We haven’t seen many rainy days in our travels this summer and judging by the water level in Lake Grapevine, neither have the folks in Dallas/Fort Worth. But the rain today is a welcome sight, not only for the much needed moisture but also the much cooler temperatures it has brought. The ducks and the geese seem particularly happy to have it.

This is our last day here as we will be heading home tomorrow. Our time here these past two weeks has been useful for acclimating us back to hot Texas weather as well as weaning us from a plethora of new breweries to try out. We did find a couple of good ones, though, and if they were open to the public other than on Saturday afternoons we could have visited a few more. We enjoyed the Red Head Amber Ale at Uncle Buck’s Brewery & Steakhouse in Grapevine and as mentioned in the previous post we had a good time on Saturday afternoon at Martin House. It was a safe bet that we would like the Nutty Brewnette at BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse but neither of us found any reason to return to Big Horn Brewing (aka Humperdink’s in Dallas). It’s just a typical sport’s bar/restaurant with very mediocre beer even though they do brew it onsite.

We’ve managed to eat pretty well, too. There has been a lot of good pizza at the Mellow Mushroom and Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria here in Grapevine, and really good Italian with Robert and Karen at Terilli’s in Dallas. The Vitello Parmigiana at Cafe Italia, also in Grapevine, was outstanding – so much so that we had to go back a second time this week! Karen got to discover and I got a reminder of what a good Mexican restaurant Mercado Juarez is. It is a local chain and was one of our very favorites twenty years ago when I lived up here in Arlington. We thought we could wait until we got home to start revisiting our favorite restaurants there but when we realized that there was a Pappasito’s Cantina not far away in Dallas we couldn’t come up with a good reason to wait, especially since it is Jake’s and Peggy’s favorite, too. They do a happy dance when we bring them their leftover beef fajitas. Tonight we went with Mike & Cindy and new friends Randy & Judy to the Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. This place started as a gas station because although the owner wanted to open a restaurant he couldn’t get a bank loan for a restaurant but he could for a gas station. The food here is excellent and the most interesting looking thing on the menu to me was the Chicken and Waffles. That’s what I ordered and that’s exactly what it was – really good fried chicken on top of really good waffles & syrup.