Extending our Tyler stay

We were finding more about Tyler, TX, the longer we stayed.  The park we were staying at, 5 Star RV Park, was only $17 a night so we decided to stay a little longer.  We went to the Chamber of Commerce in Tyler which is always a good place to start. We also were given some tips on places to see by George Jones, an amazing history buff we met at the Bonner-McClendon House on Saturday night.
George told us not to miss the Rail Road Museum so that’s one of the first places we went after Easter. The curator, Glen, was so interesting and had lots of rail road stories of his own to tell us.  There was so many model trains here we could never have seen them all.  One of the displays that I was most interested in was the one displaying hand made wooden trains.

Beautiful wooden trains

These are just some of the displays.

More model trains and memorabilia\

Working model train setup

We did spend one day doing some geocaching and scouting out the town.  We found the best BBQ restaurant in East Texas, Stanley’s BBQ, a little hole in the wall with thick dry-rub moist turkey (for me) and brisket (for Tom) sandwiches.
Tom had ordered a clear sewer connector and we picked it up from Tyler RV – who we highly recommend for their courtesy and helpfulness and very quick service on our order.  When we asked where we could get good Mexican food they suggested The Mercado.  Boy was it good, too.

Festive interior of Mercado

I had fish tacos and Tom had seafood smothered 

enchiladas

We had driven by Evergreen cemetery on our way back to our RV park daily and talked about the coincidence of having a cemetery in Tyler where GGGrandpa was a prisoner named the very same, Evergreen, where he is buried in Los Angeles.  Evergreen in Tyler is only about 3 miles from Camp Ford, pretty weird.  Well, we just had to get the cache there.

Spoiler

Yesterday, the day before we left, we decided to go to the show and see Mirror Mirror. We had been to the shoe repair place to have a pair of my sandals fixed and it was quite near to the Hollywood Movie theater.  We were so surprised to see our new friend, George Jones, who just happens to be the manager of the theater and would not take our money. What a treat.  He also suggested the Parrott Mill Pond Park where he is also the manager, so as we left Tyler this morning, we stopped on our way to Hampton, AR. 
This park is simply amazing.  The farm implements were wonderfully displayed, almost works of art. 

		Parrott Mill Pond Museum VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

There was a mill pond with so many turtles and one duck.

Feed me, feed me, feed me

We were chauffeured around the park in an electric golf cart (I think by mentioning George's name).  Again, a very special treat.

Ford Model T converted to a tractor

Fresno Scraper in back

There is a chapel on the property. Our guide showed us a painting in the chapel that he was in.  He explained to the 3 children that joined us that the picture is of his guardian angel standing watch over him.  The kids were pretty impressed.

Matching our guide with the man in the picture

We even saw several Fresno Scrapers, patented by James Porteous, of Fresno, CA.  Our guide was very impressed.

Speaking of impressed, Tom is very impressed with our new Panasonic Lumix camera.  Look at the lizard I got a picture of while shooting the rail road Speeder.




You can see he is loosing his tail; maybe in a fight for his girl friend or with the other lizard on the Speeder.


His tail also looked a little damaged.

We got on the road after unhitching the Jeep and making a 3 point turn in the parking lot about 1:30. 


We made it through Shreveport and Tom said it was not nearly as bad as Seattle.


We pulled into Hampton in time to go to the Truck Stop for an all you can eat Friday Fish dinner for $8.99 for 65+ seniors. We qualified. We ate too much: shrimp, stuffed crab, catfish, salad, fried, onion rings, clams, and even giant cinnamon rolls.
Tomorrow we will go up to Mark’s Mill Battlefield.  There’s a cache there.