Little Rock, Ar

After leaving Vicksburg, Miss we just headed straight on to Little Rock to visit my aunt Helen and Bobby. The only stops were made for gas and something to eat. We arrived about 4:00 and had a nice visit with family. for a couple of days. Then off to Lebanon to spend a few days with my father and brother.

Lebanon MO

This Sunday Pat, I, Rusty and Ronda took a ride to Lake of the Ozarks, just to get the famous barbarque in Preston (Hickoryu Smoke Shack) on the corner of 65 and Hwy 54. This place is the best I have ever had bar noon. If you ever get in South Western MO, it’s a must. The trouble is it burnt down a couple years later and they did not rebuild. But they were only open from April 1st until Laborday. Almost forgot they are also closed Tuesday and Wednesday. We split a full slab with some beans and french fires.

Oklahoma City

April 17 was spent touring the Oklamona City National Memorial Center. The memorial center is an interactive learning museum. The building withstood the April 19, 1995 bombing. It was converted to the museum after 200+ entries in a design contest for the site. The meseum takes you thru the day of the bombing and after. If you get a chance please see it, it’s well worth your time.

Here are some of the stories:

• A Day Like any other
• History of the site
• Background on Terrorism
• A hering
• Imagine yourself in the setting of an Water board hearing just accross the street at 9:00 am on April 19, 1995. You will hear an actual audio of the hearing and the explosion, confusion.
• Confusion
• Chaos
• Suvivor experiences
• The first hours
• World reaction
• rescue and recovery
• Remembrance and bebuilding
• HOPE

This is a must see if you are in Oklamoma City

Padre Island, TX

Padre Island North is just of the cost of Corpus Cristy, TX. The last 10 years it has started developing, but is still one quiet places to spend a few days. My wicked step sister and her husband have a very nice home in the older section, with the deck built over the water and the boat dock under the deck. Most of the homes in this area have a similar setup. Our time here was spent watching the water off the deck, reading, going out to eat (fish mostly) and just taking it easy, but I guess thats what we’ve done a great deal of so far on this trip. One day we went back northeast about 15 miles on the island and visited Port Aransas shops and had lunch. Gary Osborne Fine Art is one fine art Gallery. I really liked some of the paintings he had on display. Some of them were very expensive $10,000.00. If anyone is interested his web site is www.GOFineart.com. Another great place to eat is Snoppies just under the bridge coming onto the Padre from CC, it’s very casual, but the food is great, and not to expensive. We spent a week here, but tomorrow we are heading north to the hill country just north of San Antonio for a couple of days.