11:05 AM Thursday February 2, 2006

Here we are in Mansfield, Texas. It is a small town just south of Dallas and near the town of Arlington where Phil has several family members we will be visiting. When I began writing this post on Wednesday, it was almost 7:30 PM and still over 60 degrees outside my window. It had been cloudy all day but they were forecasting sunny skies for today and now, after some morning fog, it is bright, sunny and warm. Yesterday, we found a nice Laundromat in town where we got the laundry done, and then later, Phil received permission to give our Penny Pace a long overdue scrubbing from stem to stern. Most RV parks forbid washing the motorhome or the towed vehicle. Happily, the management of this park encouraged it … saying they want clean rigs in their park! We stayed in this same park (Texan RV Ranch) last year in March making our arrival this year the culmination of a full circle around the perimeter of the United States in 10 months. Wow! Where does the time go? During our last visit the new owners were busily working to clean and expand and we can see the results of their hard work this year. The park is much cleaner, twice as big (with dozens more new sites being readied) and the year-round residents have cleaned up their rigs and sites. Best of all, the really trashy RVs (a real eyesore last year) are all gone now. Like always, whenever Phil and I arrive somewhere, we bring rain (something to do with being from Washington State I guess) and that is what happened last night. They hadn’t had rain for months and after only being here for little more than 24 hours—it rained! Your welcome, Texas!

Note: Still working on repairing the “Profile” problem at the start of the blog—very frustrating! Any ideas from other bloggers out there? I have sent an e-mail to "Blogger" asking for assistance.