San Augustine Texas 3

Rain rain rain! that was yesterday - it rained the whole day. And so it was an indoor day for us - playing, eating, napping, watching Winnie the Pooh and Davey and Goliath. Cassia being young (you remember right - not caring what the temperature was outside) did venture out though - with red slicker and boots she was good to go - although she only lasted a few minutes. The novelty wore off really quickly. I am sure the locals were thrilled with the moisture, since there has been a long drought. With heat, lights and wifi we were content to spend the day indoors.

Roofous was really wet and obviously not too impressed!

All Cassia needed was a stick and some mud.....

to do some painting!

With all that laziness yesterday we couldn't justify driving to the store today, even though it was cool and blustery. I think it only got up to 51F / 11C today - not much warmer then at home which showed a forecast of 8C. 

We found a great route to the shops on the other side of the bridge that took us under the bridge after walking along a back road. Our route led us to the Visitor's Center which has a very long promenade along which we could walk. Cassia actually got out of the stroller to experience the walk herself as always mesmerized by the twinkle lights that they have strung along it's entire length. 

Dad and daughter looking down at the creek.

The lights must look beautiful at night.

After picking up a few items at Brookshire Brothers and filling Cassia's stroller tires with much needed air (for a mere $1 - ouch!) we headed back from wence we came. 

It looks nice but there was a cold wind - good thing the sun was out.

Our route included walking past the rail yards. We were surprised to see a restaurant amongst the rail cars. We went to take a closer look - it seems like a neat place. Closed on Sundays as was the Cookie Factory :-(

The Ice House Depot - looks like it could be a happenin' place.

One of the things Derek and I were talking about on our walk - to mention in the blog - is how much attention Roofous gets! Boy if we could only figure out how to make money with that.....ha ha. Today we must have gotten about six 'beautiful' dog comments. It is one of the most consistent things about our life if you can imagine. Ever since Roofous was a pup this has happened but probably even more comments now that he has filled out. Several times a day we stop to talk about Roofous. He is also very popular among children with all of them wanting to pet him. We guess that there just aren't many 'snow dogs' down here in the south. 

And so it was a much more productive day today - this our second to last day at the Mission Dolores RV Park. Tuesday we continue our trek east with Natchitoches Louisiana as our next destination. Sad to be leaving Texas (have we mentioned how much we LOVE Texas) but we will be back again in a few months time. 

The City of Natchitoches is called the 'City of Lights' which works well for us because we love lights and for Derek and I Christmas isn't complete without them. They are having a huge festival next weekend and expect around 100,000 people for that - a few too many people for us. Instead we are going to stop in this week and hopefully find a place to stealth camp downtown so that we can stroll the streets at night to take in the 300,000 lights. I wonder if we should splurge on a horse carriage ride through the downtown at night - bet Cassia would love that!

Today's Interesting Link: In fact when we knew we were going to be in the deep south for Christmas a few months back I googled 'where is the best place to spend Christmas' - Natchitoches comes back as one of the top spots in the USA. With so many people expected for the festival the secret must be out! Here is their Christmas Festival website so you can see for yourself. You might want to keep it in mind for the future. 

San Augustine Texas 2

A restful day today. Derek and I both feel under the weather so to speak - not sure why - we figure it is either the water or we picked up a virus somewhere. We usually drink the water wherever we are unless it has an awful taste or we really are unsure about the quality. We picked up some bottled for Cassia so she has been drinking that but we started to drink the water here although it doesn't taste great. So we ended up getting some more bottled today just in case.

Yesterday, we took a walk around a bit of San Augustine. It is very small and there was nothing going on downtown - if fact it doesn't look like much goes on there at all. Only a few of the storefronts are occupied and the rest empty. The buildings looked so sad I couldn't even take a picture of them. There is a little shop called the Cookie Factory - it looked cute but was closed - guess we'll have to take a walk back there tomorrow. How can we not go to a place called the Cookie Factory! San Augustine doesn't seem to be a pedestrian town. We had to take the neighourhood streets that are narrow and have no sidewalks but at least it was so quite it didn't seem to matter. Some really nice homes here - and some - not so nice. We always enjoy walking around a town to see how people live.

San Augustine Courthouse.

Interesting that the Architect sign seems so new looking - doesn't look like this building has been occupied in a very long time.

I didn't realize until now that I took the picture with Derek drinking his coffee - oh well - it is a common occurrence so might as well have a picture of it - to know us is to know we LOVE our coffee.

Today we decided to unhook and go 'over the bridge' where the newer shops are located. We stopped in at the two dollar stores - yes two - right beside each other. Dangerous places to go since they have a lot of stuff for great prices - but I always end up in the snack area looking at stuff I should not be eating buying. I was proud of myself that I was able to walk around both and not buy a thing.

We did go over to the Brookshire Brothers grocery store for a few things -  my first time in this grocery store chain. While Cassia and I were there Derek went over to the Tobacco Shop. The difference between the USA and home of course is that they have smoke/tobacco shops here. Anyway, good news is that he paid the lowest yet for smokes - just over $10 a carton. Derek actually switches to filtered cigars down here in the USA, to keep his smoke budget down to about $30 a month. Cigars are not taxed the same and so are cheap cheap cheap.

