Cedar Hill State Park

Greerson works on his fishing beltloop for Cub Scouts, he has to earn all of them again since he is a Webelo now.

All of the boys went for a ride in this wagon

This is the group of boys that camped with us at Cedar Hill

We took the Cub Scouts to the Cedar Hill State Park for the Days of Old Festival. We all had a great time. Daryl went from Waxahachie after his Friday morning class. Christa and the rest of the families arrived that evening. The boys had a great time learning to fish and about wildlife conservation. They also got to play in a baseball game and ride in a horsedrawn wagon. The Dutch Oven Society was there and we had a good time visiting with them. Christa got a new lid lifter from the head of the Society. He was camping across the road from us. We left Saturday night after the campfire and went back to Waco to get ready to go the Charleston the next morning. This post is a little out of order, but our lives have been kind of crazy this week!

The Temple Tractor Show

We actually did this before going to Charleston, but we are a little behind on posts!

The computer guy at Christa's firm gave her some tickets to a tractor show in Temple, Texas so we loaded up the car and headed out to see what it was all about. It was really interesting to see all of the old tractors, they were having a tractor pull when we arrived. There was also a car show featuring the Model T. They were celebrating the 100th anniversary. It was interesting to find out that a family friend, Duncan Seawright was instrumental in starting the show in the late 1960s. We saw him at a distance, but didn't get to speak to him. We had a great time checking everything out. After the show we headed back to Waco to the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo. Christa's firm was hosting their employees at the Rodeo that evening. We had a great time, we were sitting in a box on the second row from the arena floor and the horses would kick up dirt when they ran by creating mud pellets on top of our drinks (they had lids so we didnt eat mud!). Christa's parents met us at the Fair and we ate dinner and all went to the Rodeo.


This was just a cool shot of an old car and the engine shed

This is like the toy tractor Daryl had as a child

This was a really old tractor

This is a picture of Duncan watching the parade of tractors

This is the street named after our friend Duncan Seawright who founded the tractor show

It was the 100 year anniversary of the Model T and there were several to look at!

Charleston South Carolina

The front of the hotel with a cool horse fountain
This is the new bridge in Charleston

This is the city skyscraper that was built in the early 1900s the city passed an ordinance against tall buildings in the 1920s to keep any other skyscrapers out. It is an 8 story building!

This is the aircraft carrier Yorktown
Christa is walking through a typical Charleston neighborhood

These are the flags at Fort Sumter
This is the interior of Fort Sumter

George Washington attended services here.
This is the outside of the same church. The steeple was used in the revolutionary war as a lookout and signal tower as well as the civil war. During World War II it was used as an air raid tower.

These houses are S.O.B.(South of Broad) They sell for millions of dollars

This is a cool pineapple fountain in a park along the battery

This is the walkway along the battery where two rivers come together into the bay

We went to Charleston for an accounting conference. Christa was in the conference all day and Daryl was touring the city. It is an amazing place. Charleston was founded in 1690 and George Washington stayed in a house there for a week and attended a church while he was there. The houses are really beautiful. They are unique in the fact that the street side is only one room deep and the porches are on the sides of the houses overlooking walled gardens. The porches are called piazzas and all of the doors that are on the street do not enter the houses, but allow access to the piazzas. Daryl visited Fort Sumter and discovered that it is on a man-made island. Barges toted tons of marble and granite from Vermont to Charleston to build the island at the entrance of the bay. It was very interesting to see where the first shots of the civil war were fired. Charleston also has more churches than any other city. Apparently to be buried in the city you had to be a member of a church. Some of the new church buildings were built around 1820. It was amazing to see how well preserved the city is. Parking lots are hidden behind buildings and carriages are gracing the streets. Daryl got to see Cabbage Row, (the inspiration for the opera Porgy and Bess). He also did ancestral research at the Historical society.

We stayed at the Charleston Place Hotel, it is an Orient Express Hotel (which translates into tripling all of the prices). Apparently it is where all of the celebrities stay when they travel to Charleston. The room was really nice with an inlayed wood entry hall floor. We were delayed six hours when going to Charleston. The Waco flight was delayed for an hour because someone broke the overhead bin and they couldnt close it. This meant that Christa didnt get to tour much of the city.

Lake Mineral Wells

The old Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells

The children's minister delivers the morning message!

Greerson discusses his plans with a friend.

We travelled to Lake Mineral Wells with the Cub Scouts and travelled the bike trail. Greerson had a blast. Our children's minister came camping with us and we invited them to dinner at our site on Friday night. During dinner we were talking about a family of racoons that had moved into our church in the children's building. They had finally gotten rid of them and She was talking about how she didnt want to deal with them again. We finished dinner and they headed home after dark (their site was right across the road from ours). About five minutes later she called and told us that the coons had gotten into their food while they were at our site. We really had a good laugh since we had just talked about her experience with the other coons. It turned out that the coons at that park are particularly adept at opening coolers and stealing food. Even the most season Scout Master got his hamburger meat stolen. We were fortunate that they didn't get into ours since Daryl had placed the drink cooler on top of the food cooler. If it hadn't been next to the trailer they would have just pushed it off and gotten what they wanted. After a moving sermon from the children's minister Sunday morning we drove home.