The Canadian Coddiwomplers: 2024 South-West USA ("Not all those who wander are lost.")

          *Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination."   Oklahoma   We headed north in search of cooler, less humid weather and decided to visit Oklahoma.  We stopped at two little campgrounds before reaching Oklahoma.  At one, we had a great site looking out to the pond.   View from our site On the way out, we spotted this bus with what looks like an organ on its roof.  I'll bet they have a blast: a horn blast! Several RVers on Facebook mentioned a variety of state parks to visit, one was Lake Eufaula State Park.  Lake Eufaula is a huge body of water but quite shallow – about 90’ at the deepest spot.  It was started in 1956 by the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and completed in 1964. By damming the Canadian River, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world was created with a 600 mile shoreline, covering 41,500 hectares. Looking at the area on th...

          *Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination." Prison and Seabrook   On our way to Seabrook, we went to prison.  The Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville is a Harvest Host!  They have 4 or 5 RV sites in their parking lot so we took advantage.  It was an interesting stop.  The museum had displays outlining the history of the Texas prison system and displays of historical prison accoutrement.  Most of the stuff was pretty gruesome.  There were also several accounts of famous people who had stayed in the Huntsville facility, including David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame.   The Wall of Famous and Infamous The Huntsville area has a long history of prisons and one of the largest Texan prisons is there.  The very first prison, the Texas State Penitentiary opened in 1849 in Huntsville and has been operating since then.  It is known as...

          *Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination." Back to Canada We are very fortunate in our retirement.  As a former employee of the Ontario government I retired with very good benefits that also apply to Jerry.  One of the benefits is an out-of-country medical plan that covers you for 90 days.  Since we planned to be out of Canada for more than 90 days, we needed to return to Canada and restart the 90 day period.   We did investigate purchasing “top up” travel insurance before we left but because of our age, it was really expensive and because of my health issues, the insurance companies would not necessarily approve me.  A complicated application was requested.  I also looked at airfare from Dallas to Toronto and compared it to Dallas to Detroit.  The international fare was triple the amount for the domestic flight.   In January, I found a reasonable f...

        *Coddiwomple: “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination." The Night Light Rally The day arrived for us to set out to the Hopkins Civic Community Centre, Sulphur Springs and the Night Light Rally .  Along the way, we made a stop at Buc-ee's for lunch – a pretty good brisket sandwich.   Buc-ee's is a popular stop for gas, pulled pork and other.  It is a huge and popular stop. We were heartily greeted by a crew of volunteers when we arrived at the Hopkins Centre.  We were close to the last ones to get there, many more rally experienced RVers had been there for several days.  We followed our guide to one of the nicest sites there – how lucky are we?  Our site was on grass, under mature trees with a creek behind us and a short distance to the hall and arena.  This was looking promising.  Later we were told that the creek was infested with poisonous snakes and to stay away fro...