Bluebonnets and other Texas wildflowers

I'm certain we're in Uncertain

Last weekend we headed east of town to check out Caddo Lake and Uncertain, Texas. We had to fight traffic to get out of Dallas so we didn't get to our cabin until after 8. When you're staying in a town with a population of only 150 people finding a restaurant open is not an easy task! Luckily, Jefferson is only 15 miles away, so we went out in search of some grub.

Glory Dayz is a cute little eatery with a 50's flair that shows old movies Friday and Saturday nights. There was one playing, but I can't remember what it was.

We took our seats under an umbrella

And checked the place out

Morgan took off with my camera and took a few pictures. I like the sign in this one...

They even had a cute outdoor courtyard to eat in. Aren't these chairs the coolest?

Once our bellies were satisfied we went back to relax in our cabin. We had the great pleasure of staying at the Moonshine Cabin. Within minutes of walking in the front door, we were already planning our next trip! It was kitschy and quaint and had all the comforts of home. Beverly, the gracious hostess, had a selection of movies to choose from. We were amused to find Soggy Bottom, USA among the choices. It's a fun movie about moonshiners and airboats that was filmed on Caddo Lake.

Saturday before we cruised back over to Jefferson to stroll around and find some lunch we walked down to get a look at the lake. See those canoes? They come into play later...

View from the upper deck of the Moonglow Lodge's Moonview decks. I love how the the lake is just a giant mirror for the cypress trees.

So relaxing!

Time to head into town!


There happened to be a car show going on so we strolled around checking them out.
I don't drink soda much anymore, but when I do, you'd better believe it's a Dr. Pepper! I've even had the pleasure of having a Dublin Dr. Pepper, made with real cane sugar instead of corn syrup, made only in Texas.

The girls commented on how Grandpa sure would have enjoyed the car show. He's been working on restoring an old Desoto, hopefully when he's done with it we'll be able to do a show or two with him.

We stopped in at Joseph's Riverport Barbecue and has some fried catfish, bbq brisket sandwiches, ribs, okra, potato salad and coleslaw. I sure miss New Mexico cuisine, but some good Southern food helps me not think of all the green chili's I'm missing out on!

They left a strip of the old wallpaper exposed. Pretty cool!

After lunch and browsing just a few of Jefferson's MANY antique shops, our next destination was Caddo Lake State Park. Texas allows fishing without a license within the bounds of all state parks. Every Saturday at Caddo Lake, the park rangers host a free fishing clinic down by the boat ramps. They provide poles and bait and are there to answer whatever questions you can throw at them.



I had to tear the worms apart and bait every one's hooks for them. Yuck! Last time I went fishing with my mom a few years ago I was still making her do that for me. Well now I'm the only mom around so had to suck it up and do it. I love my mom, I wish she had come with us!

The kids had a blast. It was the first time Kiara's ever been fishing. I showed her one time how to cast out and then BAM! She was doing it on her own like a natural! I told her what a great job she was doing and her reply was "Yeah, I've practiced a lot on the Wii before."

The ranger fishing program was over at 3:30 and we hadn't had any nibbles but the girls wanted to do more fishing so we decided to see if we could go scrounge up some bait and poles of our own.

This is the kind of picture you get when you ask your daughter to hold your camera while you go into the bait shop for some worms. She informed me that it was the stupidest thing she had ever seen and that she hates tomato soup and didn't understand why they needed so much. I figured that was funnier that telling her it was actually a propane tank.

We made a quick stop at Moonshine Cabin (I love, love, love this place!) to grab some poles.

And then headed for the canoes and out onto the lake.

After we got home and were reminiscing on our trip, the consensus was that this was our favorite part of the whole weekend.

Kiara didn't have a whole lot of trust for that canoe and was pretty nervous, as this picture suggests. Every time the canoe rocked a little from the wake of a passing boat she was unable to squelch little squeals of terror.

Once we made it through the sea of lily pads we dropped our worms into the water.
Morgan was the first to get a nibble. We were using bobbers and her pole was old and rusty and didn't reel very well so she had just dropped the line next to the boat. When I told her she had a fish she just yanked the pole up out of the water and flung the fish off the hook and across the lake.

Here's one of the little sunfish we reeled in. When we brought the first one in Deeanna said "Now what are you going to do with it?" She didn't like the cook it & eat it response so we threw 'em all back

Once we had paddled and fished to our hearts content we went back to the cabin for a little R & R. This is the screened in porch at the back of the cabin. The big girls slept out here Friday night but it was a bit too chilly Saturday.

Can you believe after all we'd done throughout the day this kid's telling me how bored she is? Oh wait, she's 8... I can believe it, too!

Morgan left her mark on the place for the next guests. Let's just pretend that there's an "e" on the end of Welcom, shall we? Deeanna fixed it before we left. That night we had went to the Uncertain General Store and Grill (we made sure to be there before 8!) where I had a yummy bowl of crawfish ettouffe and we learned how Uncertain got it's name. It had to do with when back in the day when cargo ships were delivering goods down the river and sometimes they'd have items that lost their destination labels. These goods were marked "Uncertain" and left at the last stop before crossing over into Louisianna. This stop eventually adopted the name and has held onto it to this day. I love these random, useless facts!
After dinner, we went back to the cabin and had a fire in the backyard and made 'smores. Then the kids caught frogs for a while before we settled in to watch Fried Green Tomatoes.

Sunday morning we gathered out things to leave because we had an 11 o'clock boat tour of the lake and wanted to check out the flea market before heading there and then home. Kiara went out to catch some more frogs.

At one point, she had 8 in a cup, holding a coffee filter over them, asking if she could bring them home with us. Ummm.... NO!

We scheduled a tour with John Winn of Caddo Lake Tours. He grew up on the lake and was very knowledgeable about the area. He was also an absolute pleasure to spend an hour with. Unfortunately, it started raining and had to cut our tour short, but mark my words, we WILL be back! I still managed to take some great pictures, and I also happened to learn a couple valuable lessons. Lesson # 1- If you're going out to take pictures, make sure you've deleted plenty of old pictures so that your memory card has sufficient room. Lesson # 2- If you're going to delete old pictures to make room for new picture, pay attention to what you're doing so you don't erase the 50 pictures you JUST took!

I had been teasing the kids that we were going to bigfoot country and look.... we found him!

One last stop in Jefferson at the Jefferson General Store for some souvenirs, Moody dogs & ice cream. We were walking outside and Kiara's ice cream jumped off her cone and onto the sidewalk. I almost took a picture because the diabolical side of me found humor in the scene but I figured it'd be adding insult to injury so I refrained