Point, Texas

We arrived (actually it felt like we blew in) into the Lake Tawakoni Thousand Trails Preserve on Nov. 10.  This preserve is near Point, TX, about 60 miles east of Dallas, kind of in the middle of no where. We were right on the lake, but with the drought in Texas, the water level was really low.  This was the first membership park that we’ve been able to stay at on our trip so it was nice to be able to utilize the membership – nightly rate for us is $2 a night.  

Fishing pier at campground  

Marina in campground.

Boat marina at Lake Tawakoni.

W. 

We had some really cold weather and a couple of days of rain, but overall the weather was not as bad as in other areas of the country and we were able to get out and about.  The three weeks goes by so fast, even if we are in camp, we are able to do a lot of walking, pickleball, bike riding, sewing, computer work, etc.  I finished my second sweater since being retired and just started a third. 

 

Played pickle ball til sunset. 

We visited quite a few towns around the area, starting with Canton, TX, which is where we found a visitor bureau.  We also found out that Rockwall, TX was our best area for shopping:  Costco, Best Buy, JoAnns fabrics, etc. 

We also visited some wineries in the area – one in Canton; Savannah Wine and Bistro, the San Martino winery in Rockwall and a real favorite was KE Cellars; Kiepersol outside of Tyler, TX.

San Martino

KE Cellars - on Kiepersol estate

We went to Tiger Creek Refuge center which is a cat rescue of abused animals that can not be released into the wild.  They had various breeds of cats and totaled about 39 at the time of our visit.  They are really working on increasing the size of pens for all their animals to give them a safe and varied lifestyle while in captivity.

We were close to friends where we enjoyed Thanksgiving and the Thursday night Seahawk win.  Craig was able to watch the Cowboys – but not an enjoyable outcome.  With the Kulikoff’s just moving to Texas, they invited three others that had recently moved to Texas from the Pacific Northwest and had a friend from New York, so there was a total of 8 for dinner.  Beautiful new home, good hospitality and great company.

Friday was my birthday, so Craig made reservations at a steak house called FourWinds outside of Wills Point.  The menu and wine list looked wonderful, but the atmosphere was even nicer than we were expecting when we arrived.   The restaurant was started by an ex-Cowboy linebacker for the ranchers in the area.  We had steak and lobster and it was wonderfully prepared – missed you Mother!!

Then on Saturday we attended First Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX.  This tradition was started in 1850 where all the settlers would bring their trade items into the Courthouse square the first Monday of the month to watch court proceedings and take care of business.  The town of Canton has a population of about 35,000 and about 400,000 – 500,000 people come to town over the four-day event preceding the first Monday of every month.  This makes this one of the world’s largest flea markets, but luckily they featured everything from furniture, yard art, home decorations, holiday decorations, apparel, music instruments, food, produce, and antiques and used flea market type items.  We took the “girls” in their doggy ride pushing them like kids in a stroller, and they got lots of attention and we were all four exhausted when we got back.  They have seven different locations throughout town and we only made it to two of them, but still walked many miles to see the “stuff”.  Luckily no place to store “stuff” – so we came away with only a couple of small purchases.

Sunday was clean-up day and then on Monday, Dec. 1 we will be moving south of Dallas to another Thousand Trails park near Whitney, TX.