April 6- May 20, 2024
We arrived back from our cruise to a couple offers on our house in Porter, Texas. After an open house on April 6th we had three offers to choose from. We made our decision and took the offer that was $4,000 over our asking price. So by April 7th we had a contract on our house with an expected closure day of May 20th.
We spent most of April working on the house, packing things up and spending time with the grandkids. I had taught my daughter’s oldest two children how to swim in our swimming pool. Now it was time to teach the youngest how to swim while we still had the pool to do it in.
Mid-April we heard from our real estate agent in Tennessee that we needed to come stake out where we wanted to put our houses on the property so the city of Lafayette could come out and determine where our septic fields needed to go on each property. Since Frank and I had the flexibility to pick up and travel it was determined that we would do it for our property, Edwin and Sara’s property and Bill’s property, so on April 23rd we headed up toward Tennessee.
April 23rd– We left the Houston area early in the morning and headed North. We normally like to keep our drives between 4 to 6 hours but we pushed ourselves and where on the road over 8 hours. We arrived at one of our favorite campsites that we have stayed at before. Tom Sawyer’s Campground is right on the Mississippi River. Once we got settled into our spot we were able to walk around and watch the barges going up and down the river. https://tomsawyersrvpark.com/pics-vids/
April 24th– We got up this morning and drove into downtown Memphis area so we could visit the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. We were hoping to be able to take the elevator to the top but it didn’t open until afternoon and we had to be on the road by then. https://www.memphistravel.com/trip-ideas/bass-pro-pyramid-memphis So we walked around and checked out the Pyramid before heading back to the campsite to pick up our RV and head out. We drove up to Franklin, Kentucky where we are staying at Dad’s Bluegrass Campground. We spent the evening relaxing.
April 25th– We went out to the land in Lafayette to mark where each family wanted to put their home. A couple of people from our church there came out and helped us get the markers up. It only took a few hours and we were done. Now we just had to wait for the city to mark where our septic systems will go and wait for the property to close.
April 26th– Since we were done with the property we decided to do a little something fun for us. We left Franklin, Kentucky and headed toward Branson, Missouri. We made it Popular Bluff, Missouri where we are spending the night. The rain has been pouring all day and there are worries of flooding so we are hoping tomorrow will be a better day for travel.
April 27th– Arrived in Branson today and we are staying at a beautiful campground just outside of town right next to Bull Creek. We were able to get tickets to go see the Queen Esther show which was amazing. The stage surrounded the audience and besides the actors there were horses, donkeys, and camels on stage. https://www.sight-sound.com/shows/branson/queen-esther/2024
April 28th– Today was another day in Branson. We spent it exploring the town and saw a water show on the river.
Then this evening we started getting warnings of possible flooding in the area. The campground sent out a text that we needed to be ready to evacuate if the creek started flooding. It made it hard to get to sleep and get any rest after that.
April 29th– Luckily our campground did not flood last night and the rain cleared out for most of today. Today we wandered around old town Branson some and then took Branson Scenic Railway to see more of the area. https://www.bransontrain.com/
Today was also a foodie day for us. We found Parlor Doughnuts which have gluten free doughnuts and bought some for breakfast tomorrow. Then we had dinner at Guy’s restaurant.
April 30th– Drove to Hot Springs, Arkansas before heading back to Texas. We planned to only spend today and tomorrow here but due to flooding in Texas we ended up staying an extra day.
May 1st– Went to Downtown Hot Springs and visited their gangster museum and took their Duck Tour around town and on the lake. https://www.tgmoa.com/
May 2nd– We were supposed to head home today but it has been pouring in the Houston area and they are dumping water out of the dam and the roads are flooded. The highway we take home is covered in water. Hana’s school flooded. Our fence broke at the house and there was flooding in the neighborhood. So we ended up having to stay another day and hope we can get home tomorrow if the roads clear up.
May 3rd– We tried to get back to New Caney today but it is still raining and flooding down there. Made it to within 90 miles of home and the roads were closed from flooding so we found a campground in Lufkin. We are hoping with it not raining all night and tomorrow the roads will dry out enough for us to get down them.
May 4th– Finally made it back to our campground in Texas. We immediately got to work helping our daughter and her family move out of our house. We also had a fence to fix at the house before the sale of our house closed.
The next couple weeks were really busy getting the house done and preparing both our daughter and family and us to move to Tennessee. On May 17th we closed on our property in Tennessee and then on May 20th we closed on our house here in Texas. We no longer have a home in Texas and we own land in Tennessee which we now have to start the process of building and getting settled on so for the next few months we will only be making trips between Texas and Tennessee while we get everything settled. We hope once we get things settle we can head back out on the road exploring the nation again.
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