Dallas is part of what they call the Metroplex. The three largest cities are Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington. Research on Wikipedia shows that the Metroplex encompasses 13 counties and 64 cities/towns with more than 10,000 residents each. The largest of these include Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Plano, Irving, and Garland. It is the largest land-locked metropolitan area in the US. By population it is the largest metropolitan area in Texas, the largest in the South, and the fourth largest in the US. By land area it is larger then the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.
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Downtown Dallas
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Getting around here was a little daunting and confusing at first. Lane and I live in Franklin, which is a really small but beautiful town in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Years ago we lived in Raleigh and hated the traffic there. This place makes Raleigh seem like a quaint little village by comparison. The area of town in which we live is great though. Loads of places to eat and shop nearby, and it is very walk-able too. We are not far from Southern Methodist University (SMU), and there are many college kids living in the various apartment complexes within The Village.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the many HouseBoy daily duties is looking after our two darling dogs Daisy and Piper, commonly called "The girls."
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| Piper relaxing in her Mom's lap. |
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| Daisy relaxing and catching some sun on our little patio. |
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| Trees everywhere in The Village. |
In addition to the obligatory potty break walks multiple times a day, I try to take them out once a day for a nice long exercise walk. As I mentioned, our apartment here in The Hill is part of the larger complex called The Village. There are tree lined sidewalks everywhere, and several small lakes in the center of The Village with beautiful walking/jogging paths all around the lakes. The girls and I have several routes we take that keep us out around an hour and a half each day and cover around four miles. They have adjusted much better that we thought they would and have become very comfortable being around all the people. Daisy is still having a really hard time learning to accept squirrels though. She actually seems to outright hate them.
The scenery for our walks is quite beautiful, as you can see.
The girls absolutely love their daily outings.
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| A fountain in one of The Village lakes. |
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Keeping a wary eye on some ducks.
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| Piper checking out the route ahead. |
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| A HouseBoy hard at work. |
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| A HouseBoy has to work in the snow too. |
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| The snow covered street we use to enter our parking lot. |
Of course we arrived here in the dead of winter so the grass and trees were not always so beautiful and green. We had some cold days and some snow days. But nothing compared to what Lane and I have seen in our years in North Carolina.
When we first arrived we immediately needed to hit the grocery store... but where. We were unfamiliar with the area so I Goggled for nearby grocery stores. This place called "Tom Thumb" came up. We had never heard of it before and based on the name I figured it was something like a convenience store, but we needed bread and milk and the usual suspects so I decided what the heck. Boy was I wrong. It is a huge chain of large, upscale grocery stores similar to Bi-Lo and Kroger for those of you in North Carolina. It has become our go-to place for groceries. I even got us a Tom Thumb rewards card. Woo Wooo. Just like we are real Texans.
More on our big adventure to follow soon.
"You can't explore it if you haven't ever been there."
Brian Hallman
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