Independence Day, Homestead Heritage, and More!

I'm settling back to my normal routine in Thailand now, but I thought I'd write one big post catching up on the fun summer that I had back in my home state of Texas.

Downtown Arlington is pretty cool! I haven't been over that way in probably ten years. It's completely different from how it used to be. It's developing a real small town feel with a cool new library, lots of great local restaurants, and all sorts of interesting community events such as a series of free concerts held outdoors during the summer. We went to a few of these concerts while I was home!

On the 4th I woke up early to attend the famous Downtown Arlington Parade! It's the largest "small town" parade in the USA. How they can call a city of 400,000 people small, I don't know! The parade is super impressive! All of Arlington's high school marching bands performed, and there was a great turnout.

The weather in the early summer was especially mild. We spent a few evenings sitting out by the fire pit. It was fun, but it's even better during the winter.

I spent some time in Waco to visit my brother, and got to see the brand new Elliston Chapel at Baylor University.

The chapel is part of the university's new expansion, and has a beautiful stained glass window depicting the Tree of Life. You can read my write-up about it on my other blog, Stained Glass Travel.

One afternoon, my dad and I went walking down at the Trinity Trails in Fort Worth. It was hot, but luckily there were water misters set up along the trail to help cool us off.

The week before I flew back to Bangkok, my family and I paid a visit to Homestead Heritage, a farming community located outside of Waco. The community is affiliated with the Anabaptists, and they are well known for their homemade goods and handicrafts. They produce most of their goods in a very traditional way, and the community has a blacksmith and a water mill!

The water mill at Homestead Heritage grinds wheat to produce flour.

My favorite part of the homestead was the brand-new cheese cave! We got to sample several amazing types of cheeses at the cheese shop, then we climbed down into the cheese cave itself. We were just a few feet below ground, but it was cool!

Thousands of wheels of cheese sit in the cave for months to age.