Omaha, Arkansas

We just can't get away from this heat!  I am so thankful for travel trailers with air conditioning, and thankful that ours works so well.  Makes "camping" such a joyful experience.  We've had fun tent camping with our kids when they were young, but I'm just not up to Turner Falls in August (over 100 degrees) or Galveston at Thanksgiving (below freezing!) any longer!

We worshipped at Grove First Baptist on Sunday.  They have a beautiful church building, one of the prettiest and most comfortable I've ever seen.  From what I gathered, it is a fairly new building.   With seating for 794, it seemed almost empty with the 200 or so who were in attendance on Sunday.  I saw in their bulletin that they are searching for a new pastor, but the interim preached a great sermon from Proverbs.

Yesterday, we left Grand Lake of the Cherokees, and headed east to Omaha, Arkansas.  We are about 15 miles from Branson, and about 40 miles from Eureka Springs, 2 places I've been to before, but Cowboy never has.  I've been trying for  40 years to get him here! 

We're staying at a little RV Park called Ozark View.  It's a real homey little place.  The new owners are newlyweds, and they are fixing it up.  It definitely needs some work, but it has a great view, just like the name says, and it's very quiet and peaceful.  My phone's camera just couldn't capture the beautiful hills in the background, but maybe you can get some idea of the peacefulness here.

We had an exciting time just getting here, though.  Google maps sent us through southern Missouri, on the twistiest, turningest road I've ever seen.  I've never been on banked turns, like on a race track.  Those banked turns, combined with the up and down hills, and hairpin turns, made the whole 130 mile drive feel like a roller coaster.  A roller coaster pulling a 5th wheel. 

But the beautiful scenery more than made up for it.  Oh my.  Our God is such an amazing artist!

Flexibility

Sometimes the best thing about life in a 5th wheel travel trailer is the flexibility.

I've always been a planner.  Family vacations were few and far between when our kids were young, and short in duration.  So I often spent as much as 6 months to plan a 5 -7 day vacation, down to the last detail.  Of course, this was partly because I'm just a natural born researcher.  I love to ferret out the best places to eat, free things to do, even (maybe especially) the history of the area we'll be traveling to.  Of course, we always deviated from the plan (it's never easy anticipating the needs and wants of 3 other people), but at least it was there to fall back on. 

I still love to make plans, and they are even more detailed now that we have the internet.  I love google maps and all the various websites I can access any time of the day or night.  But, now, we can change our plans, and make a new plan right on the spot.

Which is what we are about to do.  We are presently in Grove, OK, in Bear's Den RV Park on Grand Lake o' the Cherokees.  Current temperature - 106.  Tomorrow's forecast - 108; Monday - 111.

It's time to move on. 

Don't get me wrong.  This is a lovely place, and I'm sure there are lots of fun things to do here. I know we will be back many many times. Maybe in October.

So unless something changes pretty quick, we will attend a local church tomorrow, then spend the afternoon storing loose items and planning the next leg of our trip, then pull out Monday morning.

Before it reaches 111.

Here's a couple of photos I've taken this week.  The first one is of Sailboat Bridge over Grand Lake, heading into Grove.  The second one is a little fishing lake here at the park.  This really is a pretty place, but you can see from the second picture that they have lost several trees from the horrible drought, last year and this year.

Easing on down the road...

We left Texoma Shores yesterday, and drove on up to Lake Eufala.  We're spending a couple of nights at Terra Starr RV Park.  Believe me, this park is nothing to write home about, so I won't .  But we're only here for one more night.  Just long enough to do some laundry and play in the pool a bit.  Too hot to do much else anyhow, although Tim does have plans to bike a couple of miles down the road to pick up a geocache later.

Back at Texoma Shores, we made another  trek into Denison to view Eisenhower's birthplace.  The lady there was so nice, and seemed very knowledgeable about everything Eisenhower.  I learned that the reason the Eisenhower family moved there was because his daddy went bankrupt back in Kansas, so he moved the family to Denison because he got a job with the railroad.  While in Denison, they lived in a very modest 2 story house on the "wrong side of the tracks."  They lived there for about 3 years, then moved back to Kansas.

After our tour, we ate lunch at Devoli's Italian Restaurant in downtown Denison.  Looks like that area was recently a bustling little place with lots of cute shops and restaurants.  However, many of the buildings are closed and boarded up now.  Sad.

Sunday we worshipped with Little City Baptist Church, just down the road from Texoma Shores.  Their pastor,  Seth Pester, preached a very good sermon, the choir sang the old hymns we love, and the pastor's wife sang a special that I had never heard before, but it was lovely.  My only little complaint about the place is that they took one look at us and put us in the oldest Sunday School class they had! I mean, these folks were ancient! But then I remembered just how old I am since that last birthday, and I figured we fit right in.  It was a very lively class, and we enjoyed it very much.

