Lincoln's New Salem Historic Site

On Monday we headed north and a bit east to the New Salem historic site campground.  It is a pretty area with lots of trees and we've been lucky to have beautiful weather!

The historic site has a museum depicting the life of Abraham Lincoln primarily in New Salem.  He came to New Salem at 22 years old and was a surveyor, shop owner and postmaster!  He read every book he could get his hands on and eventually became a lawyer before he went on to be President!  They have reconstructed a New Salem Village with 24 buildings to explore.  They have volunteers in period costume walking around some of the buildings to tell you about everything.  It is very well done.  They even have several gardens as they would have back in the early 1800's.

We went in to Petersburg on Monday afternoon and had lunch at the local cafe.  Yesterday we drove over to the very small unincorporated town of Salisbury, Illinois.  If you blink when you pass through, you miss it.  We only saw a bar, an antique shop and the Morning Star Mercantile and Cafe.  They had a pretty good crowd so we stopped for a late lunch.  They are open from 11:00 to either 2:00 or 3:00.  They had both times on the sign so we weren't sure!  It was a very cute place.  I had the best peach ice tea, a delicious broccoli salid with poppy seed dressing and a yummy chicken and broccoli crepe with a cheddar cheese sauce.  Man it was soooo good!

Last night Nicky, Caleb and Aubrey came over to visit us at the campground!  They have been really busy painting and getting ready for the carpet people to put new carpet in their house yesterday.  I'm sure they were exhausted but they were so sweet to visit!  Nicky is expecting another girl in mid July.  We had some watermelon for dessert and I had a lips sucker for Aubrey that she enjoyed:

We enjoyed having them over..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Visiting family!

Yesterday afternoon we were invited to Ted's cousin's house for dinner.  Bob is Gloria's (the folks in Texas we visit) brother.  Marilyn prepared a great barbecue.  We had ribs and chicken, sweet potatoes, cold slaw, corn and grilled squash.  Everything was so delicious!  For dessert she made little individual pineapple upside down cakes!  They were great!

We had not seen them for several years so we had a good time catching up with them.  They are into antique cars.  I think Bob said they have six and so he's trying to sell a few because there are some other ones he wants to get.  They really enjoy the car rallies and I learned a lot about the fun they have!

They have two dogs, Buddy (black lab) and Sadie (rat terrier and alpha dog).  They have three cats and Bob's Mom Wanda passed away so they have her two cats.  They had lived in her garage so Bob built them a "cat house" that will some day become a gardening shed!  Buddy likes lots of attention and wants to be a lap dog!

Spending time with family..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Long Lane Missouri

We arrived in Long Lane on Monday afternoon.  It is a small town and our friend's have 296 M/L acres of land.  We learned that the M/L stands for more or less!  We park in their driveway!

On Tuesday morning we went to the Rocking Horse Restaurant for breakfast.  They have huge cinnamon rolls and Ted, Ginny and I had one for breakfast.  We all brought home enough for breakfast the next day!  On Wednesday Bill needed to go to Springfield to ship the pads he binds for dentists.  We decided to have dinner at Lambert's!  It is an interesting restaurant and on the "tourist bus schedule"!  They serve rather large portions and in addition, they walk around with "extras" such as fried okra, black-eyed peas, fried green tomatoes and delicious rolls which they throw to you!   There are rolls flying everywhere (better than fish)!  You can also get some molasses to go with them!  They have very large coffee cups and I spilled the just delivered cup in my lap!  It was very hot.  I only ended up with a small place that blistered, but I was a mess!  As Ted always says, "he can't take me anywhere"!  We then went to Sam's Club and I wandered around with coffee stained pants!

Thursday was Ginny's birthday.  I wandered around her yard and picked a vase of flowers for her.  She has lots of pretty wild and planted flowers in her yard.  She decided she wanted to go to the Safari Animal Park.  You drive through 250 acres and see lots of animals.  It has seen better days but it was interesting to drive through.  Note the picture of the deer on the top right.  He's either old and lost his teeth or maybe got his jaw broken in a fight, poor thing!  Some of the animals come right up to the window and try to get inside!  Several really liked to chew on Bill's mirrors!  The emus, zebras, deer and even long horned cows are pretty aggressive!

