Spending Some Time in Whitney, Texas near Waco

   When we got up this morning we realized that it had been exactly 2 weeks since we left PA.  With all the stops we have made it seemed like we had already been away for a month!  But it is all good!  We pulled out of the CG in Louisiana at 8:58.  It was partly sunny and warm.  We hopped on I-20 West and pulled into a rest stop/info center just over the Texas border at 9:30.  We picked up a bunch of brochures for Waco, San Antonio and Harlingen.  Then off we went. 

Yea!!  We finally made it to Texas!

We stopped again about 40 minutes later to get gas.  By that time it got cloudier, darker and foggy.  But there wasn't much traffic, so we didn't have any trouble.  We got off I-20 toward Waco at 12:45.

It was surprising how long we drove thru this
without any rain!

Look out Waco...here we come.  I'm sure
Chip and Joanna Gaines from the TV show,
Fixer Upper can hardly wait till we get there :)

I called Dad to see how he was doing.  He really did sound good although he said he was still having those occasional very sharp pains in his lower right abdomen. And, bless his heart, he told us not to worry about him and to enjoy our time traveling...he would be fine.  WOW!!  Then I called Heather to see how moving into the new house was going.  Unfortunately, she, Jack and Cooper have all been sick, so she hasn't made much progress.

Now wait a minute...I didn't know
you could get THERE from here :)

 By 1:40 we were driving through Hillsboro and we arrived at the Thousand Trails CG in Whitney at 2:00.

Don't know what this building was in Hillsboro.  Just
thought it was neat.

Because it is the off season here we were able to drive through the CG and pick our spot.  The CG is very far off the road and very spread out in 3 separate loops.  There are 103 sites.

We passed this sign on the way to our site, but
we never saw any.  What a tease!!

  None have cement pads, but ours is very level.  There are only 24 sites that have 50 amp service along with water and sewer.  Most are full hook ups with 30 amp service.  There are about 60 sites with just water and 30 amp service.  Sorry, that just might have been too much useless information.  The CG is pretty "rustic", but we will be watching football games on Sunday and be out and about most of the time in the Waco area on Monday anyway, so it really doesn't matter.  We pulled into our site at about 2:30 and were all set up by 3:15.  At 4:45 we headed to the Texas Great Country Café and Pie Pantry. (there was a 10% off coupon in the Thousand Trails brochure)Their slogan is "We fix It and You Fetch It".  Sounds like a buffet, but it's not.  On the way a very dark cloud appeared in the sky along with some lightning.

Ominous looking, isn't it?!?

It poured for a few minutes, and then it was over, but the temperature must have dropped 15 degrees.  It was a cute little restaurant and the staff was so friendly and helpful.  The food was above average and you got quite a bit.  We were able to bring half of it home.  But it was the pie that stole the show...they were absolutely delicious!!  

These are words of wisdom in the menu.  Please
enlarge it so you can read them.  They are good!!

Michele called as we were leaving the restaurant.  She has recently Wowed the Keratin Complex company she teaches for with a new color line they have developed.  They asked her to put together the promotion for it and to teach it in NYC.  It will be a lot of work, but she is very excited!!  I am very proud of her...she is so good at what she does!!  When we got back I worked on the blog while John did some reading.  All of a sudden I heard the awning flapping and a huge gust of wind and Harvey started swaying.  We watched the weather and they are just calling for windy, gusty conditions, but no tornadoes.  It rained off and on, too.  The wind is to continue tomorrow, but no rain.  Then we played a game of 5 Crowns.  John won again, so now we are 4-4.  He went to bed around 10:00 and I finished today's blog while watching Hell's Kitchen.   On Sunday John made some egg sandwiches for breakfast and then we decided to give Harvey a good cleaning.  John even wiped down all the cabinets with Orange Glow.  What a guy!!  Then it was time to put Texas on our map! 

Texas is big...makes the map look so much fuller!

 

We're making progress!!

We drove out the CG lane to look at the lake.  But we couldn't find it.  We didn't look that hard, though, because the wind was still gusting at 40mph.  We didn't even get out of the car.  It was chilly enough for us to put long pants back on.  DRAT!!  We went out to a nearby grocery store called Brookshire's to get a few things and then we were bad. 

Had to take a picture of the grocery store because
one of my best girlfriends lives in a
development in Manheim called Brookshire.

We went back to the restaurant we had visited last night and got 2 more pieces of pie.  Well...it's their specialty and we wanted to contribute to the success of their restaurant.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Heavenly Hash and Lemon Meringue...YUM!!

