Jun 6 2014

Lake Arrowhead State Park

On the drive we stopped at a gas station that Mrs. Judy would appreciate. You can order Sonic while pumping gas! There was also an outrageous array of candy to satisfy the child in anyone! Most of the drive was flat farmlands of mostly wheat and tons of nodding donkeys.

Some of the sites along the way…

As we got closer to the state park, we began to see a change in the landscape. There were so many trees that looked like they were burnt and there was cacti everywhere. I don’t know why I don’t have a picture of all the burnt trees…must not have thought it was picture worthy?!?

Oooweee it was hot here! 103 at 3 p.m. and the ground was hot hot, Roux was high stepp’n! Don’t worry I always touch the ground before letting him walk, I don’t let him walk on anything too hot, I’m a good mommie! They had record high temperature, lucky for us?!? Thank heavens we got our air conditioner fixed. It was so windy, hot-wind, like a desert without sand dunes. Jacob kept saying, “It feels like hot breath,” a phrase that disgusts me. There were 3 other travel trailers parked here, but we didn’t see 1 person.

This poor place is in desperate need of a good rain. The lake is extremely low, everything is so dry, and there’s a no burn notice. Too bad we couldn’t bring some of that Louisiana Monsoon we left back home.
This park would be pretty cool under better circumstances. The lake is huge, great for boating and fishing and there’s a beach for swimming.

Another really cool thing is a Prairie Dog Town…..it’s like the show Meerkat Manor….they are SO CUTE!

We drove into the town of Wichita Falls to see the falls and to get some groceries.
The falls can be seen off the interstate, but to get a closer view it is about a half a mile walk in Lucy Park. The walk is completely paved and mostly shaded. The water is really low here too, somebody needs to do a rain dance! The water fall is man-made but it was still a nice walk after driving all day.

Back at the camper, we had an absolutely scrumptious diner of chicken tacos. Jacob grilled some chicken breast on the Green Egg before we left. I sautéed a sweet onion and toasted corn tortillas. It was better than a restaurant, YUM YUM!

We left the next morning for Clayton, NM. I took a few more pictures on the way out of the park.

Jun 4 2014

Miss Ellies RV Park, Waskom, TX

We arrived in Waskom, TX at 9 p.m. The campground we chose was right off the interstate, very convenient for a one night stay. The sites were full hook-up, which was also very convenient since we hadn’t dumped in Tickfaw.

When Jacob told me not dumping in Tickfaw was his plan, I told him about the time my family went camping with 2 other families. It was a far trip and since we all live close to one another we traveled caravan style with talkie-talkies. My dad is known to drive slow, 60 mph no matter what (you get better mpg, ain’t nothin’wrong wit dat!), so he was in the middle so that he wouldn’t get left behind. Somewhere along the way an eighteen-wheeler blew out a tire. The first truck swerved out of the way but our camper hit a piece of the tire. Immediately after we hear, “hey, what the hell, there’s blue all over our windshield!” There were some obscenities and what not, haha you’d have to know him…doesn’t finish a sentence without a curse word! LOL, oh good times! Anyway, the tire busted our sewer tank and the blue stuff was the chemicals you put in it to reduce the smell (blah) and keep it clean.
All I was thinking the 5.5 hour drive to Waskom was it wouldn’t just be blue chemical!
Jacob said, “It’ll be alright” in his cajun drawl. And it was.

On the way we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was either that, McDonalds, or Burger King. I am always disappointed in the food here, it is consistently disgusting, yet I always give them the benefit of my doubt….stupid girl! I love everything inside the store though and it smells lovely in there! It gives me delusions of great expectations, I suppose. So this is where the experience took a turn….I ordered steak, what?!? Yeah, a freaking steak at Cracker Barrel! What’s wrong with me! Well, what happened was…we sat in the middle of 2 seperate tables both of which were eating steak with a baked potato and side salad that looked delicious. You know when you’re hungry, or hangry, and you see something yummy and the voice inside of you says, “GIVE IT TOO ME, SEYMORE!” Well that’s what happened and looks are very deceiving! I’m pretty sure it was microwaved, is that legal? AND to top it off they ran out of baked potatoes! At 6 pm, really? The side house salad was very good. (you should always say something nice to balance out the negative)
Why didn’t I just order something simple like chicken-n-dumplings? We should have gone to McDonalds, a phrase that never comes out of my mouth! We’ll make a ham sammich before we stop at Cracker Barrel next time.

Now we’re driving to our next 1 night stop, Lake Arrowhead State Park in Wichita Falls, TX while listening to A Game of Thrones.

Jun 3 2014

Tickfaw State Park for our Anniversary

Yesterday was our 2nd wedding anniversary.

This is a cluster of pictures I put in the camper, gotta love a collage!

So how did we celebrate? Well we started our day extra early, 5:30 am, packed up the camper after arriving @ Tickfaw State Park only 13 hrs before. Why? Well our A/C stopped blowing cold air, which isn’t horribly bad in 76 degrees, but we’ll be camping in the desert on this trip, ain’t nobody got time fo dat! Anyway, the whole reason we’re staying in Tickfaw is because Jacob has training in Robert for 2 days. Thank goodness we had these extra days in Louisiana to discover this problem.

So we decide the best option would be for us to drop off the camper at Camperworld, drop him off at work, then I would be back in time to talk to someone at Camperworld as soon as they openned. I was slightly terrified to drive pulling the camper alone, terror averted! BTW, Dad thanks for jinxing me.

Every service garage hole, whatever you call it, was full with multiple campers…I was so worried they wouldn’t be able to help us. I was the first person in the door, I was waiting outside for it to open. They probably thought I was crazy. When I spoke to the service desk guy, he was actually amazed that we had diagnosed the problem and that I knew exactly what we needed and had the paperwork. I confessed I had been practicing what to say. He said most people come in and say, “it’s broke” and that’s all. Then I told them how desperate we were and that it had to be done today or it would screw up our whole trip like a domino. He looked at the list of things that also needed to be done that day, I was preparing myself for the waterworks 😉 kind of wishing I had a tweezer for the Joey Tribbiani method…

No need he said they will try to squeeze us in.
I began a gleeful dance, “Happy Happy, Joy Joy”

After leaving our camper in their hands, Roux and I headed to Hammond, the only city around, to kill some time. By the time it was time to pick up Jacob they still had not called with the status of the camper. So we headed back over their to speak with the service guy. Turns out they didn’t have the replacement model in stock. It would be in 7-10 days!
Thank The Lord for this persistent man of mine, he got them to install a similar model, that was in stock, the whole thing was done in about an hour.

We are so thankful for the hard-working, understanding staff at Camperworld in Dixieland RV of Hammond. They did great work and we really appreciate their expedient service. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Now back to some nice relaxing camping.