Tomorrow morning we'll head up to Grove, OK to Bear's Den RV Park.  Wonder if there's really bears around there?

I have a couple of photos I wanted to add today, but the internet is, again, really sketchy here.  Maybe I can add them later.

Our Normal Day at Texoma Shores

Our  normal day at Texoma Shores:

Take Charlie for his morning walk.

Eat peaches we bought at a local fruitstand.

Sit outside in the shade and read.

Eat watermelon for lunch.

Nap.

Read.

Swim.

Eat more watermelon for supper.

Read or watch TV.

Sleep.

Do more of the same the next day.

Tim would like me to tell you that he went fishing this morning and caught his daily limit of the biggest sand bass he's ever seen (in just two hours!)  We ate all we could (with our watermelon) for lunch, and stuffed the rest in the freezer.  Yum!

On The Road Again

I wrote this Tuesday, before I realized just how spotty the wifi service here is.  My Verizon card only has one bar, and the RV Park's wifi is down for repairs or an upgrade, or something.  I am posting this as soon as we get back to civilization!

Wow. I really didn't think it would be so hard. Every other trip I have ever been on in my life, I've started dreading going home as soon as we left the house. I'd always think, why can't every day be a vacation? Well, for the next four months, I finally got my wish. Now if only I could get my kids, my cousins, my brother, Cowboy's brothers, our friends, and all our church family to get RV's and hit the road with us! Wouldn't that be cool! We'd be like a traveling circus! (If you know my family, you'll agree about the circus part!)

Anyhow, we hit the road around 2:00 yesterday afternoon.  GrandGirl #1 got her braces off yesterday morning, so we couldn't leave until we saw her beautiful new smile.  And let me tell you, it was certainly worth the wait!  Gorgeous!  In fact, both girls were looking exceptionally pretty yesterday, in their new boots and matching chambray dresses.  So cute.  So hard to say good-bye. *Sob*

 

And this is where we are now.  On the north side of Lake Texoma, at Texoma Shores Resort.  "Resort" actually being a fancy word for RV Park and fishing camp.  This place is slap-dab in the middle of No-where!  But it is really pretty, and peaceful.  I took the next picture while we were walking Charlie this morning.

After breakfast, we drove back across the Red River, into Denison, TX, to make the obligatory first day run to Wal-Mart, and to get the truck inspected.  Ooops...yeah, we forgot that little detail before leaving home.  It's all taken care of now, though. 

Speaking of Denison, though...did you know President Eisenhower was born there?  Yeah, you probably did.  We hope to get back there sometime this week to tour his birthplace.  It's only about 40 miles away.

We beg for your prayers - for our safety, of course - but mostly for the folks back home, for their safety, health and happiness.  Also, for our son, who is leaving for Romania next week on his long-awaited mission trip. 

I never know how to end these things, so I guess I'll ....just....trail .....a w a y....... . . .    .     .        .

Adventures with the GrandGirls

We are (finally!) gearing up for our fun filled, care free (we hope) four month long grand tour of the south eastern part of the country.  But we don't leave for another two weeks (Cowboy can't miss his roping finals!), so in the meantime, we are tying up loose ends.  The most difficult thing is saying goodbye to family and friends, especially the grandgirls.  We will miss the oldest's 10th birthday while we are gone.  In all those ten years, I've never gone so long without seeing her. 

So.  To make one final wonderful memory before we leave, the girls and I had our own little adventure last week.  First stop, the local Western store, to pick up boots for their birthdays (the little one turns eight just days before we leave).  These girls really have style.  They picked out the shiniest, reddest boots in the store! 

Next stop, we met Poppy at Cracker Barrel where we all had breakfast for lunch.  Yum....pancakes!  Then on to Ross, where we found adorable little chambray dresses to go with the boots.  Yes, they chose identical boots and dresses.  They love to dress alike.  It's so sweet.

At Target we picked up snacks, because - the main part of our adventure was an overnight stay in a local hotel.  You see, like us, my daughter and son-in-law don't have an antenna for their t.v.  The only television the girls usually get to watch is on dvd - carefully selected by their parents.  And then not every day.  So heaven to these girls is the Disney Channel!  Throw in the hotel pool, and they are beyond ecstatic.

On top of all that, Poppy brought us pizza for supper.  That Cowboy of mine makes a great Poppy.  Obviously, the girls have him wrapped around their little fingers.  This whole 2 day extravaganza was his idea!

Being a Grammy is such hard work - good thing I love those girls so much! (*wink*)

So that's my latest travel story, even though I only traveled to my own hometown.  Hope to go see my brother this coming weekend.  And then there's cousins and friends and church family to see before we go. So much to do!