Camping Cache: Rusk

 

Found:

PCS #86 - Cedar Hill

Steps to the Past

Perkins Place

Believe It or Not!

Perfect and Deep Love

It's birthday weekend and when you have Grandma Mail delivered before you head out, you not only take a moment to read it, but also make sure that you follow her instructions to a T.

"Have a lot of fun and create a lot of memories to last."  

I think we can make that happen!  I took several days off work on both ends of the weekend so that we could enjoy a long trip. The original plan was to spend the weekend at Huntsville SP, but they had just done a prescribed burn, and we didn't want to hang around with the possibility of smoke all weekend, so we jumped online and made reservations at our favorite hidden gem: the Texas State Railroad in Rusk.

We had a leisurely morning Friday, full caffeinated (not on purpose!), and enjoyed the easy drive up to the piney woods of east Texas. We got settled into our site, hooked up the water, and (do you hear the horror movie music yet?) found a leak fast-flowing into the basement. Oh, geez. NOT AGAIN?!

It's a good thing we purposefully keep a 5-gallon bucket down there just in case, as that caught most of the water while we worked to figure out where it was coming from.  We found a loose connection on the faucet in the bathroom, and after Rich twisted him self into a pretzel to fix it, we were settled in and looking forward to a fun weekend!

Saturday we fixed a great lunch in the camper, then took off for Tyler and several adventures to make those "memories that last" like Grandma instructed!  

Along the way to our first stop, we happened across an unexpected side quest.  RDB happened to notice an older gentleman making his way slowly across the sidewalk to the front door. "Probably going for a cup of coffee," he said. 

"At the post office?" I questioned.  

Come to find out the old post office had been transformed into a really nice coffee shop!

We enjoyed our cups of coffee as we made our way to our first stop: the Plantation Pines Christmas Tree Farm (yes, Christmas trees!) for their spring seasonal crop: tulips!

It was such a neat adventure, though I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I could have while we were there, I certainly have enjoyed looking at the boquet I picked here in the camper all weekend.

From there we went over to the Tyler Junior College's Earth and Space Science Center where the Hudnall Planetarium is celebrating it's 60th anniversary this year!

RDB and I both have the northern lights on our bucket list of travels someday, but since that's not in the budget for this birthday, we settled in for a showing of Extreme Auroras filmed in 360* panorama in Norway.

We were heading back towards the camper and RDB had a hankering for a steak, so a quick Yelp search had us u-turning back towards downtown. I'm telling you, sometimes we have the best luck on those u-turns and side quests  in our adventures, because we found ourselves dinning at the Petroleum Club's Prime 102 right across the street from the Smith County courthouse!

Not bad for an impromptu birthday dinner!

Sunday we spent the day relaxing around the campsite, enjoying my fresh-picked flowers, and watching local LAFF TV. 

As Sigmund Freud once said: "Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” 

It was a perfect day, with perfect weather, for hanging out in the hammock and enjoying the quiet peacefulness of the park. 

Monday we did a little more exploring around Rusk - starting with a coffee and muffin at The Daily Grind, before heading over to the Rusk footbridge - said to be the nation's longest footbridge at 546 feet.

It also happens to be the home of the 75th geocache we've found along our adventures!

We did a bit of geocaching around the area - surprised that we hadn't done this before with as many times as we've been here to Rusk.  (And we can add one more to the roster, as we'll be back camping here again in April for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse.  Tyler, just an hour up the road, is in the path of totality.)

This was a great weekend of memory making, and I couldn't help but notice as we went on our many adventures that there were hearts EVERYWHERE...

I'm pretty sure Grandma was sending her love along the way. 

We were in site #12, full hook-ups, at Texas State Railroad Campground in Rusk. The trains weren't running this weekend, but we still love this park. We had the entire place to ourselves with the exception of one other camper - who appears to be a long-term tenant, the camp host, perhaps?  A shift from the last visit - the park is no longer first-come-first-serve, now you can make site-specific reservations, which I think is great! But do me a favor: don't tell anyone! We still want this quiet little park all to ourselves!

We've been here several times before: Believe, Valentine's Camping, A Gift: Long Weekend, Long Post, Easter Weekend, and Blessed.