McHood Hikers

Since it is our anniversary weekend, Bruce and I returned to the town where we got married for our hood hiking adventure this week, the town I grew up in...McKinney, Texas.

It was raining and we were hungry so we decided to start with lunch downtown. We stopped at a place that I've always loved...The Pantry. Bruce had the Reuben and I had the chicken salad sandwich with a cup of torilla soup.

After lunch, we decided to hike a little downtown to let the rain die down and in the hopes that we might be able to find an iron or wood piece to purchase for our anniversary. Since those are the traditional and modern gift traditions. Candy is also on the traditional list, but we eat plenty of candy as is!

We wondered into a couple of stores without any luck, then I convinced Bruce to go take a look at the old Collin County Prison. It's one of my favorite old buildings. It was completed in 1880. When I was growing up it was abandoned except for when it served as a haunted house at Halloween. I'm sure the real spirits that inhabited the cells daily were glad to have the company.

Several years ago someone turned it into a restaurant. Seems a little morbid to be eating over the courtyard where the presumed guilty would "hang" for the last time. But, it was cool to eat in the old jail cells. The restaurant didn't make it...service was horrible! It now looks like it's a law office perhaps.

Across from the prison, we noticed a great little spot called Poppy's. It had a large outdoor eating area nestled under the trees. It reminded us of a place in Austin where we go listen to live music. Sure enough...they offer live music. Too bad it was pouring down rain, it would have been a great pace to have a beverage and hang out. I texted my sister-n-law, Sam, and she confirmed it's a fun place. We will be heading back for a little live music under the trees.

After checking out Poppy's, we walked back up to the square, passing a spa and quite a few counseling places. I'm not sure what's going on in McKinney these days that they need a counselor on every corner.

We didn't make it far past the wine bar with a covered outdoor patio (view below). A couple that we sat next to on the patio sthrongleee thuggesthed the winaritas. Perhaps this explained the need for all those counselors.

The winaritas were not quite as good as the drunks had suggested. Basically frozen wine and super sweet. And, I remembered as I had the first sip that I'd been to this place before. They only serve their wine and it's not my favorite. That says a lot coming from the girl who thoroughly enjoys her $10 bottle of Menage a Trois.

I passed my winarita Bruce's way and ordered a flight of red. I tried the first...some sort of rouge, it was ok. Then, the second, a pinot noir..."HOLY CRAP!" I moved quickly back to the first knowing it was at least tolerable and tried to cleanse my palette. Then, I moved on to the cab. It was definitely the best of the 3.

Bruce then went through the same process with my glasses. Suddenly I heard him gasp. Yep. He'd found the "pinot noir."

"Is that bad?" he asked. I told him I thought so. We then went back and forth tasting it trying to figure out if it was as bad as we thought.

Thankfully, the waitress came out with some clam chowder waffers. We woofed those down to try to dull the taste. She said, "Wow, you liked the middle one best I guess." Without thinking I said, "No! It's nasty. We've just been trying to figure out if...uh, we like it."

By now the rain was really coming down. We made a last stop at a Turkish themed store and then on to a store that's in the old bank. Another 100 year old building.

Finally, we made it to our destination...the First Methodist Church of McKinney where Bruce and I exchanged vows 6 years ago.

Posing on the steps that we ran down 6 years ago with friends and family throwing glitter confetti as we jumped in the limo to head to our reception.

Our hopes were to hood hike from the church out into the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, the rain just got worse. We decided to come out another weekend to hike the neighborhood so, stay tuned for part 2!

Ever Been to Valley View Park??

Labor Day 2009, we started our day Hood Hiking! I noticed the park sign warning..."wild animals?" Could they be talking about our hiking hounds? They are unruly. We started our walk at Valley View Park. This is a park Bruce used to bike through. Below is the entrance and the very nice bike trail.

The Hood Hiking Hounds were ready to roll!

We walked up through the beautiful tree covered neighborhood of Creek North Estates. Properly named because it looked like most all of the homes backed up to a creek.

Soon, this neighborhood started looking real familiar to me. "Bruce, I think this is Chad and Amy's old house."

"No. You're wrong." he stated then trailed off, "Well, maybe. Let me go around to the back...I'll know from the back."

Yep. Sure enough it was our friend's old house. I couldn't believe we didn't realize where we were. That's the thing about Hood Hiking...things look so much different on foot.

The dogs took a little time to give a stone sculptured dog and group of pigs "what for."

We picked up the pace a little after finding these hiking boots in a bulk trash pile.

There were so many pretty yards, but we decided to vote this one our fav.

Here's a house we found for sale...click on the pic to get more details.

We had some thirsty muts and humans after a great morning of hood hiking!!
I'm super excited about next week's hike. It's Bruce and my 6th anniversary so, we've decided to go up to hood hike in the neighborhood of the church where we were married!