2015 Trip – Little Rock, AR to Tyler, TX

Tues. 6/23… (Little Rock, AR)  Our last day here in Little Rock.  We had no plans today so we started some laundry in the rig.  The campground laundry room is just across the way so we did towels and sheets there to save time. Meanwhile Rick is still trying to get a prescription sent from home and filled on the base so he has been working on that. Those chores completed we headed out again, this time to Target and to Sam’s Club. Rick hasn’t made contact with any relations here yet so on the way we decided on dinner plans. Lydia had planned dinner tonight but yesterday I was looking through some Little Rock brochures and found restaurants in the downtown area.  I thought Damgoode Pies sounded interesting.  They posted the best pizza in Little Rock 9 years running.  So we headed there and easily found parking since we went early on a Tuesday evening.  The food and the microbrewery beer were both excellent!  We will go back here again!  We stopped at a little place boasting fried pies so we had to check it out since our experience with these little pies (much like the little individual hostess half moon pies) in Ohio Amish country was very positive.  We each bought one and have brought them home to eat later since we were still stuffed from dinner. More on that to come…..  Once we got back we were in the rig making the bed and Rick and Janie came over to say that he got hold of his Aunt Billie and were going to visit her.  Problem was Janie had just put a load in the campground laundry so Lydia volunteered and took on that job and they took off.  We finished up the evening watching tv and getting the rig ready for our trip tomorrow.     

 

Wed. 6/24…  (Texarkana, TX) The drive today was 145 miles.  We are now at Texarkana RV Music RV Park, in Texarkana, TX.  We stayed at Sterling Crest RV Park while in this area back in 2012 but would NOT go back to that park so we chose this one instead. It is a few miles out of town but that is not a bad thing.  The place is quiet and the people are real nice. We found out from the manager, Reed, that the place gets it's name from a bluegrass festival they host each year.  The place is definitely set up for it!  We rested a bit and cooled down as well then took off to go to the grocery store in town.  We needed some corn to go with the dinner Lydia was fixing. We returned and Lydia got the dinner ready.  She made stuffed salmon with corn on the cob and Janie brought over the salad.  We had ice cream drumsticks for dessert.  Oh, yeah, I ate my apple fried pie.  It was pretty good but didn’t come close to those we had from Amish country! We walked Bailey a bit before dark and then retired to watch tv and work on the blog.  One note – when I am not in an area to get a wireless signal the posts don’t come as timely as I would like. I have activated my hotspot on my phone so will use that and see how it works.   

 

Thurs. 6/25… (Tyler, TX) We left the park about 9:30am and although we only had about 120 miles or so to drive today I noticed that we were heading down rural roads but it turned out they were not too bad.  Rick and Janie led out.  I mention this because on the way we witnessed a woman run a red light and if Rick hadn’t swerved away they would have gotten tagged by the lady. She was even in the intersection when I went through. The good part (besides no accident) was that a trooper was just past us and saw it in his rear view mirror.  He whipped a u-turn and quickly lit her up.  Aaahhh, it feels good to see justice once in a while.  We are now at Jellystone Park at Whispering Pines, Tyler TX.  We have been here before when we visited Bob and Judy in 2012 and we liked this park.  Plus, its only about 1.5 miles from their place.  We got checked in and parked and set up and Lydia cleaned up a bit and then we drove into downtown Tyler.  We wanted to find a place for linner plus stop at Office Depot for rubber bands and at Verizon to get some assistance.  The rubber bands were to hold an inside cabinet door that R&J tore off when they put out their slide. The hard braking opened the door and they didn’t notice it till it was too late.  Rick needed help at Verizon for his tablet and Lydia had a question about her email accounts.  On the way home she called her sister Judy and they came over to see the rig and to visit for a while.  They made plans for the next couple of days. Oh, they have a lake here and Bailey wasted no time in jumping in.   

 

Fri. 6/26… (Tyler, TX)  Plans today included meeting up with Bob and Judy for breakfast at Petty’s, a local place in Lindale, just down the road from their house.  Bob was working on getting his smoker going. He would pass on breakfast. He was smoking a pork butt for our dinner tonight.  So Judy went there in her car and we followed in Rick’s.  The meal was excellent as we remembered from when we were there back in 2012.  Afterward, Judy went home and we went on to Walmart to pick up some things for us and some hickory chips which we dropped off at Bob’s.  Then we went home to rest and enjoy the pool here.  This place is like a KOA park and is set up with tons of things for the kids to do, including a nice pool.  BUT, they also have an adults only pool which we enjoyed for a few hours.  After we took Bailey down to the lake for a quick cooling off, we changed and headed over to have dinner.  Rick & Janie brought wine to compliment the pork butt, rice, beans, and salad and apple pie for dessert.  It was a delicious meal and we enjoyed the company as well.  We brought Bailey who made herself at home and liked Bob’s cooking too!  We headed back home and Lydia started preparing potatoes for potato salad. We are having them over tomorrow for dinner at our place.