For her birthday dinner, Ginny chose Nakata's, a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant!  Everything was delicious.  Bill made pink squirrel drinks for Ginny and I when we got back to their house!  It was a nice day.  We took some pictures at Lamberts and Nakata's.

We left Missouri on Friday and are now in Litchfield, Illinois.  We are in a membership campground and it is the strangest campground we've been in!  The spaces are all different as far as whether they have electricity, water or sewer capabilities!  We are in one spot with water and sewer but have to use the power at the space next to us, which means no one will take that space because they would have no power and it's like that all over!  They lose about half of their spaces!  We were driving around trying to figure it out when finally one of the other campers told us how it works (or I should say, doesn't work)!  We are here to visit one of Ted's cousins (the brother of Gloria that we visit in Texas).

Making our way across the country..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Leaving Springfield area

We had a nice lunch with some friends yesterday.  Ted had lived at Reynard Arms Apartments in San Diego after he got out of the military.  Fran had also lived at the apartment building.  She is married to Paul and they invited us to their home for lunch.  They lived in various countries over seas for many years teaching English and then settled in Missouri when they decided to stop teaching.  They have recently purchased 10 acres of land to build a hydroponic gardening system with their son.  They want to sell their product to local organic grocery stores.  They are definitely keeping busy.  Paul barbecued hamburgers and we had a nice visit.

Today we leave Springfield and go east and a little north to Long Lane, Missouri.  Bill and Ginny also had an apartment at Reynard Arms.  Bill was originally from Missouri so when they decided to slow down, they moved back here.  I say slow down because he is still binding special papers for dentists.  Long Lane is a very small town and we will park in their yard.  They have 300 acres, a lot of it wooded, but plenty of room for us to park our RV!

Not sure how many days we will be there, but we won't have cell service (unless something has changed since the last time we were here).

Still missing our sweet Max..."Ain't Life Grand!"

June 15th a sad day for Ted and Susan (tissue alert)

Our poor little Max continued to get worse.  We took him to the vet on Tuesday when we got to Springfield, Missouri.  He was not eating (even his favorites) and was still having bad diarrhea.  They took blood, urine and feces tests.  His tests results showed a problem with his liver.  They took an X-ray but it was not definitive.  Dr. Powell decided he needed an ultra sound but we knew there was only a small chance that it would be something that could be treated.

They made an appointment for Monday because only ultra sound in Springfield was broken and when they got the new part on Thursday, it did not fix the problem.  Max was going down him so Dr. Powell called University of Missouri-Columbia Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.  They don't normally do ultra sounds on Friday but agreed to do it for Max.

We got up very early on Friday and drove three hours to the hospital.  We were there by 8:45.  Two fourth year students took us right away to do history and do a preliminary exam of Max, his overall health, temperature and stomach.  The vet, Dr. Lewis then came in, talked with us at length about what had been going on and also did an exam.  We did learn that Cocker Spaniel's a tendency toward liver problems.  We had not heard that before.

The next step was to do the ultra sound.   They told us it would be a couple of hours so we went and got some breakfast.  We were sitting in their parking lot when they called us back in and gave us the bad news.  Our poor little guy had lymphoma cancer and probably cancer in his liver.  The liver was abnormally shaped and dark.  There were liquids leaking from his liver into his abdomen.  The best result would be only three months with chemo or possibly one month with prednisone which would possibly keep the diarrhea under control.  His quality of life had already been so diminished in one week that we just couldn't do that to him.  It was a hard decision to make but we felt it was better put him to sleep.  The vet agreed that it was probably the best thing for him.

We spent some time with him and he had one last little piece of bacon (which he really enjoyed and was about the only thing he had eaten in several days).  They gave him his shot and he was at rest.

Ted and I cried all the way home and shared our stories of the little guy.  He was such a good dog and a great little traveler.  We really miss him and have a big hole in our hearts!  We took one last picture of Max with each of us, notice his little belly was shaved for the ultra sound!

Missing our Max...

