On The Way To TN

 February 15-March 9, 2023

We said our goodbyes to our Gulf Waters family and late morning took off for our first stop. We didn’t get off to an auspicious start, a truck in the other lane nearly took us out and as we were sitting at a light in Port Aransas his foot “supposedly” came off the brake and he tapped the back of the rig. Thankfully the only damage was to Dave’s fishing cart that was riding on the bike rack. Our first stop was Yegua Creek COE on Sommerville Lake near Sommerville TX. They do not allow early entry so our 223-mile trip found us arriving there right at the 3pm check-in time. Site 19 was a nice waterfront site, with water and electric only but for 2 nights we didn’t need anything more.

On our only free day there we headed out for the crawfish Dave had been craving. The only place we could find any was in College Station, after a crazy drive in a college town we ended up at Juicy Crawfish. While the boil was good Dave was disappointed by the size of the crawfish. Afterward, we headed to Brenham TX which just happens to be home to Blue Bell ice cream, for a dollar a scoop we tried a few flavors.

The next morning we headed out for one of our favorite campgrounds, Magnolia Ridge COE, on B A Steinhagen Lake, near Woodville TX. The ride became a bit stressful as we went through Conroe but after 175 miles we arrived and went straight to site 27. They have no gate attendants but we did see volunteers around the campground. Aside from going to check out the other nearby COE park, we like Magnolia Ridge better, we found a place for Dave to get crawfish, otherwise, we just enjoyed walking the campground. Pop’s Kajun Kitchen did not disappoint. Our 3 nights there went by quickly and before we knew it it was time to head out.

A 200-mile stress-free ride found us pulling into Clear Spring COE, on Wright Patman Lake, near Texarkana TX, this year we were in site B08, we had last been in this site about 8 years ago. As with our visit to this park 2 years ago we were disappointed in the amount of trash we found in our firepit and what trash we found as we walked around the park. Such a disappointment.

This area isn't open yet
good thing the water's high in it

Old road into the campground
part of our daily walk

The area only has crawfish available Thursday through Sunday as they get their deliveries on Thursday. We did find a decent brewery, Pecan Point Gastropub, and Brewery was a nice find where we enjoyed some good food and Dave enjoyed a beer tasting.

200 miles across the top of Arkansas found us in Lake Village at Lake Chicot State Park. This is an older state park, there’s a camping area that has been decommissioned and is now being turned into a large pollinator garden someday. We were in an area that has FHUs, the area along the lake is electric and water and would not fit us. It never got busy but I imagine the summertime would be busier. It’s a fine park for a few days but I doubt we’ll be back again. 

Since we were there over the weekend we figured Dave would have better luck finding crawfish, and he did. Seafood Your Way in Greenville MS was a success, not only crawfish but some awesome cheesecake with caramel and pecan topping. Another afternoon he went to a local crawfish food truck in Lake Village.

Our next stop was 156 miles away at Wallace Creek Campground, on Enid Lake, where we ended up staying for 9 nights as our lot in TN isn’t ready for us. We were on our favorite site, 28, and were enjoying a fire our first night there until the lights came on. We had never noticed the lamp posts in the area as they had never bothered us but recently they changed out to very bright LED lights, it seemed like someone was shining their headlights into our site. Ruined our enjoyable fire and never had another one while we were there. One nice thing is the site is now an FHU site so we didn’t have to conserve tank space.

We did have one day of really bad rainy windy weather, actually clocked a 70mph gust. Thankfully the rear end of the rig was facing the wind.

calm before the storm

Batesville is the nearest town of any size, we enjoyed a Mexican lunch out and Dave of course found another crawfish place. He liked Big Ern’s so much that he went back a second afternoon.

Since we had a few days to kill before we headed to TN we moved up to South Abutment Recreation Area on Arkabutla Lake in Coldwater MS only 66 miles away. This has got to be the worst COE campground we’ve been in. The sites and surrounding areas have trash everywhere, garbage all over the place by the dumpsters. some sites are covered in pine cones, needles, and branches. There appear to be sites that have people here for long stays, not sure if they’re volunteers, but those sites look really rough. So for us, this is a one-and-done place.

Our friend Debbie said she had trouble commenting on the blog, I tried changing things and she could comment but I couldn’t reply to comments. So I’ve changed things back to their original settings, has anyone else had trouble commenting? If you have, send me an email (maloufdf60@gmail.com)or drop me a comment on FB.

