Neal was working during spring break and the kids were not giving me any ideas of what they wanted to do besides watch a screen all day, so I took matters into my own hands. Put in a request to Opa and he made plans to take Rhys out fishing for his first time at the end of the week. Meanwhile, I am pleased to say that it doesn't take much to make my kids feel like they had a good time. Just leaving the same four walls is good these days.
We headed to Oak Point Park to take in a 45 minute hike because they have dirt paths and it's not hiking unless it's on dirt for Rhys.
Then we took off for Paris, Texas about an hour and a half away with our first stop at Buc-ee's, a chain of travel centers known for their clean bathrooms and amazing selection of convenience food and gift items. If one stops at Buc-ee's for gas or bathroom use, they will leave a whole lot poorer for it, which is why we seldom stop there. This makes it a highly coveted stop for my kids and this time I obliged. We left with chocolate covered beaver nuggets (the beaver being iconic to this business and nuggets are not what you are thinking but a puffed, crispy, maple flavored snack), chocolate covered pretzels, and chocolate chip cookies. It's a shame we don't like chocolate in this family.
An hour or so later, we arrived in Paris and headed straight for the Eiffel tower, done Texas-style of course. I'd been here before with my sweet heart and done this and another stop we'd make before but for my kids, this was a first.
Yep, that's a red cowboy hat atop the tower. The kids said, they were imagining it much bigger, and the Eiffel tower in Paris, France is a whopping 324 feet high compared to his 65 foot one. Now Texas is really proud of doing everything bigger and I am thinking that there must have been some budget issue because they did not even come close to outdoing France here. But I'm sure the French "fart in our general direction" so we accepted and moved on to the amazing veterans memorial immediately next to the tower.
The memorial isn't even finished but a good portion of it is and I was surprised that my kids really enjoyed the beauty and meaning of the memorial in juxtaposition to the corny tower replica next door. My little babies are growing up so fast! Sniff, sniff. It really is a top notch memorial. Enjoyed the plaques, engraved bricks, and statues. The windy day was perfectly whipping the flags above us. We learned about gold star families. It was a good stop.
Next we were off to the Evergreen Cemetery and I know you are thinking, "oh gosh, Keri is going to force those kids to document gravestones and try to pass it off as spring break fun." I will have you know I exercised amazing restraint for the children because that cemetery contained less than 80 documented (for Billiongraves.org) gravestones and there were well over 2000 stones in that cemetery! Gasp! I know--sad but true. However, we came to see the statue of Jesus wearing cowboy boots and that is just what we did!
Can I get a "Yeehaw!"? Now, truth be told, when I mentioned to my kids that there were less than 80 gravestones documented there, Sophie took it upon herself to show some compassion and told me I could document some while she ate snacks in the car. I kept it to 5 minutes because I can keep my priorities straight (sometimes, and this was one of those times--poor dead people).
Next up was a tour of the architecture in the area. I know, what kid cares about that! I don't even care about that. But we were just happy to be out and doing something different and I'm telling you, this is what small town Texas has to offer, so we happily partook.
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Sam Bell Maxey House (He was a Confederate general and US Senator)
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That was it and we were headed back home.
Friday morning, Opa took Rhys out to fish. Rhys got to practice casting. Rhys liked fishing. He liked the calm of it.
Pretty decent adventures for last minute fun.