Lake Texoma

Friday afternoon we did a little exploring around Lake Texoma.  Our campground is right next to the lake and there is a side road that goes down to Cedar Mills Marina and Resort on the lake!  The lake is located in North Texas and has over 89,000 acres of water surface and over 500 miles of shoreline.  Looks like lots of boating, fishing and water skiing takes place on the lake.

We had lunch at the Cedar Mills restaurant, Pelican Landing.  I had the special which was crab salad on a croissant...delicious!  Then we took a look in the ship's store.  They have clothing, sandals and odds and ends of things.   Ted is standing in front of the store!

We took a drive around the park to take a look at the campground and think we could actually fit in a couple of the spots.  They have a small petting zoo but we only saw a duck in a baby pool!  They also have a very long grass runway.  A small plane was flying around and I hoped it would land so we could watch it but it didn't.

On Saturday we went to the ice cream social at the park.  It is a busy park and lots of people rent the sites by the year so there are lots of golf carts all over the place.  There's a large family pool, adult pool, mini golf, basketball court and nice horseshoe pits.  After the social we took a drive to the lake.  They have a boat ramp and some small beach areas.  There was a big family on one of the beaches swimming and picnicking.  It is really a big lake!

On Saturday afternoon and Sunday poor Max was sick as "a dog", poor thing.  He didn't know if he was coming or going.  He's a little better today but with as empty as his stomach is, there are only a couple of things he wants to eat, dog cookies mainly!  He's not even interested in rice which he normally loves!

Today we left Lake Texoma and are now in Arkansas.  We drove through the south east corner of Oklahoma.  Their roads are really rough.  I noticed their gas is about 20 cents less than Texas and Arkansas, maybe they need to raise the gas tax and absolutely use it to repair the roads!  Their roads are worse than those in California!!!!!

We are camped in Van Buren, Arkansas!  The campground lady said if we hear sirens we should jump in the truck and go down the road 3 miles to the school where the shelter is!  All I could think of is "crap"!  I'm afraid of tornadoes.  I'm used to earthquakes and hurricanes but not twisters!

Praying for no twisters..."Ain't Life Grand!"

The Travel Supreme Fredericksburg gathering!

On Monday Ted and I went into Fredericksburg to do a bit of shopping.  We went into the kitchen store and WHAT a store!  It looks little but has lots of nooks and crannies and goes on and on!  We had a good lunch at Buffalo Nickel and then stopped by the candy shop.  We found a chocolate covered jalapeño pepper!  We HAD to get that for Jack.  He has jalapeno peppers with everything!  At dusk we all gathered for happy hour and we presented Jack with his gift!  He loved it and couldn’t believe it!

Jack is below in the yellow t-shirt with his chocolate covered pepper:

On Tuesday we started with a breakfast get together.  Jerry and Hesse had us all over to their yard!  She made peach and pecan pancakes, bacon, sausage and Marie brought a fresh fruit salad!  We brought our locally purchased peach syrup to top off the pancakes!  Everything was delicious!

We headed down to Boerne after breakfast to see John and Gloria.  Gloria had “hammer toe and bunion surgery” on Friday.  She’s really doing well but has to stay off that foot.

We left Max with them and went to Lou and Carol’s for dinner.  They are Traveling Supremes but didn’t make the rally.  They gave their daughter their old rig and have ordered a new 5th wheel!  They had all 14 of us for dinner; barbecued brisket and all the trimmings.  Everything was really delicious!  Some of us sat outside in the "warmth" and some of us sat inside to enjoy the "cool"!

We had brought chairs with us from John and Gloria’s because we had forgotten chairs!  We didn’t need them after all but we then forgot to drop them off when we picked up Max!  So on Wednesday, everyone left and we stayed an extra day!  We went back down to Boerne for lunch and a game of Mexican Train Dominoes!  Ted was the big winner!  It was a fun afternoon!

We are now north and east at Lake Texoma!  We had a little rain yesterday but today looks pretty clear and nice!  We are relaxing this morning but are getting ready to go out exploring!

A great rally and gathering with the Traveling Supremes..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Busy fun days with the Traveling Supremes!

