Onalaska, TX, January, 2019

There really is an Onalaska, TX. And one in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin. That is it for the whole planet.

Onalaska, TX is about an hour and a half south and a bit west from Nacogdoches on Lake Livingston, the second largest lake in Texas. We stayed here last winter for a while. Our friends Douglas and Amanda are staying here for five weeks. We are here for a week.

Lunch

Last year we had a Mushroom and Swiss burger at Whataburger, a Texas institution. It was really good, but immense. The nearby Whataburger sign pulled us right in.

They are still huge so we split one. They are still good, lots of cheese, mushrooms, sauce and flavor. Half of one was enough.

And then on another day we had to go to the Courthouse Whistle Stop Cafe in the town of Livingston for lunch. Rudy and Carolyn drove up from Baytown, TX to meet us.

This is the same bunch that did the South Shore of Lake Superior Expedition, 2016. Amanda is the queen of selfies. Some of our favorite friends.

T Shirts

Amanda always kids me about wearing the same T shirts, ones from the Oregon Zoo, Habitat for Humanity, that is all I have. So this year I added my Keep Craft Alive T shirt (above) , an organization that is helping train people in the homebuilding crafts. That is one of the things I most like about Habitat is the skill building aspect of it, helping others learn how to build better, be more efficient and more productive.

I found a couple more. Some coffee to power me up. And a mug to drink it in.

Treasure!

There is a pretty cool store, Downtown Treasures, right next to the Whistle Stop that has a mix of antiques, collectables and new things for sale. While wandering through I spotted a collection of old Texaco Airplane models. These were all of the old planes that Texaco had used over the years. One caught my eye.

These are die cast metal models with a 10″ wingspan. This one in a nearly perfect original box with the original packaging.

I couldn’t pass it up.

Sunny, Cool and Shady

We had several sunny days here. And some cool nights, some below freezing.

We brought most of the day/night shades with us that we took out of our coach when we put in the MCD shades. Douglas and Amanda wanted them. I spent some time helping them get started putting them in their coach replacing a mix of older shades on some windows and adding them to some windows that didn’t have shades at all. They were quite pleased with the new look for them.

These were new for their bedroom which just had the drapes. I agree, it looks nice.

A Walk in The Park

We drove down to the nearby Lake Livingston State Park one breezy afternoon just to go for a walk.

There were some pretty good waves on the lake. Most of the lake has a retaining wall around the shore. It is pretty much all sand in this area and these prevent erosion. They also make the waves slurping up against them sound bigger than they are. The Park Store was open. We had an ice cream treat.

Next up, a few days at Rudy and Carolyn’s in Baytown, east of Houston.

More later, Much Love,

Roger and Susan