What we have been up to

Being home means work.  I think that is another reason I like to travel.  There are too many things that need to be done here at the house and it seems that you finish one and find another.

This garden space was for my rocks.  If you look closely you can see them on the left side of the picture.  We took them all up and just piled them there so that we could rework this garden.  It was a mess.  I didn't take a picture before we cleaned it out.  Grass had taken over and it was a huge mess!
After cleaning everything out, we leveled it as best we could and then brought in some sand.

We spread the sand and started laying pavers.  I couldn't wait to see how it was going to look.

We started putting sand between the pavers to see how it was going to look.  This is slow work.   We haven't finished yet.  We had planned on finishing yesterday but the weather didn't cooperate.  It rained!  I am hoping that this will be easier to keep looking nice, especially while we are gone for long periods of time.

We acquired a stray about a month or so ago and he is a mess.  He loves to play with the dog next door.

 Since it rained all day today he was inside.  I think he got bored.  I went into the bedroom and found this.  He had gone into the closet in the bathroom and got toliet paper and had himself a good time.  Note to self= Don't let Buddy get bored!

Time to catch up

We left Ruston, La. and headed towards Lake Village, AR.  No reason, just a longer way home.

We decided to stay at the Chicot County Campground.  Cost per night with tax was 15.60.  This was with senior discount.  Half of the park was closed because of electrical problems but the other half was fine.  We did loose power at 2:00 one morning for about an hour, but other than that no problems.  The office people were very nice and did everything to make your stay enjoyable.  In fact, they went over the top to help one couple.  The second day were were there a couple came in with their motorhome and no toad.  The lady in the office volunteered her personal car so that they could run into town for some groceries! She laughed and said she had just loaned her car to strangers with only a receipt for their campground stay in hand.  Her husband laughed and said, hey their new motorhome is here. Fair trade I would say.  LOL

Small office, but all you need I guess.

Everyone said there is great fishing in this lake.  We did see one man with a bucket full of catfish!  There were several people living at this campground also.  Some even had built decks!  Cheap living I guess.

We went into Greenville, MS. to eat a steak at the famous Doe's Steak house.  The steak was very good.  They have no menus.  They serve steak with french fries and house salad, hot tomales and shrimp.  That's it.  You walk in the kitchen with it's unlevel floors, go into another room that also has a kitchen in it that does only the salads and fresh french fries.  There are tables in this kitchen and in other rooms.  This house was built in the 1930's.  Does's has been in business since the 40's.  A lot of famous people have eaten at this place.  If your in Greenville, Ms.  stop by and have a bite.  It is a little pricey.  We ordered one porterhouse steak (I think it was 2 lbs) for both of us.  All steaks come with hand cut french fries. (these were great) and your salad is $5.00 extra.  They only have a house dressing that is already on the salad.  It is olive oil, lemon, garlic, salt and pepper.  Not my favorite but good.  We shared one entree, fries and salad and the bill was $73.00.  Yes that was for one! But it was enough food for the two of us.  Neither one of us left hungry.  It's an experience, what can I say.

There are a lot of cotton fields around the lake and it was harvest time.

                                           It looks like a field of snow from a distance.

                                                    Cotton Bolls ready for the picking!

                                                              Oops, this one didn't open!

Not a great picture, but those are some of the huge cotton bales ready to go to the gin.  These are the older rectangle ones.  The newer ones are round like the hay bales.  You can't really tell how big they are.  These were quite a distance away and the quality of the picture isn't so good.   These long bales are about the size of a trailer on a tractor/trailer rig.

This is the fairly new bridge crossing the Mississippi River.  Greenville on the Ms. side and Lake Village on the AR. side.

We even cooked our own steaks one night at the campground.  Yes we do like steak!

We loaded up and headed home today.   Next time maybe we will stay long enough to fish!

A short trip to see our son!

Our youngest son and daughter-in-law work for Dow Chemical in Houston, Tx.  He and his wife came up to Ruston, La. for a job fair at Louisiana Tech.  They are here to interview and get resumes from graduating seniors (engineers).  Since Ruston is only a 2 hour drive we decided to come down and spend a few days with him and his wife.

Ruston is a nice college town.  We are staying at Antique Village RV Park in Simsboro, La.  This is about 10 minutes out of Ruston.

This is a no frills park.  We stayed here because it was the closest park to Ruston.  The people here in the office were very nice.  It is a Good Sam park so the rate with discount is $22.50 night.  The biggest objection I see to this park is that most of the inhabitants are living here.

They are very junky
There is one site that I don't believe I would tolerate if this place were mine.  There is someone living in  this homemade trailer with all this junk around it.  It's the junk around the place that I object to the most.

We weren't here very long before we had some visitors come a-calling.

They came right up to the door and might have as well said, "bread please"!  LOL
We had some rain which brought some beautiful clouds yesterday.  The picture doesn't do it justice and you really can't see but this cloud was purple!

While here we found out that there is a very nice parish park in town.  Lincoln Parish Park is located 3.5 miles down one of the main roads in Ruston.  How could we have missed this place.  It sits on a lake with all paved roads.  There are full hook ups and even a swimming area.  This very nice park will be our go-to place when we come back to Ruston!  The rate for this park is $25 a night.  No discounts given.  Hopefully I will get some pictures of it before we leave.