We seen a lot of white-water rafting today, along with the nuts that do it in kayaks, this area was the site of the 1996 Olympics for white water kayaking, the local people won an Olympic medal! Travelled through the Great Smokey Mountains, on our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, 400 miles of mountains, through North Carolina into Virginia, all of it North East, Nova Scotia is NorthEast of Texas, any highway NE gets us home faster! We are relaxing in Ashville, NC, the temp is 83 degrees
at 6 PM, but we will encounter colder temps on our way NorthEast! 

Next night we stayed in a great campground on the Ten Tom waterway, watched barges chugging up the river all night, ,very relaxing, reminded us of staying in the Huckleberry Finn park one other time, the Mississippi, water transportation is a very important part of the American commerce.  Another Wal-Mart night in Scottsboro, Alabama. Then we did four States in four hours, we left Ala., crossed into Tenn.. then into Georgia, then into North Carolina, we stopped at a visitor center in a place called Andrews, NC, the lady phoned everywhere to find us a campground, we discovered, we are heading North, they don't open until May, she finally called her son who was in the house moving business, he set us up with electricity in a junkyard, this junkyard looked better than the Elvis Presley park,  he did wake us up early moving his bulldozer, but we slept well, we thanked him again and attempted to thank his mother again, but she was off work that day!

Two nights of thunder and lightning, heavy , heavy rain, heading for Tupelo ,Missippippi, up the Natchez Trace, went to see Elvis Presley 's birthplace, a house his father built, very small, then we went to Elvis Presley Lake, a campground run by the Missippippi Wildlife Division, they should get rid of this park, the most disgusting campground we have ever been in, and we have seen some bad ones, Paul is contacting the Missippippi Wildlife Division, the Mayor of Tupelo and Priscilla  Presley to remove his name from the park, it is an insult, it was bad, bad, bad, we did not stay there, a few nights later we ended up staying in a junkyard, we are not kidding, the only thing they had in common was electricity.

After Duck Dynasty we went to a museum that let you get a 5 cent coke from the machine, the man who owned this house, was the first to bottle Coca-Cola back in 1894, we heard the history of coke, and Paul told the lady his favourite Coke Joke, ask him when we  get home, then we drove to Delhi, Louisiana, and had a fountain coke and cheeseburger and chips, probably the only fountain coke drugstore left in North America.  Paul worked at Henderson's  Drug store in 1954, on Barrington street, this soda fountain looked the same. Red  leather stools, red arborite counter and of course red Coca-Cola signs everywhere! We found free camping at Canton, Missippippi county park and watched some guys practice calf roping until dark.

We did the Wal-Mart thing in Ruston, Louisiana, then we did the Duck Dynasty thing in West Munroe, then camped in West Munroe, played pool, reminded us of Black Pearl and Moes in Wester Shore, no 8 ball , white ball with 8 marked on it, two number 2 balls, and the pay table ball return fell out, so all our other games were free, also pool cues had no tips, you chalked the wood!  We played "Rita's Rules".

We drove further today than ever in one day, 250 miles in one day, is it because were headed home , still only our average 30 miles an hour! Made Marquez Texas by 6 PM,  Bubba was there, he came a chatted for a while, we first stayed at Bubba's Country Comfort BBQ and RV Park, back in 2010, his son-in-law was on his way to work in Iraq as a civilian cook.  His second time there!  We gave them a picture of a Nova Scotia Whitetail deer, framed, at the time, it's still hanging there. 

What a relaxing week, look forward to "cocktail hour" each day at four, the gathering happens at Pat and Al's place. It started when we drove in and Al seen  "NAVY" on my t-shirt, he was also navy years ago! Then Pat arranged so that we could stay for a week in the site near them, she has a little influence at the office!
It's a very active RV Park, always something going on at the rec center, pot luck's, cards, horseshoes, then of course we eat, eat, and eat, Al and Pat took us to a buffet about 50 miles from here, all you can eat steak and shrimp for eleven dollars, unbelievable atmosphere, to die for desserts and of course great friends to enjoy the meal.  Then the next night it was a "fish fry" followed by a guitar gathering around a campfire. While waiting for the fish to fry, we were entertained by Al's cousin Mel playing his consatina, he owns more than one, the background music was exquisite!  
     We are writing a pro and con list this trip whether to winter in Florida or Texas, meeting these people puts a big pro beside being a Winter Texan.

We waltzed back to the Padre Island sea shore, but after a few days of relentless wind we headed for Corpus Christi Lake, still windy, but the trees calm it down a bit, settled into a great campground for a week, as soon as we stepped from our vehicle we were invited to "cocktail hour" with Al and Pat and friends, playing horseshoes, doing pot luck, and of course whining a lot!  Met other Canadians here from Ontario and Saskatchewan. Some Snowbirds from the U.S. North have been coming here for fifteen years. I often rave about the great Texas prison system, just read that they have 79 prisons ,none with air-conditioning, but they just spent three quarters of a million on A/C for the prison  pig pens!

