Mississippi River Risin!

We decided to pack up Monday, a day early and move to Memphis, Tennessee due to bad weather coming in the next day or so. I had tried to get us into the Tom Sawyer RV Resort located on the Mississippi River just west of downtown Memphis. But. It's under water! There is a flood warning in effect until further notice because the Mississippi River has risen way above it's flood stage. Shoot, was so looking forward to sitting and watching the tugs and barges move along. Found a campground, actually a fair ground/convention center?, just east of Memphis and we are here now until maybe Friday or Saturday. We are uncertain when we will move more north again -waiting and watching for better weather in Ohio. Found a neat Mississippi River museum to go to while here - and it is closed too due to high water, also. We have been to Memphis before, don't have to go see if Elvis is in the house, he is and we saw him driving down the road in a big motor home! We saw where our brother-in-law's hospital is located - Danny didn't tell us how big his hospital was - St. Jude's Hospital is enormous. No, our Danny Thomas is not the one who founded the hospital, our's is from Pigeon Forge, TN, not Hollywood! Sunday afternoon the weather forecast for Arkadelphia Arkansas was for 30% chance of thunderstorms. We got it big time about 8pm that night. Talk about a little scary - tornado warnings were going on. Unbelievable lightning, not too much rain, and the winds were not there thankfully. We were camped at a location that was quite scenic - looking over a ravine and lots of trees and wildness - but Dave was concerned about heavy rains undermining where we were parked, causing a landslide down into the ravine. My thought was heavy wind would cause a tree or limbs to fall on us and that wouldn't be good either. We learned valuable lessons at this campground: 1. never camp within 1/2 mile of a highway - way too noisy! 2. don't take the premium site even though they say it's beautiful, check it out first; 3. don't park under big trees - park in the open; and 4. we can check off Arkansas on our map and not bother coming back. Sorry Bill and Hilary - Arkansas didn't impress us at all.

Mining for Diamonds

One of the things we wanted to do while here in Arkansas was go to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfeesboro and pan for diamonds. Typical diamonds found (every day) are brown, yellow and white diamonds. There is a video on how to dry pan or wet pan. We opted for dry - less chance for getting as dirty. Having never done anything like this - why not? What a fun thing to do for families! Just bring them all here and let them dig in the dirt all day! There were so many people there at this place, amazing. This diamond field is located on a state park and there is camping here as well as walking trails if you don't want to look for diamonds. If you didn't bring your own tools you could rent them. Not being prepared we rented a bucket, screens (course and fine) and a shovel. We had purchased a small hand shovel and some rubber gloves and a cheat sheet of what gems we could expect to see. All we came up with was some Jasper, calcite, and onyx stones. No diamonds. However, the day before someone found a 5.1 point yellow diamond! Yikes. This picture shows the diamond field which is the 8th largest diamond field in the US. Every so often they plow the field and doesn't matter - they say this diamond field goes 7 miles deep! I don't think you would run out of finding diamonds in your lifetime - only I had 2 hours and I quit - didn't have the stuff, I guess. A little girl not far from where we were digging found a diamond and her father was pretty blase about it - they must come to this often. If we ever come back - I will be prepared to do some major diamond finding. Never the less, we had a good time and I am paying for it today, my butt and legs are so sore from bending over and digging.

Hot Springs National Park

Thursday we drove into Hot Springs to look over the town and get our bearings. To get there from Arkadelphia was a pretty drive through the country. Hot Springs is a resort town, nestled among a couple of lakes, and these lakes weave in and out of the city. In the historic section of Hot Springs is where the national park is, and during the heydays of the early 1900's, thousands of people would come to the bath houses every day where the natural hot springs would be brought up into the houses for use. Very elaborate production, there is one surviving bath house today - the Buckstaff. You can go through one bath house to see how things were, and during the heyday there were over 40 bath houses lined this street. If we wanted to 'do the bath' at the Buckstaff - and for $65 you could get a steam bath, manicure, pedicure, 20 minute massage and you get to keep your loofa mitt that the attendant used on you! What a deal, not. The picture to the right shows a sitz bath (you sit in it for ailments of the liver, kidney, etc.) and also a steam chamber. I would not be able to do this - don't like to be enclosed in any thing. We did not partake of this activity - didn't interest us. We walked the town, went through the visitor center and from videos experienced what it was like to come for the baths. We both felt that the town was a tidge too commercial, so many shops for trinkets, etc. There are a number of hot fountains where people can fill up jugs of hot spring water for their use - no charge. They have analyzed the water and there is no medicinal benefit of the water other than it is drinkable and hot. While walking around we noticed the headquarters for the National Park Service's Forestry Unit so I went inside to get brochures while Dave stayed outside with the cameras. Cannot go into any federal building with a camera. Dave struck up a conversation with a federal emloyee outside taking a smoke break and turns out that he was President Clinton's boyhood friend. As an adult this man became a state trooper and was assigned to Clinton and Hillary while 'home' in Arkansas. He did not like Hillary - was actually quite hilarious as to the description he gave her. On our way back from Hot Springs we passed DeGray State Park, right down the road from where we are camping. Told ourselves we wanted to go back and explore there another day.

