Adventures of the TravelinTexan

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385 Miles - Vanderpool, Tx to Lake Tawakoni, Tx

Déjà vu !!!!!! Anybody remember the start of our trip last year??

Well, we left Monday morning, May 21, at 8:00 as planned. We got 6 hours from home (just south of Dallas) before we had our first mishap. Tire blew out – Al says technically the tire separated, all the rubber flew off – tore up the fender skirt thingie . . .

... the same one we’d just had replaced last month! Road service put the spare on; then the search was on for a new tire to match the remaining three. Suffice it to say, the whole incident delayed us about 3 hours – just enough to put us in Dallas traffic at 5:00. But we survived that too, and pulled into Lake Tawakoni TT enough before dark to get set up . . . only minutes before the sky opened up – rained all night.

As most of you know, Al has become totally consumed with genealogy. Tuesday we visited with his cousin on his dad’s side of the family. Visit went well, but the cousin couldn’t find the family bible that she’d promised. Wednesday we met some friends of mine for lunch, more for dinner, and attended a lecture at the Mineola Civic Center. Drove back to the campground in a violent thunderstorm.

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65 Miles - Lake Tawakoni, TX to Mt. Pleasant, TX

Thursday we drove to Mount Pleasant, site of Al’s “cousins’ reunion.” Hosting cousin has a Water/Electric hookup at his barn, so we made ourselves at home.

The reunion was Saturday and went very well – 34 friendly folks from 6-months to 80-something years old. Our daughter, Beth, had come from Colorado . . . she and I really enjoyed listening to the old-timers’ stories. Al brought lots of his research and old photos, hoping to get some additional information and it was great fun watching everyone reminisce!
Cousins who attended the 2007 Reunion:

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240 Miles - Mt. Pleasant, TX to Toad Suck, AR

We just hung around the farm, enjoying the hospitality of Al’s cousin and his wonderful wife for a couple more days waiting on our RV friends (Joe & Janell) to meet us on Wednesday. They had horrid thunderstorms getting to East Texas from Arlington, but we met up about noon and continued (in the rain) to Conway, AR. Just as the sun came out we hooked up at Toad Suck Ferry park . . . of course, Janell and I wanted to stay there so we could say we stayed at Toad Suck, but it was a very nice COE park. That’s where Joe’s hitch broke. So now we have two trailers and two trucks to encounter disaster. LOL! Thursday morning, after a trip to Little Rock to get the correct hitch, installed by the nice RV store in Conway, we were on our way.

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84 Miles - Toad Suck, AR to Mountain View, AR

We arrived at Ozark RV Park in Mountain View in time to set up, eat a bite, and get to the town square for some pickin’ and grinnin’. Mountain View is home to the Ozark Folk Center, a state park dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of traditional Ozark Mountain music and crafts. Nestled among the trees and hills, the crafts village consists of more than two dozen areas where visitors may see demonstrations of soap making, candle making, quilting, spinning & weaving, broom making , and visit the blacksmith shop, print shop, cooper, etc. There’s also a world-class herb garden and lots of hands-on programs for both kids and adults. The Theater features a variety of entertaining musical performances throughout the year. . . we went Friday and Saturday nights and thoroughly enjoyed both. We explored the Folk Center on Friday and the little town on Saturday. One of the most interesting places we found was the Dulcimer Shop and factory where the very nice folks answered all our questions, explained and demonstrated. If you’ve never been to Mountain View, go! Even the guys enjoyed it!
- Info: www.ozarkfolkcenter.com

Continued in the JUNE Blog Page...