I called Katie and Mike, friends from Chattanooga, TN we met one year in Florida.  She had a gastric bypass 6 wks ago and I wanted to check on her.  She's doing great...already lost 50 lbs!  We wanted to stop to see them on our way home, but they will be in AZ until April 13, so we will most likely miss them.  They will be in Mexico when we are in southern Texas, so maybe we can hook-up then. We had time for a game of 5 Crowns before the start of the football game.  John beat me again.  Now it's 5-4.   We had our leftovers from last night and settled in for the first football game.  We were rooting for Green Bay, so it certainly was disappointing!  John grilled filets for supper and forgetting about the hour difference here we missed a good bit of the first quarter of the Pittsburgh game.  Another disappointing game!  We watched a little more TV and then were in bed by 10:00.  Tomorrow we are spending the day in Waco.
   We had a long, but great day of sightseeing today, leaving at 9:45 and getting back at 6:30.  We tried to leave the CG at 9:30, but a persistent cardinal kept pecking the windows in the Jeep and then the windows on Harvey.  So we decided we ought to put plastic bags over the mirrors on Harvey (that's where the darn bird sat to peck) so we don't come back to pooped covered mirrors. 

There's that pretty little pesky bird.

Off we went and made our first stop West, Texas, or should I say West (comma) Texas.  That's what the residents say so people realize that they live in the actual town of West not just in the western side of Texas.

  There is a Czech bakery there called The Village Bakery and they are supposed to have the best kolaches in Texas...whatever they are.  Turns out they are basically a fruit or cheese filled Danish as we would call them.  So we got one of those and a cinnamon stick.  Both were delicious!!

What a cute little shop!!

The kolache

The cinnamon roll slice

  Then on to Waco.

  First stop...Magnolia Farms Market and Silos, an old grain business site redeveloped by Chip and Joanna Gaines from the TV show, Fixer Upper.  It was really neat.

A billboard of Chip and Joanna Gaines we saw on the way to Waco.

  The market was pretty much all the staging decorations Joanna uses on the show along with souvenirs like coffee cups and t-shirts.  It was fun to recognize many of the things she uses.

Yep...this is the infamous "shiplap" Joanna
loves to use.

Inside the shop

  On the outside of the complex there is a large grassy area complete with a cornhole game where you can just relax in the sun on big, comfy cushions or eat at picnic tables.   And there are about 10 food trucks along the back.

Now that's the way to spend your lunch hour!!

There is also a greenhouse and a bake shop on the premises. 

They grow mostly herbs in this area.  The cone shaped
shrubs in the background are rosemary.

The terrariums are adorable...complete with
mailboxes and swing sets!
 

    Of course we HAD to share a lemon/lavender cupcake!

oh...yum!!!

 

  I took my book along hoping to get an autograph, but, shucks, Joanna was there this past Saturday!  From there we went to the Dr. Pepper museum.  That was fun, too.  

John was hamming it up with a silly pose!

What's up with that stuff?!?

This was the guy who invented Dr. Pepper.  As a teenager
he worked at a local pharmacy at the soda fountain.  (Remember
when they had those?)  He would mix the flavors in the sodas
to create something unique.  And, presto, Dr. Pepper was born.
He is a very life-like rubber figure that narrated his story.

Then we went to the Mammoth National Monument.  It's an actual housed dig site where they have found the fossilized remains of Colombian mammoths.  It was AMAZING!!  They were found in different levels of the soil.  The deepest ones were 65,000 yrs old and the shallower ones were 51,000 yrs old!!  There was a male, a female, a baby, a camel, and a tooth from a saber toothed tiger.  They died during the ice age, but they are still trying to figure out what caused the deaths.  They are pretty sure that a flood is what caused all the carcasses to be preserved in the mud.  There was a whole nursery herd of about 2 dozen calves and moms uncovered first who appeared to be drowned together in a single event between 65 and 72,000 yrs ago.  That was before the climate controlled dig shelter was built, so those bones are housed at Baylor University.  Enjoy some of the pix we took!

This is a Colombian Mammoth...14 ft tall
 at the shoulder and 20,000 lbs!!!

This is the skeleton of a male about 51,000 yrs old!
Notice the long tusks.

This is the 51,000 yr old remains of a 40 yr old female.

These pictures are a close up of her teeth.  They only have 4 teeth...
2 upper molars and 2 lower ones.  They get a new set
every 20 yrs but usually stop at age 80.

This is the remains of a camel.

This is the 65,000 yr old remains of a calf.  You can see
how it is on a different level from the remains to the left of it.
So it was covered over about 14,000 yrs before the other one.

The dark lines in the soil indicate the years
between the "flooding over" of the region which
helps to indicate the age of fossils.

This is a real piece of mammoth dung that is
about 15,000 yrs old.  A full grown mammoth
produced 500-700 lbs of it a day!!  No %#$@!!

We had supper out on the deck at Buzzard Billy's as recommended by our guide at the momument.  It was fabulous!  We started with mozzarella sticks that were hand cut and breaded.  Each one was about the size of a corndog.  They were so good.  John had Jambalya and I had Cresent City Chicken.  They were both delicious! 

The restaurant was right by the Brazo River.

 

There's the buzzard.

 

My chicken with shrimp and crabmeat...

 

...and John's jambalya.  Hmmm, a lot of our
adventures have to do with food, don't they?!?

When we got back we went to the Adult Clubhouse to do laundry, but it was "out of order".  They were brand new washers and dryers, so we don't know why they weren't working.  So we went back to Harvey and watched TV and I worked on the blog.  We'll get a few things ready for our departure tomorrow morning and then "hit the tick".  We'll be in San Antonia tomorrow afternoon.