Continuing on thru our East Texas tour, we left out Sunday afternoon to head over to Cooper Lake State Park for the next several days. So, just an FYI - if you have the lego leveling blocks, and you think they'll travel ok in the back of the open truck bed under the hitch, well, you should probably think again. We were missing about half our stash of them by the time we made it to the next camp ground!
We were watching the temp gauge outside slowly dropping from the mid 70*s to the mid 50*s. The clouds ahead had the classic "cold weather" look to them (and needless to say, on next trip stop to Walmart we picked up a heated throw for the couch and a small space heater for the bathroom - blogging the last post I had me feet in thick socks and snuggled into a heating pad!)
Monday afternoon we dropped down to Sulphur Springs and spent a little time downtown in the town square. It was really neat! The county courthouse is set in one corner of the block, rather than in the center - which left the rest of the block for other monuments, benches, and landscaping.
You'd never guess what's inside that mirrored box....
Both creative and, um, crazy - but when you've got to go, you've got to GO! Kudos to the Town of Sulphur Springs for finding a unique way to provide a room of requirement in the middle of city center.
Monday evening we drove up to Paris and arrived right around sunset - couldn't have timed it better! Paris, TX is a cute little East Texas town, with its own claim to fame: a miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower! Complete with a red cowboy hat on top!
There's also a significant war memorial in the same park as the tower replica - and with the sun setting behind us it was a very moving experience. RDB and I were talking about Gold Star families on our drive up here, and there just happened to be a section dedicated to them and an explanation of where the tradition of the Gold Stars came from. There is so much for us to be grateful for, and remember those who aren't home this holiday season, along with those who never made it home, keeps the real focus of this week to the forefront.
We traveled back over to Paris' town square Tuesday afternoon, I have a thing lately for wanting to capture county courthouses (and Paris is the county seat of Lamar County) so we drove over in a bit of drizzly rain and snapped a few photos.
The city suffered a significant fire back in 1916 but very quickly rebuilt, the county courthouse being one of the last buildings to be finished. We enjoyed walking around the square and smelt some delicious fried food at one point, so we followed our noses over to Jaxx Gourmet Burgers. Though we didn't have a full lunch, the onion rings and beers were really enjoyable.
The only thing that was missing was a cowboy hat on top of that tower! Ha!
The town square was already decorated for Christmas - so we had a little fun with the signs they had installed. RDB took my picture first, then when I asked him to take one, he said "Ok, but I'm not raising my arms like that." I love my man and that he plays along with me!
I was hoping to find a pair of earrings (my favorite travel souvenir) for our "trip to Paris in the Fall" but even with visiting several of the antique shops and boutiques along the square, I couldn't find something that just jumped out at me.
On our way back to our campsite, we stopped off in other areas of the park to grab a few geocaches. I'm always so glad that we do because it leads us to beautiful views we may have otherwise missed. Both evenings this trip we've had beautiful sunsets.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight - well, that's certainly not the case as I'm sitting here blogging this evening; we're under a severe thunderstorm warning and the rain is pounding so loudly on the slide above my head that I can't even hear the newscasters on the one of two local channels we've got on the TV.
Hoping that ugly line of storms with its 60 MPH winds will blow over quickly (no pun intended); and hoping that I won't have to grab the backpacks with our "must take" items that I packed up about an hour ago in prep for this to come barreling thru. I guess growing up in Tornado Alley and it's "be ready at moment's notice" never leaves you, huh, Mom? I know we'll be fine; I'm still just not a fan of the rain since Hurricane Harvey 3 years ago.
.......
So we woke up the next morning and RDB said: "well, the rain was sure rainy and the wind was certainly windy." I love my goof - he slept thru pretty much _all_ of my tornado preparedness drill last night.
Another few geocaches and then we packed up to head out to our next stop - continuing on Travelin' for the Turkey!
We were in Site #5 at Cooper Lake State Park. Needed a little leveling side to side (which was a bit funny, seeing that we lost half our leveling blocks on the trip over! Doh!). It was a beautiful spot - nestled in amongst the trees - you couldn't see anyone looking out our side windows. RDB asked me to start adding notes about internet - and I'd had to say this was a 1: yes, there was signal, but it wasn't any good. (0 - no internet, 1 - there's some, but it's not good, 2 - there's internet and it's workable, 3 - the internet was excellent). If we go back, we'd love to be in Site #15 - it's a pull thru and had a long view of the beachfront.
For more camping photos, wait. A while. Because the internet was #1
No comments:
Post a Comment