All 12 couples and their rigs made it to the rally on Thursday! Our great hosts, Terri and Gary and Deann and Dave have a busy few days planned for us. We started off with a fish fry on Thursday night.  Gary had caught trout, catfish and several other kinds of fish for cooking for us.  They also had hush puppy's but they added some little green things (that was a surprise), I forget I'm in Texas!  We had a good dinner and then some Phase 10 cards were played!  It was a good time!

On Friday they planned a day of LBJ touring!  They showed us a movie about his life at a visitor center and then we visited his boyhood home.  It was still cool out and a lovely morning for a walk to it!  It was quite a nice house.

From there we took off in groups for lunch.  Before going to lunch We took off with Sue and Joe for a Lavender Farm.  Unfortunately, the last few years of drought had hurt the lavender plants and the one we went to was pretty sad looking, so we went to lunch!  We found a place in Stonewall and there were lots of locals there so we tried it.  I had a great breakfast with grits!  Loved the biscuit too!  The "blue plate special" was chicken fried steak and a huge chocolate chip cookie for dessert!  Joe tried it and liked it!

After lunch we continued our LBJ tour.  After the visitor center the first stop was the school house.  It housed grades 1-12!  Next we visited the family cemetery.  Then on to the Western White House.  It was starting to heat up pretty good outside so I only have a few pictures.  No inside pictures were allowed.  The house was added on to many times over the years by Lady Bird and ended up over 8,000 square feet right on the river.  LBJ gave Luci the corvette on her 18th birthday!  Then when she got pregnant, the corvette disappeared and the Lincoln showed up!  Luci's second husband bought it back for her many years later!

The property is full of lovely trees and there is a runway for the jet to land on.

We finished the tour and headed back to the campground to get ready for another great meal!  For tonight's meal Dave had smoked turkey and we had lots and lots of sides to go with it!

We had heard from some others that the Garrison Brothers Bourbon tour was interesting so Joe, Sue, Ted and I went for it!  We went to the 10:00 a.m. tour because of the busy day ahead.  We got there and they had a little building with some outside chairs and a sign that said to help ourselves to the beer, wine and water!  They had a local bottle of wine with lips on the label!  I tasted it and decided it wasn't to my liking!

Our tour guide, Stephanie, got there a couple of minutes later and we got on the hayless hay ride back to the distillery!  We toured with two other couples that were fun!  They explained the process to us and took us through the steps.  It is funny that they name the kettles Copper Cowgirl, Fat Man and Little Boy!  We tasted the "sweet mash" which tasted like oatmeal and has the same consistency and then we tasted the "white dog", which is the bourbon before it goes in a charred oak barrel and cannot be called bourbon until it does.  It was smoother than I thought it would be!  Then we went to the tasting room for the real thing!  It tasted like bourbon and I think I'll stick to wine!  They did have chocolate bourbon balls and they were pretty yummy!

From there we met the rest of the group at the Becker Winery.  We did some wine tasting and then did the "tank tour"!  We bought a couples of bottles of wine and the group had a good time.  They had beautiful grounds outside the winery and had a musician/singer picking and singing outside on the porch!  Sue and Joe were the best couple on the floor...or grass!  The flowers held by Hessi and Olivia are artichokes!  They are really pretty!

From there a group of 8 of us went on a scenic flower drive back to Johnson City for a bite of lunch.

We missed the bluebells and the lavender, but the wildflowers are growing like crazy and are beautiful.  These are pictures I took at several different places.

Tonight's dinner was a potluck.  We had lots of turkey left over and we added many salads and desserts.  I was again very surprised when I bit into a deviled egg that was filled with some kind of pepper!  I just don't learn!

After dinner they had planned a  musician/singer for us.  Unfortunately he had died the Friday before but fortunately, the park found a group for us.  They were the WST Blue Grass Band.  It was enjoyable and several people were even dancing!

 Guess who!

Yesterday the rally ended with breakfast.  5 rigs headed out for home while 7 rigs headed west to Fredericksburg for a gathering.  We all did our own thing yesterday.  We had dinner with Dave and Deann at a Mexican restaurant in town.  The food was good and as we were leaving I realized they had a Starbucks...yummy dessert!  We ended up at the campground and the whole group sat around until 10:00 p.m. talking!

A great rally with a great group of people..."Ain't Life Grand!"