Arkadelphia, Arkansas

We moved from Tyler, Texas to Arkadelphia, Arkansas yesterday getting a tidge closer to home. The drive was good, stayed on country roads for the most part and only entering Interstate 30 in Texarkana, Texas - at the border of Texas and Arkansas. We are camped near I30, pretty noisy, but a lovely place. Today we will go get earplugs to block out the traffic. I suppose a person could get used to this, and at this campground there are a number of extended stay folks, but. Earplugs are a must for our stay here. We are watching the weather up north and snow is still in the forecast so we aren't in a hurry to get back. We need to get back by April 19th - Dave is going to Florida on family business and he needs to have me and the cats secure in a campground. We are now considered full-timers, just have to get back to our 'old' place and clean out and store what was there before we left in December. We need to see if full-timing is for us, and if we don't try it to see - we will never know. If things turn sour and we don't want to full-time in an RV, then we will figure out something else. There are so many possibilities that we have learned - renting for a couple of months at a time a park home - these are small modular homes - in campgrounds. Lots of people opt for this style and maybe some day we will to.

While here in Arkadelphia we plan to go to Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs and also to go to a diamond mine where you mine for diamonds. People we know said that every time they went there, they found diamonds. How cool is that? Take off towards the north in a week or so, then who knows where we will be next. I like this life - very nomadic. We are already thinking about where we will be next winter - either New Mexico (Deming) or Arizona (Tucson).

Dinner in Gruene, TX

Pronouced GREEN this little community is part of New Branfels which is just north of San Antonio. This past Friday we met up with Phil and Sandy, the couple who talked us into coming to McAllen for the winter months - we had met them at the beginning of January in Kemah - a suburb of Houston. They are work campers meaning that they work for a number of months at a camp ground in exchange for their 'board' and electricity at the place. They get a salary each for the work they do, sometimes Phil does maintanence or security, and Sandy does office work or reservations or such. They have been doing this for many years, being full-timers now for 10 years. We aren't ready for this commitment yet, but we did get a good flavor of what all is involved. Sandy and Phil are working until October in a campground in Fentress which is north of San Antonio and they called to see if we could get together one more time before we headed out. Since our friend Jimmy suggested we go to the GristMill in Gruene and we didn't have that much time left in the area, the four of us drove to Gruene and had a lovely dinner at the place. This grist mill on the Guadalupe River hangs over the river and sometimes you think you just may fall over. Have to have pretty strong legs to be a waiter here - to climb up and down the stairs to serve.

Tyler, Texas

We packed up and moved yesterday morning from Bastrop and drove the 5 1/2 hours to Tyler Texas which is in the northeast corner of the state. We are in a place called Whispering Pines RV Resort - and again, we are in a forest of pine trees. Very lovely, but noisy! After the awesome quietness of Colorado River RV resort to this place - so different. It is cheaper a night here, has tons more people, lots more extras like hot tub, library - you give, you take a book, large swimming pool, jacuzzi, grass, a weekend cafe, kids area for play (quite large), a camp store for those items you forgot, and much more. But, we gave up the quietness and the country to be north. Many worker-bees live in the back section and by 6am the diesel trucks have all started up and gone out. So there is quiet for about another hour than most others wake up and are opening doors, walking dogs, not being very quiet to those of us who haven't slept. We will only stay here until tomorrow morning when we pack up and go to Arkadelphia which is about 40 miles south of Little Rock, Arkansas. We plan to spend a week there - going to Hot Springs National Park and backtracking a bit to Texarkana where there is a diamond mine that some folks told us that every time they have gone there, they have found diamonds. Not that I need or want any, but we passed up the opportunity to hunt for diamonds two years ago when we stopped in Herkimer, NY right by their diamond mine and didn't do it. Again, we are delaying getting back to Ohio because campgrounds in our area do not open until May 1. We plan to camp just north of Columbus, OH until the campgrounds open in May up north. We should be in by April 17th - at least that's our goal. Weather here is still warm, was 82 when we got in yesterday, should be the same today, evening was about 60. Still very comfortable.

Life in Texas Country

We have discovered a couple things here in Bastrop. Right down the road from where we are camping is Spiderwood Studios which was the main soundstage and 'green screen' used for the remake of the movie True Grit which came out a few months ago. You can tell it's something special - there are many trailers behind the building, it is a very large building in an area that is mostly farms - horses and cattle. And then you see not far down the road on the other side some enormous homes - nestled into the side of a hill with natural spring lake and cattle and horses grazing by. Money. Then you see poverty next to that. About a mile down the road is King Ranch - yes, the same one as Kingsville, TX that we toured - and this King Ranch specializes in turf grass growing. A name that is popular in this area is Bullock and Duff. Hmmm - any relation?

We are anxiously awaiting the bluebonnets to come out - with the drought we may not see them here, but may up north. Every night we hear the coyotes howling, not just once but at least 3 times. You can tell they are in packs - can make out at least 4 different barks. I swear the other night they were right here. We are told that you don't leave out your cats or small dogs at night - they are great food for these coyotes. Some of these campers here have 6 cats which they bring inside at night and another has at least 5. The story of the one with 5 - she catches them, takes them into get neutered, then releases them back out. Chip and Grace are loving it here - they watch these cats all the time. Grace stays up all night protecting us - then she sleeps all day. Chip - he'd rather snuggle into the covers at night, letting Grace guard our place. And he sleeps then all day.