Monday, January 9th, 2006 - Carrollton, Texas.

We carried our laundry in to Beth's place to take advantage of the free laundry facilities, and during the pauses chatted with Lois at the breakfast table. Terry and Phyllis arrived later that morning, but she was feeling so poorly that Terry drove her over to a walk-in clinic where a nurse diagnosed an infection and put her on antibiotics. She was still dog-tired, of course, but we hoped that the antibiotics would kick in quickly enough for her to at least get some uninterrupted rest.

After finishing our laundry, Monika and I tried to do the Carrollton Volksmarch but the starting point, a Whattaburger on Josey and Frankford streets, was closed and shuttered (Strike One!). We called the Point of Contact listed for the walk, but her phone line had been disconnected (Strike Two!). Our hopes for the walk dimming, we took a last shot at it by driving to the nearest Whattaburger and asking the manager if he knew anything about the walk box, but he had absolutely no idea what we were talking about (Strike Three!). So we finally gave up on that walk and drove back to have lunch with Lois, after which we drove to the Carrollton Library for a short walk with her on the network of trails in a park area surrounding the library. The trail went around a little lake that hosted besides several ducks a pair swans, a cormorant, and even a great blue heron.

Terry and Phyllis returned soon after we finished our walk, and we had a pleasant afternoon chatting about various members of our family. We walked over to the library with Terry to show him some of the trails, after which we joined Beth and Audie for dinner at a Chinese buffet while Carson and Carrie had their music lessons. It was a nice dinner and a nice way to say good-bye to the Dallas branch of our family as we were set to continue our journey the next day.