Monday June 29, 2009-Center TX

Today we went to Center Tx. to visit my family there. We left the park a little after 9 and made good time down I-20following the directions of the GPS. I spoke with Janie on the telephone and learned that she had a doctor's appointment in Nacogdoches at 2, so we would go eat at a Mexican restaurant on the square and then we could pick up a lunch to take to Aunt Frat.

The food was very good at Margarita's restaurant and we had a very nice visit. Janie decided that we could go back to her house for a little while more since we finished lunch sooner than we thought. We went back and had coffee and some cobbler before Janie had to leave. Gail brought Frat's meal, so we went over to her house. We were all sorry that our visit was cut short.

We got to Frat's house and met her caregiver Queenie. Frat looked good but is confined to a wheel chair. I had learned from Janie that her insurance had run out for the nursing home, so since she needed round-the-clock care and would now be paying for it, she would just go home and be taken care of there.

We had a nice visit with Frat while she ate her lunch. While we were there, it rained for the first time in a long time. It was a short rain but it rained and that's all that counted.

We left after about an hour and a half, and Frat getting tired. Another of her caregivers, Sheila, got there and told her that she was scheduled for some heavy rehab today. Frat said that Sheila is a slave driver (LOL), but I'm sure that she can handle it. Frat's a tough old bird.....


Frat's house is a story in itself. It is the old home place on Ballard Street, named for the family. When Frat's first husband George Willingham and her daughter Sharon were tragically killed in an auto accident in Cheyenne Wyoming in 1963, Frat came back to Center and took over the old house. She lived with her sister Nancy in Center while she had the old house remodeled. The house didn't have any electricity, no indoor plumbing and was only heated by a fireplace. The house was the old "dog run" style house with an open middle with the kitchen and bedrooms on one side and other bedrooms on the other side. Frat remodeled it, enclosing the open center into a large living and dining room and having modern utilities installed. She has lived in the house since then.

We left Frat's house and stopped at a service station for fuel. We took 92.7 gallons (the most pulled out since we got the big tank) to go 1069.4 miles at $2.45 per gallon for an average of 11.5 MPG. Improving....

Janie called and said she was through at the doctor, and asked if we could stay and visit a little longer. We did and returned to her house.We rode with her over to the pharmacy to pick up some antibiotics for a nasty looking wound to her knee. She had fallen and cut her knee and it had gotten infected.

We had a nice long visit with Janie and left her house about 5:50, later than we had expected to. We decided to check out some parks that we had found in Garrison and Timpson, which are near Center. We didn't locate the two parks in Garrison, when we got there, they were vacant lots, and the park in Timpson is a combination RV/Mobile home park and not very inviting. We continued on toward Terrell on US 59. When we got to Carthage, a big truck obscured my vision and I missed a turnoff to 59N. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! We drove and drove and I noticed that we were now going south instead of north. While making this comment to Stella, who had been napping as usual and had also missed the turn, I noticed that we were now going east and hadn't turned off the same highway that we were on. Then she noticed some landmarks that she had seen before she went to sleep, so we discovered that we had gotten onto a loop around Carthage and had come full circle. We soon got to the turnoff that I had missed-through no fault of my own of course-and made the turn. We made the rest of the trip without incident and only stopped at a rest area on our way back to the park. We arrived here about 9:45, or almost two hours past the time we should have been back. Cassie was really glad to see us!

We had some good laughs about missing the turn, and I'm sure that it will get brought up again, but it really wasn't my fault. I was busy operating the truck and making sure that we didn't get into an accident and remember that big 'ol truck that blocked my vision of that narrow little road where we should have exited.

So long.