On a sadder note, Dave's Uncle Ed passed away on 3/7, we last saw him in FL in 2019. At the time Alzheimer's was setting in and he was having trouble remembering things, such as our visit. Dave's siblings moved him back to southern NY, where Dave is from. Uncle Ed played a big part in Dave's life and was the first family member Dave introduced me to. We'll miss him.

Tomorrow we head to Paradise Landing in Clifton TN where our lot is. The septic and water are in, the electrical inspection is done and just waiting on the meter to be set, we have a crete pad, packing compound, for now. We’ve had lots of inquiries on our TX property but to date, we’ve not had a reasonable offer on it so no more developing of the TN property.

The beginning 

Until next time...

A Slow Trip to IL

March 15-30, 2021

March 15-18

Our first stop on our month-long trip was at Brazos Bend State Park, a 179-mile ride, this is our fourth visit to this state park and we always enjoy spending time there. This time our visit was during spring break so it was busier than we’ve ever seen it. We set up in our usual site, 115, we know we can get satellite service at this site despite it being a wooded park. The new truck did great though we aren’t pushing the speeds till we get 500 towing miles in, still trying to figure out how to get some information to show up but Dave’s learning what buttons to push.

Site 115

After our set up we headed out for a walk to look for alligators, Dave needed more pictures for his gator inventory file.

Gators

Birds, Brazos Bend is great for bird watching.

A few other wildlife sightings

Dave’s goal as we go up the east side of Texas is to eat as much crawfish as possible. Our first stop was at Bayou Boys in Needville TX where Dave enjoyed his first taste of crawfish in a year, it was one of the best he’s had. He enjoyed their boil so much we went back for a second meal.

Most of our time at Brazos Bend was spent getting lots of walks in, we tried a couple of trails we hadn’t been on yet. Since they weren’t on the water where the gators are found we didn’t see many folks on these trails. Every morning we did take a walk around 40 Acre Lake and the trail to Elm Lake where we got our daily alligator sightings. 

We did try a few new trails to get away from all the folks here for spring break, it just so happened there was a geocache on them. 

Our first campfire since December.

March 19-21

Our next stop was Tomball TX, about 66 miles away, though not to our favorite place there, it had suffered damage last month during the TX dee freeze. Instead, we headed to Corral RV Park a private park, it was a decent park and we wouldn’t hesitate to go back if we couldn’t get into our favorite place.

Site 196

A quick stop at the Tomball Farmers Market resulted in an awesome mushroom assortment. 

We visit this area to see Dave’s Uncle Ray and Aunt Beth, we try to see them whenever we leave our place on the beach but it had been a few years since we saw them. We spent some time visiting Old Town Spring where we enjoy visiting the shops and had a great lunch at Wunsche Brothers Salon.

Dave's try at a selfie with an iPhone

Delicious chicken fried steak

Great mirror and a great couple

The restroom at Wunsche Brothers Salon was interesting, one large room with individual stalls, boys and girls together in the same room. 

A great lighting store, Zeugma Art Bites, too bad they won't work in the RV.

Another day we spent time walking through a large antique dealer mall then had another great meal at Adriatic Café Italian Grill. One of the best Italian meals we've had for a very long time.                      

After our daily adventures we would head back to their home, we spent the time catching up and playing cards or dominos. We’ve now added them to the list of folks we’ve taught the card game Dave’s game to. As usual, our time with them goes by way too quickly. 

March 22-24

Our next ride was 118 miles to Magnolia Ridge COE, near Woodville TX,  where we had a beautiful site. Our time there was spent relaxing and walking around the campground, had to walk off all the great food we had had the last few days. This is the first park, since we left IL last fall, that we wish we had our canoe with us. While the campground only has 40 or so sights it’s one of the nicest ones we’ve been in. One to add to the let us go back to list.

Site 27

View from our site. 

Scenes from our daily walks. 

We did take a ride to Lufkin for crawfish, unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as his previous meals.

Of course, there was a fire with beer for Dave.  

March 25-28

Our next ride was a bit longer at 166 miles where we arrived at Buckhorn Creek COE near Jefferson TX. We had a nice site right on the water, with great sunset views.

Site E119

Sights from our walks. 

We took a ride into the town local nearby town of Jefferson. It was so crowded with visitors we didn't get out, we did find a few interesting things there though. 

