We have settled in our new digs just north of Dallas.

Our dwelling is comfortable. My wife has done a miraculous job of assembling it and putting everything (mostly) in its place.

Now the next big challenge awaits us: learning our way around in a community that bears little — if any — resemblance to the community we left.

Fairview is a busy place. We live just a stone’s throw from U.S. 75, aka the Dallas Central Expressway. Collin County comprises nearly 1 million residents. We’ve been fortunate to be able to avoid the freeway at times when virtually everyone in this county is on the road at the same time.

We’ve checked out local routes that enable us to get from place to place with zero hassle. We haven’t yet ventured too far away from our digs. We’ve located several grocery stores, a nice shopping area, some very nice eating establishments, entertainment venues.

What we haven’t yet mastered is how we travel from our small community to destinations some distance away. We know how to get from the Metroplex back to Amarillo; we also know how to get from Fairview to the Hill Country, or from Fairview to Gulf Coast.

We’re going to figure out how to transit easily from our dwelling to, say, Love Field or to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. There a number of communities nearby: Plano, Frisco, Sherman, Carrollton, Richardson. They’re all clustered in the region just north of Dallas.

We’ll find our way around in due course. Hey, it’s gone pretty swimmingly so far.

Until we commit these routes to memory, we’ll just have to thank goodness for Google Maps.