Wendy's Wonderings

Dear Peter,

We made it back from vacation! :-) It was wonderful, and I will tell you all about it. :-)

On Tuesday I rented a Ford Taurus from the car rental company in Rusk. It was raining on Tuesday, so we took our time packing and set everything in the school room. When the rain “let up” I ran outside to open the trunk. I was very pleased to find it had such a large trunk. We loaded everything we could into it. The only things left to be packed were the things we would need in the morning, such as toiletries. :-)

We left Wednesday morning at about 7:30 am. (In my head I was singing “We’re Gonna Make It After All…”) With a quick stop by the local donut shop we headed out. Our destination was Denton, TX. About a 3 hour drive, maybe. We were prepared. We all had drinks, donuts, the nephew had the DVD player in the backseat, and we were well stocked with CDs in the front. My dear brother made 3 awesome travel CDs. He really put a lot of time and thought into the music he put on these. By the time we returned home our nephew had learned some new songs that we sang when we were his age. :-) More about that later….

Our first stop was in Greenville, TX. We stopped at the Audie Murphy/Cotton Museum. http://www.cottonmuseum.com/audie.htm if you ever get to Texas I highly recommend a stop here. We learned so much, and it was such a neat experience. Of course, the nephew was ready to leave before we were, but we still enjoyed it. I learned a lot about Audie Murphy that I did not know. I never knew he was a successful songwriter.

As the sign at the museum says we also learned about cotton, “from plant to fabric”. The “homeschool teacher” in me took over, and a lesson was “taught”. Maybe not learned as completely as I would have liked, but it was taught. :-)

We then drove to Mary of Puddin’ Hill. http://www.puddinhill.com/ It is a candy store. HEAVEN!! We sampled fruit cake, fudge, peanut brittle and cranberry butter. It was fantastic. I bought 1 piece of toffee candy, for $1.23, and I enjoyed it. :-) If you ever get to go there I encourage it. They do have sugar-free candy as well. :-) We got to watch them make candy through the “viewing window”. They even have a picture of “Lucy and Ethel” in the famous “candy wrapping scene”. It is so neat. They also had a carrousel and doll house made completely out of chocolate. (see pic above) COOL!!

After leaving Greenville we were on our way to Denton. Around lunch time we decided to stop at a grocery in the next town and find a park to eat lunch. We stopped and purchased pimento cheese, chips, rolls, dip and drinks. We asked the cashier about a park, but she only knew of one, in the opposite direction we were headed. We figured there had to at least be a roadside park/rest area up ahead so we journeyed on, keeping a close eye out for somewhere to enjoy our lunch. A few miles down the road we saw a sign for two parks, in the same direction. We tried to find the first one, following the signs. We ended up on some dirt road. After a few miles we realized that even if we did find the park we didn’t want to eat there. So, we made our way back to the “main road” and turned to go to the other park. We are so glad we did. We ended up at a big picnic/park area. The kind that people rent for large functions. There was a gazebo, pond, ducks, etc… It was NICE. There was even a small house/office. NO ONE else was there. To make ourselves feel better (okay, make me feel better) Dave went to the office and asked if we could picnic there. They were very nice and said yes. So, we unpacked our “stuff” and enjoyed a nice picnic.

It was so nice not being on a “schedule”. We just relaxed and enjoyed every moment. And took LOTS of pictures. Have I mentioned how much I love my digital camera? There was only one “scary moment”, and that was when the nephew dropped my camera. My heart went in my throat!! It is fine, so don’t worry. But, that was a very scary time for me.

We then got back on the road and went on to Denton. Turns out that MapQuest is not very good at giving directions. It gave us the directions for the where the hotel used to be, two years ago. Thank God for cell phones. :-) I called the hotel and got the right directions. We got back on the road and were soon at the hotel. :-) We checked in, put out things in the hotel, rested and then went to a book store. It was pretty cool.

We went back to the hotel. I took the nephew to the pool. We ordered pizza for dinner. Dave and the nephew went to the exercise room and enjoyed that for awhile. Mom and I took our showers. They came back to the room and took there showers, and then it was time for bed and TV. You would think this was really late in the day by now wouldn’t you? NOPE, it was about 8:00 pm. I fell asleep halfway through MythBusters. :-)

When we were little one of the things we loved about vacation was staying up past our bedtime. On this whole vacation we never stayed up passed 9:30 pm. And that was only on one night. :-) Man, I am old, but well rested. :-) So, I went to sleep with the sounds of the day(laughter, music, singing songs such as The Purple People Eater, The Partridge Family, Disco Duck, etc…) playing in my head. It was a great start to a great vacation.

Day two next time…. :-)

Love,
Wendy Darling