An old passenger train turned into a home

An old Texaco station picture for my Dad. 

We had some awesome sunsets. 

Dave decided to play with the camera a bit. 

Of course, Dave had to find some more crawfish, so off to Gilmer, we went where he got crawfish, boudin, and alligator boudin from Krawdaddy’s Crawfish 2GO. He enjoyed it so much when we went to Longview for a grocery run he tried the Krawdaddy’s location there. Their crawfish and boudin have been as good as any he’s had over the years. 

Of course, there's always a fire, and we had the best site for one. 

                                                                                

We enjoyed our time at Buckhorn despite an issue with our neighbor, here’s Dave’s Facebook post that describes it well enough.

“We had an incident yesterday with a neighbor on the site next to us that kept cutting through our campsite to get to the lake to fish. He had easy access but he would have to walk a few more steps to walk around our site. Faye was sitting outside when he walks between my truck and camper, she asked him nicely to please not cut through our site. The man got belligerent, started calling her names, and seeing that we had Vermont plates on our truck, went down the political road. This same individual lets his dog off-leash and we watched it poop next to my other neighbor’s power panel. Nothing worse than starting off or ending your camping trip stepping in dog poop. Just now Faye was in the bedroom and watch one of the guests drop her drawers between his old bus and their POS truck and proceed to take a piss. Mind you the bathhouse is less than 100 yards away, talk about trailer trash.  We sometimes had kids cut through campsites cause they don't know better but to have a 60+-year-old do it and not think he's doing anything wrong is a first for us. Campground etiquette is something that every camper should live by, respect others' space. They leave tomorrow, it's such a nice campsite and campground but several of the campers along with the people in them are a little sketchy and that's coming from me!!”

March 29-31

A 56-mile ride took us to our last Texas stop for this winter. Clear Spring COE is a return visit for us, in the fall of 2014 we visited this park and it’s still a very nice park. This time we got a site out in the open, the lake appears to be up and there is evidence of the recent storms that came through here.

Site A17

With lots of roads to walk, we can get our daily mileage in. 

A great place to view the full moon.

Aside from going out for crawfish and one terrible Mexican dinner, we stayed in the park the rest of the time. 

April 1-4

Our next ride was to Little Rock Arkansas, about 159 miles, most of it on bouncy interstate 30. I’ve heard lots of good things about Maumelle COE on the Arkansas River. We had a wonderful riverfront site, though we never saw much boat traffic, what we did was personal pleasure or fishing boats.

Site B29

Sunrise

Sunset

The last crawfish meal makes over 30 pounds he's dug into and he's enjoyed every meal of them.

With a river view, how could we not have a fire?

The traffic is crazy in this area, we went out for grocery shopping, laundry, and of course crawfish. While the park was great the traffic turned us off to the area, with it being Easter weekend we didn’t even try and check anything out in the city. I doubt we’ll be back but highly recommend the campground.

April 5-7

A 236-mile ride took us to Greenville Recreation Area in Greenville MO. At the site, we reserved we couldn’t get Dish satellite reception so we switched to site 22 where we had no issues getting the satellite to work. Verizon signal is fine with our booster. It seems the campground has undergone some changes recently, all sites are FHU’s and have 50amp service, the first time we’ve had FHU’s since we left Tomball.

There is a great bike trail into the current town of Greenville, with the side trail to the river it’s about a 4-mile round trip walk. We’ve enjoyed walking it every day.

walking tunnel under US 67

The bike trail also continues around the campground and takes you up to a protected walkway along US 67 going over the Saint Francis River and up the opposite hillside providing a view from way above the campground. This part of the trail is about 4 miles round trip, so we're able to get in about 8 miles of walking every day. 

The campground is on the original site of the town of Greenville seems this area is prone to flooding, in the 1940s the town was moved and many remnants of the former town remain. I found this cool website that will show you some of the historical photos of the town What Was There. I am always intrigued by ruins, whether it be towns or abandoned homes or factories, which makes me wonder about the people who once lived and worked there. 

The old town of Greenville's cemetery is still here, the oldest grave we saw was for a lady who was born at the end of the 1700s. 

Of course, we had to have a fire to watch the sunset.

In the morning we make our last push to IL where we’ll be for the summer. My parents have received their vaccines and we look forward to getting ours soon, this should enable us to enjoy doing some fun things this summer. 

Until next time…