We attended a pot luck at the campground rec hall this evening, Trish took her chili, explained to everyone that it didn't have any of that Texas Chili Powder (DO NOT SERVE TO WIMPS or WOMEN), in it! Very mild and everyone seemed to enjoy it!  Most people there were getting ready to go North, like us, we should be home first week in April!  Going to Waltz across Texas once again, slow waltz!

We spent a day at the Borderfest in Hidalgo, Texas, they had an Argentina contingent there, what great entertainment, cold beer, Mexican food, Argentine wines, Mariachi Bands, a parade at night , all the floats were lit up. What a wonderful day!
We are in Falcon Lake State Park for a week, we can see Mexico across the Rio Grande River, we can't get an English station on the radio, so we open our windows and listen to the Texicans camping around us play county music CD's on their truck radios!

We stayed in a park and a young couple from the State of  Washington came over with home made dessert, blackberrys, pineapple and pecans, a cobbler, delicious!  What nice people!  When we arrived the lady at the gate was a Newfy, right from St, John's, boy! 
The next day we passed a cattle drive minus the cattle, years ago they drove the cattle to Mercedes for auction, today they ship their cattle otherwise, then re-enact the trail ride for fun, takes seven days. We have some video of us passing them! 

The Ultimate in Sand Castles !

Beautiful Sunset on Padre Island !

Here I am in a Beach Wheelchair, the only way I could see the Beach.  Such a humbling experience to have Paul do this for me !

Our site on Padre Island.

Paul pulled one of these " With the hose on it ", 50 years ago every Wednesday afternoon 

at Army HQ. 

"Old Sparky" performed well for thirty years at Huntsville Prison in Texas !

Crossed over to Padre Island,Texas at Port Aransas, five minute ferry, drove down Island to The Padre Island National Seashore, camped for nothing for three days, what beautiful beaches, slept to the sound of waves each night.  The birds are extraordinary, pelicans, laughing gulls, cranes, herons, and many others, also a few sharks!  They had ballon wheel wheelchairs for the beach, so took Trish for a run on the beach, you can go for 55 miles but we only went .5 of a mile!  Ate at a restaurant where we watched fisherman on the pier, guys surfing and pelicans waiting for the fishermen to throw them their catch, it's against the rules, but we observed a few pelicans swallowing the evidence!

Here are the guns described below !

The rifle lying on the counter is an AR-15, choice of the American Armed Forces, and the Texas Prison System! The 12 Gauge Shotgun on the wall is called a Stage Coach gun and is the choice of the Hells Angels, fits well on a motorcycle !

We revisited Victoria ,Texas,  Coletto Creek Park, we seen eleven deer in a herd  and also a Crested Cara Cara, looks like a small eagle, and turkey vulture all in one, a beautiful bird! Turns out it is from South America and rarely seen in the southern US.

We camped in Livingston State park , they claim a 114 pound catfish was caught there many years ago, I fished , but caught nothing, you are allowed to fish without a license in any Texas State Park, but if you stay in a National Park in Texas, you need a license, go figure! 

Trish made so many pancakes, I ate them for days, pancakes with jam, pancakes with peanut butter and jam, pancakes with pickles and so on!  We visited the Texas State Prison Museum, we seen the electric chair that they used for 30 years before going to the needle to eliminate all the assholes. It was very interesting to me after my 25 years in the prison system.  When they showed the collection of weapons used to kill guards, I was able to identify with the T-Bone steak bone as a weapon, I had a friend stabbed in the throat with the same type of bone in Halifax, he could never speak or work again!  Also we never had T-Bone steaks on Sundays for supper again!  Also a Warden was killed one time with his own handgun in Texas!  No guns in the Canadian provincial systems, those guns in the Federal system, are few also, shotguns over the dining hall and gym with scatter shot to prevent other inmates from being killed and rifles in the wall turrets, with orders to shoot escapees only in the lower legs, the guards in the dining hall and gym are locked in a cage above the inmates.  The Texas guards over the years had guns while on horseback ,while supervising workers,,and manys the times the guns  were taken away from the guard, to execute him!

Well, today is Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), in English, or as we know it home, Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.  We had to pass up the shenanigans with all our rowdy friends in Mamou, Louisiana, but we are celebrating by having pancakes for breakfast here in East Texas Whoopie yi a !, maybe this evening, we will wine a bit while playing cards, that will make us feel better!  We are off soon to Huntsville, Texas to see the Texas State Prison Museum, then down to the Padre Island National Seashore on the Gulf. We have had some weird weather, 80 degrees, then below freezing at night, then rain, thunder and lightning, very foggy, but you don't have to shovel any of it!

Wow! What fluctuations in the weather, we went from 80 degrees the other day to waking up today to freezing temps.   The only good thing is it keeps down the bugs, Trish is so bitten that we had to pass up the Mardi Gras in Mamou, she just wouldn't be able to enjoy it, with all her itching . So settled here in East Texas until it warms, then heading for the most southern part of Texas, Brownsville, just about the same latitude as Key West, Florida, surely these cold, cold days have to end soon!