Entering the Lone Star State!

We were both eager to get back on the road towards Texas!  But, we did take a couple of days to stop in Tulsa, OK at the U.S. National Arabian Horse Show. 

I haven't been back to the Nationals since it moved to Tulsa - it was nice to see that the ring is still beautiful, as are the horses.

I was a little shocked at the lack of attendance in the stands.  The years I attended in Louisville and Albuquerque, you had a hard time finding a seat on finals night.  The vendors said they thought the live feed of the show kept people from attending.  Too bad-they were struggling too.

I was glad to see that they still do the green shavings for final!  Fun to see many people we haven't seen for years.  Congratulations to all!

 

On to Texas!  We arrived in Glen Ellen, just southwest of Dallas/Ft. Worth, set up and happy to be in one place for a week.  I had read about Glen Ellen in one of our RV travel magazines and it is a beautiful little town on the Paluxy River. 

Our campground is in a city park just across the street from the river and Big Rocks Park.

It looks like this pile of huge rocks piled on the river bank.

There is a Riverwalk that crosses the river and goes to a park with some of the original buildings in the Glen Rose area.

The Riverwalk is on the right.  There are a lot of pecan trees along the walk.

This is one of the first homes in the area.  It is made of limestone.

This cabin is made out of square logs! You can also see the pegs holding them together.

Some info about the cabin.

The historic downtown area also has a number of unique buildings.

Beautiful court house

I loved this statue out front of the court house.

Many of the buildings are stone - mostly limestone. 

Many of them are a combination of stone, brick and wood.  The other thing that I found interesting is that many of them contain "stone" that is actually petrified wood!

You can really see it in this close up.

 

We also took a drive out to Valley of the Dinosaurs State Park. 

These were the only dinosaurs we saw!

But the park is named Valley of the Dinosaurs because there are preserved footprints in the stone of the riverbed.

We weren't able to see many of them because it has been so rainy in Texas.  The rivers are all really high.  But, it is a beautiful park.

There were several trails - obviously, many of them on the river, but there were also some up on the bluff.

Beautiful grassland area - TALL grass!

Huge oaks

Prickly pear cactus under the cedars

Some of the trails are a little treacherous.

But, even though we didn't see lots of dinosaur tracks, we did see evidence of lots of other critters.

Came back to our campground to new neighbors. 

One downside to the RV life is that sometimes the layout isn't great. 

They have lots of stuff that they like to put out - Yep, that's all theirs.

Oh well, they are very nice and we leave tomorrow.

 

Plus, we have mistletoe in the tree outside our door!

 

 

 

 

 

CHILLICOTHE & CLINTON, MO

We continued our dash south, trying to keep ahead of the chilly weather.  Our plan was to make our way through northwestern Missouri to Tulsa, Oklahoma, so we could catch some of the Arabian Horse Nationals. 

First stop in Missouri was Chillicothe - "The Home of Sliced Bread".  Our campground was one of our strangest.  The owner was a very nice guy, who had bought an old mobile home park and was converting it to an RV park.  We were one of two trailers there - but I honestly don't know if he could have had many more.  He has a lot of work to do.

Not too bad a location!  We had horses in the "back yard"

And a nice view out the side windows. 

Downtown Chillicothe was walking distance from the campground, so we spent our morning walks roaming the town.  It really is the home of sliced bread!  The story is that Otto Rohwedder from Davenport, Iowa, had the idea for a bread slicer.  After many setbacks, he was able to get it built (it was five feet long and three feet high).  He traveled the country for years trying to sell it and finally, in 1928, Frank Bench of the Chillicothe Baking Company bought it.  Needless to say, it was a great success.  The bakery's bread sales increased 2000%!

 

The other thing that Chillicothe is known for are the murals on many of the buildings. Many of them show what the town was like long ago.

This was scenes of the old time fire station & equipment painted on the side of the current Fire Department building.

An old bank lobby

The Milwaukee Railroad

 

In the center of town there was Silver Moon Plaza, a pretty little park flanked by murals and neat old buildings.

The Milbank Mills mural in Silver Moon Plaza

I loved these window murals  - notice the Piano teacher & Farmer in the upper left

They are husband & wife - I loved the music connecting the two.

 

Most of the murals are very well maintained.  We were lucky enough to see the newest one being painted on the local library.

This is how it's done!

 

From Chillicothe, we headed south to Tightwad, Missouri - just west of Clinton.  The campground was very wooded & near prime fishing and hunting areas.  We were pretty lazy here as we have been traveling a lot, but we did venture into the town of Clinton. 

The County Courthouse was in the center of the square.

There were great old buildings around it,

and a pretty park area.

I loved this clock outside the old railway station.

We had some rainy days while we were here, and the weather was turning cool, so we were ready to move further south.