Roanoke, Outside of Dallas

I have to talk about Roanoke in two phases:  Pre St. Martin and Post St. Martin.  You see that we parked there for a few weeks which allowed us to take a vacation over Christmas to St. Martin where we met Ari, Keenan and Matt.

Pre St. Martin:

Pulled into the Roanoke and had to stop for diesel so we went into a Buc-ee’s.  If you have never experienced a Buc-ee’s, you really need to see one.  Texas sized huge!  This one had 154 gas pumps around three sides and the “convenient” store was so big that I didn’t even want to go in as I knew we would spend the afternoon there.  Good news is that the gas prices here in Texas are much cheaper and the Busse Bus only needed $325.00 for the fill up.  You got to enjoy the little things…

We stayed at the Northlake Village RV Park which was very nice except the field next to it was being converted into a warehouse – meaning earthmovers were rolling all day long and hearing the beep, beep, beep of reverse started to get annoying after a while.  At least they had a decent sized fenced in dog area for the pups to run.  Well, at least Bear to run – Sydney’s arthritics has gotten worse so she limp-trots now.

The first night we headed down the to American Airlines Center to watch the Dallas Stars contest the Chicago Blackhawks.  Hawks won!  Great arena that had a lot of red jerseys:

There were so many Hawks jerseys that the announcer came on the PA and stated that Mike Singletary was cooking brats outside the stadium and that they were free to anyone wearing red.  That didn’t empty the Chicago fans, so a little later he said that the band Chicago was giving a free concert outside.  We stayed and watched our Hawks win.

Another BeautiControl friend of Kat’s invited us over to her house for dinner.  So Kat and I headed over to find Cindy Least’s House and meet her husband Mike and some of their children.  We had a wonderful home-cooked meal and saw their beautiful Christmas tree.  Nice to see decorations.  Their house is wonderful and sits on a number of acres.  They planned on getting a few donkeys from their dog sitter to keep the lawn mowed.

Cindy recommended her dog sitter for us to leave Sydney and Bear while we headed off to St. Martin.  Kathy watched our dogs in her home where she has kennels set up in the backyard.  Bear would enjoy playing with other dogs.

Off to St. Martin and a dummy vacation with the family…

Post St. Martin:

Went to pick up some very happy doggies the evening that we returned.  If they had tails I’m sure that they would have wagged them off!

Had a wonderful dinner at Del Frisco’s Grill in Southlake with Rick and Noelle Heath and had a chance to catch up with them.  Rick was the President of BeautiControl until that ended and then started a new company called TruAura.  I hadn’t seen them in years and it was really nice seeing them. They didn’t know that we were on this adventure and they loved hearing our stories of seeing this beautiful land and almost getting eaten by the grizzlies.

The next night we met up with the Least’s to eat at the Craft & Vine in downtown Roanoke.  Great food!  The entire downtown area of Roanoke is filled with restaurants.  Reminded us of downtown Libertyville.  After dinner we headed over to Roanoke ChopShop Live to hear That 70’s Band:

That place rocks!

We met up with Carl Flowers for lunch at Tolbert’s Restaurant and Chili Parlor in Grapevine on the next day.  Carl was the Vice President of Sales and Sales Promotions at BeautiControl back in the day.  This adventure has been great in meeting up with all the BeautiControl people from Katrina’s past!  It has really made it much more fun when local people give you the insight regarding their hometowns and also catching up with people and see where their lives have taken them.  Here’s Carl:

Great seeing you Carl!  We spent a little time exploring the Grapevine strip which was very quaint and the shopkeepers and cute sayings outside of their stores to draw you in:

For our last night in Roanoke we headed back to the downtown area to meet up with Cindy and her family at the absolute best BBQ joint called Hard Eight.  Ribs fell off the bone and were smoked with no sauce – my favorite.  If you are ever in the area, makes plans to eat here – you will not be disappointed!

You walk up to the meat cutting area and tell them what you want, like 1/4 brisket and two ribs.  They then cut it up and weigh it, then onto the next station where you pick up your sides and condiments, then to the bar to get your sauces and beans.  Very, very good!  They also had a guy playing guitar and singing in the background.  Fun and delicious evening.

Off the next morning hoping that we can remember how to pack up the Busse Bus for traveling.