take as many clothes on the shorter trips, it seems like we make the same number of trips back and forth to the camper. We still have to load the food, clothes, pet stuff, computers, camera, air compressor and any number of other things that we can’t live without while we are gone. I think the only thing that we leave home are the bicycles. I had written an earlier blog on leaving a lot of things in the camper while it is in storage so there isn’t as much that needs to be done on each subsequent trips. Maybe I need to go back and rewrite that one!

We are creatures of habit. When we travel the same roads over and over we tend to stop at the same places each trip. This trip is no different in that we stopped at The Collin Street Bakery on I-45 as we do each time we travel up or down I-45. They have the best “not so little” bakery around. We always end up eating some cookies there and then taking at least one of the angel food cakes along for later. If you are ever passing through Corsicana, Texas, you need to stop at the bakery.  It is right on the freeway and there is plenty of space to park the RV.

We are not really here for the camping this weekend, although it is a by product of being here.  Rather we are here to watch our grandson and hundreds of other Special Olympic atheletes particapte against each other in basketball.  They will all play their hearts out to win their event but the real winning will come from the friendship and fellowship that they have with each other.

Later!

Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas. Really good stuff here!

Camper at Tree Tops Care Free RV Resort