It is always fun to shop in some of the local grocery stores rather then just Walmart.  I enjoy looking at all the grocery items different from home and the difference in the foods from one state to another. Here I notice a huge increase in grits, cornbread, biscuit mixes and seafood broil. The great thing about our trip this year is all the new foods. I am a HUGE fan of biscuits and so this is the place for me!

When we were driving to the Mission Dolores RV Park where we are now I was worried about finding room. I thought perhaps that for such a low price the snowbirds would know about it. But then I thought that with 32 there would probably be room. When we pulled in my heart sank - it look really full. As we drove around it turned out not to be too bad - about 1/2 full - with big, permanent looking rigs. Oh well. The funny thing now is that there are only about 3 or 4 of them occupied. It seems that people leave their rigs here - almost all from Texas! The camp hosts told us that it is actually really quite - they are usually filled with oil and gas workers - but not this year. We weren't here but a few minutes that I met Glenda as I was heading over to look at the shower building. Glenda and her husband are from Houston area. They keep there tent trailer here and then come up on weekends.

Gas here is expensive! I should have been updating on gas prices along the way which have been in the low $3 lately - most recently $3.079 but here it is $3.279. Luckily we can wait until we get into Louisiana.

Today's Interesting Link: I found this blog a long time ago actually but it seems fitting to put it in now since are still in Texas - but sadly leaving soon. Check in on Homesick Texan - Lisa even has a cookbook out! I may have to make the sweet potato salad with cranberries and pecans - and the tamale cornbread dressing looks great. Did I mention we LOVE tamales - I could eat them everyday I think.

San Augustine Texas

Well it has been a busy two days with a lot of traveling and quite a collection of pictures again. We were sad to leave Pastor Jerry Lockhart and his wife Barbara at the Berean Bible Church in New Braunfels - we were there for a week and enjoyed our stay so much. We enjoyed the fellowship with other Right Dividers and sitting in on the Sunday Sermon. We also enjoyed, as you can see from the previous few posts, our time touring around New Braunfels. But we packed up Tuesday morning and with a final conversation and a round of pictures we headed out.

Pastor Jerry and Barbara Lockhart. 

After making our way back onto the Interstate headed north we happily left it again at San Marcos to catch the 21 - which is a busy little route all it's own. We were excited since this (eastern Texas) is uncharted territory for us. Although we hadn't been to New Braunfels we had been to the Hill Country back in 2008 but never this far east. The trip was fairly uneventful and not overly scenic for the first bit but once we got through the largest of the towns, Bryan/College Station it sure prettied up! WoW! we started to say.

We had decided to stock up on supplies in Crockett since we were headed to the Davey Crockett National Forest campground for a few days. Since it was dinner time we decided to spend the time at  Walmart last night.

Not the best picture - but look at the trees - and how green it is!

First thing this morning we headed there - a mere 16 miles away. All excited as we pulled in we were greeted with 'CLOSED' Yikes! What! Since the gate was unlocked we drove in - somewhere in our minds thinking that it wasn't REALLY true. But sure enough, although we could drive in, there was obviously no camping. Now the issue was that we needed to pull in to turn around. So I headed out on foot to investigate. Seeing somebody working up ahead I went to talk with them. I spoke with two rangers that told me that a tornado had come through last April and then with the drought this summer the trees were really suffering.

So sad - it looks like a very beautiful campground - Radcliffe Lake - we'll try again next year I guess. After successfully turning around we headed into Radcliffe down the road to the Ranger Station to see what our other options were. Ultimately we decided to head onto Nacogoches 20 miles down the road - one of our destinations.

Radcliffe Lake campground in Davey Crockett National Forest.

Nacogoches is the 'Oldest Town in Texas'. We drove into the downtown headed to the Visitor Center. It has a nice downtown with lots of shops - and so we parked along main street and took a stroll around. In the VC Derek found it interesting that they had their last public hanging here in 1902!

The Nacogdoches Visitor's Center.

 Almost all the walkways around the VC are stamped - amazing.

 A courtyard with a garden - so nice!

One of the most beautiful places we have now been is between Nacogdoches and San Augustine! What a great drive! We have NOW found our most favourite place ever! Rolling hills, green grass, beautiful trees, agriculture. We are enthralled with this area and know for sure that we will be back.

I remembered that I had found in my research an RV park with a Visitor Center in San Augustine just down the road - with full hookups and showers! yaaa - so we once again got back into the truck and headed there.

And so - here we are at the Mission Dolores Visitor Center and RV Park. Of course it didn't takes us long to go for a walk - beautiful - just as the sun was setting.

Full Hookups! pure luxury for $12 a night!

One of the great things about Cassia - of which there are many - is that she is happy playing with sticks.

....and running around on the grass.

awwwwww..........

I am not sure how, but Derek has talked me into staying here a week! A week! Well we do have it all for a really really good price. Guess we will have some time to look around. Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving here I guess our stroll downtown will have to wait until Friday! 

Each day is a new canvas to paint upon. Make sure your picture is full of life and happiness, and at the end of the day you don't look at it and wish you had painted something different.

Happy Thanksgiving 

to all my American Friends and Family, 

Enjoy your day together!

Today's Interesting Link: I know this is very off topic but I have been wanting to add it for some time. As a child I was really into art and making things - boy do I hope Cassia will be the same. I ran across this blog - The Artful Parent. Maybe pass it on to all the people with kids in their lives. Nothing better then kids being creative!