We love seeing bright red cardinals on this trip. They are just not a bird we see around where we live and they sing such a pretty song. This morning one kept flapping around our car and I kept seeing it in my peripheral vision while I was working on my computer. I finally took a moment to watch him and then called the kids over and got my camera. He either though himself attractive or a worthy adversary and it was quite fun to watch him. He kept coming back to our shiny bumper over and over. We were shooting the video through the glass so, sadly, you can't hear him singing and whistling to himself. :o)
http://youtu.be/U7Xg-LMgYfI
We finished our school work and ate a quick lunch and headed to Costco. There was quite a thunderstorm raging and it was raining pretty steadily as we pulled out of the campground. The roads were kind of slick. We found a parking spot fairly close to the entrance which was a nice surprise. The kids and I hurried in without getting too soaked. While we strolled the aisles and nibbled the available samples, we could hear the thunder booming outside periodically. When we were in the checkout line, there was a building-shaking boom. As we left, the guy at the door who checks the receipts said a customer reported that a lightning bolt had just struck a light pole in the parking lot. It was with a little trepidation that I loaded the groceries into the back of the Yukon in the pouring rain. When I finally crawled into the driver's seat, there was water running down my arms and legs.
We drove about 5 minutes back towards the campground so that we could complete our shopping at Walmart. We all dreaded getting out of the car again and fairly well ran to get under cover. Once we got inside, the air conditioning felt so cold on our wet skin! We warmed right up though with our speed shopping. Time was running out...we needed to get finished, get back and get our groceries put away, and drive to Dallas to meet up with Brock.
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| The Propeller from the Lusitania, right on the garden walk at the hotel. |
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| The Anatole has tons of really unique art. |
Tonight, we were invited to participate in a service project that HTG was doing at Mission Arlington. The whole family got to eat dinner at the fancy Hilton Anatole with the HTG members who had chosen to participate. The provided boxed dinners were delicious. We enjoyed getting to eat with Anne Schoolcraft, our friend from Minneapolis, as well as getting to know Joe from Ohio and several other very nice people. The kids were stoked that we got to ride on a big bus from the hotel to the mission. It turned out that the jobs we could help with were a little cleaning, a little organizing, unloading a truck, then a huge human assembly line to reload a truck, the truck moved a block or so, and then another human assembly line to unload the truck. The kids did a great job all evening. They were really eager to help in whatever way they could, as long as it wasn't cleaning ;o), and had great role models. Everyone seemed to want to be there, were joking around and smiling. It was quite fun.
We rode the bus back to the hotel where HTG had ice cream bars waiting for us. The kids were very excited. We said goodbye to everyone and headed back to the campground. It was very nearly 10:30 pm by the time we got back to the trailer to tuck everyone in to bed. Brock and I were exhausted, but apparently there was actually still a lot of energy in the kids, hopped up on ice cream and the euphoria, but before long I was able to shut my eyes and I remember nothing after that.
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