Long Post...

 This is my friend Carol's cute little carriage house in Davenport on River Drive.... right smack next to the Mississippi river, but up on a hill so she does not flood!!! and behind the BIG mansion where her landlords live!!! That has been redone and is Beautiful... they take care of all the yard.. it is a cute little place to live in and to visit, if she just would not keep the air on so very cold... :) there is a great deck out back to sit and watch the many birds that stop by.
Was also there just when all the bulbs were blooming and then the wonderful peonies!!! this lady, i am just assuming it is a lady had both sides of her house along the sidewalk covered in them, they were so very beautiful!!! Had to go around the block and get LOTS of pics...

 The last week we took the older kids for a trip to Iowa City to stay in a motel with a huge pool and room service.. such fun and a treat!!! Along the way we went thru Columbia City and went across the suspension bridge, that was fun!!! They got that to swaying something fierce!!!
This is Guthrie and Laithe, he looks rather demonic there... you know it is a thing to try to look horrid when taking a pic, then maybe people will stop taking pics.... Me.... i just record for posterity ALL pictures.... that's the way we were!!! Except ones of me, and since i have the camera i can delete the bad ones of me!!!

Here are our roommates, Harry on the right and Freya on the left... good kitties....

the above is  the Mercantile in Pawhauska, OK where the Pioneer Woman lives.... I have been following her blog since forever, and she has exploded into cookbooks, she is on the Food channel, they refurbished this building into a store and bakery, have a boarding house in building behind this one where you can stay for 250+ per nite!!! They also opened a pizza place, the week after we were there!!! The bakery was really huge and really something, they also have a restaurant in the lower part of this (deli) but there was a line out the door... They have a BIG cow operation out of town about 1/2 hour away, they have tours, we did not stay to go on that.... but the store had MANY things that a person could want, mostly kitchen wares tho.... as that is what she is really about, is cooking.  It was fun to go there and now when we see it on TV, we can say, "oh, i saw that!"

The whole purpose of our road trip the 2nd week i was there was to go to Waco, TX to see Chip and Joanna of Fixer Upper on HGTV!!! And the Pioneer woman in Oklahoma. !   .It was a loooong ways down there, much longer than anticipated... but we had a good time and saw LOTS of the country...

You know after a month being home it appears that i am NEVER going to put this all down as it went, so am doing this one BIG blog of everything, and it is rather disjointed and not in order.... but apparently that is just the way it is going to have to be.  I should have taken the computer and did daily blogs as i am supposed to do, it would have been so much better, and then would have remembered everything but was trying to save on packing and weight and what not and that just did not happen as it was supposed to.  I ended up sending a box ahead of me thru post office and STILL checking a bag, as decided i did not want to carry it thru airport with me and doubted my ability to lift it over my head into the overhead bins on the plane, which was a good thing, as i would not have been able to!!!
Then on the return trip i even had to borrow a HUGE suitcase to get all of my 'plunder' home, as i figured i would more than likely NOT be going there again, so might as well get everything i wanted right then.... geez..... what was i thinking????

This picture is in Paris, Texas, and YES there is such a place...  there is also another place in the states called Paris, with a replica tower and to make this one taller, they put a cowboy hat on it!!!!

This is the Red River and yes it is red, due to the soil i was told.... but the lady i asked said it 'soul'.... she was a nice lady, but with a real, authentic accent!!!
I was eager to see these rivers as you are always reading about them in the western books, and cattle drives to the North...

AND this is the Brazos River.... this is at a place where it was easier for the cattle to ford the river, many cows were lost in the fording of these rivers....

AND i had read about these statues and really, really wanted to see them!!!
The first day we got to Waco about noon, so we could take a tour we had signed up for of the area, and it was THE greatest tour...  love taking these if available in cities.... have taken ones in Nashville, Pensacola... where ever i can to get a feel for the place and and learn all you can about where you are... This was a Christian based company Waco Tours, and we even started off with a prayer.... they just knew everything about the city and surrounding area and lore, were very personable.  And we went by these statues, could not stop at the time as there was a wreck right in front, someone rear ended another car, probably gawking at the statues and not watching what was before or after them, they really are cool and quite striking, got all sorts of pictures of them.... we went back later in the day, after the tour..

 This is the Mississippi River at one of the dams and locks, it was above flood stage, but not so high as to flood the streets yet or even this year..... but still it is rather dramatic looking and very, very swift....

We took the younger kids, Cort and Juniper to story/craft time each Tuesday at Chick A-Fil, they had a good time, there was also a gym thing that they could play on.  The 1st day taking them Cort got up in the apparatus and then started to cry, so i had to crawl up there to get him and get him back down, thank heavens Carol did not take a picture of that ...!

Here is picture of the Alico building/hotel?? in Waco, It is pictured quite often in the Fixer Upper show... Waco had a huge hurricane in the late 1800s' early 1900s that decimated much of the downtown area, it is still not built up and they have paved it over and use lots of the blocks as parking which is really nice, lots of places to park, and this hotel was one of the places that survived...

One of the businesses that figures in the show also.... this was a little cafe with lots of outdoor seating, it is right near Baylor College and gets lots of student trafic, they also have little concerts in the backyard area...

 Here is lovers leap... any drop off in the mid-west apparently was a lover's leap... lots of leaping going on..... and the Brazos river, you can see this is NOT a place to get cattle cross the river!!!

Harp Design is where Joanna gets her woodworking done, tables and signs and what not...

These are the Silos and the low building is the stellar bakery, oh, yummmm....

The front of the Magnolia Mktplace.... Such a great store... could get anything you wanted as souveniers  (sp)  of the show.... t-shirts, hats, bags, decorative items, kitchenware.... it was wonderful...

So that is a capsule of my trip, finally and where we went some of the time and what we saw.  It was a very good trip, loved my time with Carol and the children and seeing new sights and places.

Take Care All and God Bless