Howdy Y’all! Howyalldoin?
Gee, it’s been almost a month since our last update! How time flies when your having fun!
After leaving Louisiana we traveled north to Natchez, MS. where you can walk the actual Natchez Trace in some places (The Natchez Trace Parkway is a National Park Service unit in the southeastern United States that commemorates the historic Old Natchez Trace and preserves sections of the original trail.) The drivable trail (on pavement!) is 444 miles long from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN and is in our future plans to do.
Before leaving Natchez, we toured 3 more antebellum plantations in various states of repair. Those fully restored were absolutely beautiful and quite modern for their time. Truly beautiful inside and out!
We met our friends, Charles & Stella from Portland, in Arkansas, where we spent several days visiting and enjoying his family and seeing where he grew up.
What’s going on here? Well, Gail and friends Charles & Stella are looking for diamonds in an open pit diamond mine. Sad to say, we didn’t find any. We toured a very large underground cavern together and the Ozark Cultural Center.
Saying goodbye, we went a litter further north in Arkansas to the little town of Guion, AR. where my mother was born and lived until she was 12 years old when they moved to Oklahoma. We were able to find the Moser (this was Don’s mother’s family) cemetery, locate the home stead, (where my mom was born), Moser Holler, and the school & church that Mom probably went to. It was great fun to see!
This is the Ozarks and when you go into town in the evening you can enjoy the old Ozark Mountain music around the courthouse square and in the park. Everyone brings a chair along and keeps time with them. The many groups are all impromptu, anyone can join in. Some singing and dancing as well.
Don is having his first dulcimer lesson. He did very well! Both the teacher and I were IMPRESSED! The music was heavenly (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) :)
We stopped in Hot Springs, AR. walked the famous Bathhouse Row, and toured one of them. They were quite the thing from late 1800’s through the 1930’s. Many rich and famous have enjoyed the mineral baths there. Today, there are a few open, run privately, and one free, as well as an old luxury hotel there with mineral baths and spa available. We opted to just look during our visit there. I did enjoy walking the Hot Springs hall of fame. Many famous people in all walks of life were honored that have come from Arkansas. Bet you all know of one well known person from there!
We are now back in San Antonio, TX area having some work done on the inside of the moter home, and looking for something to do every day while work is being done. One day we took a drive east of here to the town of Schulenberg, TX is a little town settled by German & Czechoslovakian immigrants. We took a lovely drive to four surrounding towns to visit their beautiful painted churches built in late 1800’s up to 1910, and open for daily visits and use. Just gorgeous churches, still in use today and intricately maintained by local descendants.
We think of each and every one of you so often. Lots of love and blessings,
Mom and Dad, Don and Gail
howdy yerselfs :D
ReplyDeletealways enjoy seeing your posts, they are always educational--
for example, the mention of the German/Czech town there in TX, i never knew of it but have been doing some research in my dad's earlier steps lately trying to track down GGpa Michaels family of origin.... and have seen that many Hargases from the Carpathian region came to the US during the Great Immigration years and some headed to the SW, settling in MO etc.
did you gize by chance encounter any other Hargases while you were there?
would you have a photo or two of the town that you could post?
hugs to both! --hannah