Skip to main content

Caddo Lake


This is a somewhat belated post about our Labor Day weekend away at Caddo Lake, on the Texas - Louisiana border. I've just got the photos up on Facebook which tells most of the story:




It was fun to be camping again - I haven't done that for ages, but I've always enjoyed camping since we had a trailer tent when I was younger. In the States, of course, keeping cool is more of a problem than keeping warm, and the countryside is populated with lots of nasty bugs who thought of me as a tasty picnic. For some reason Graham tastes bad to them, which is totally unfair!


We were right on the border where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas meet, so we drove around a bit just to say that we'd visited each state. To be honest they looked a lot like Texas.


We camped near a little place called Uncertain (which must give rise to endless puns) but the nearest interesting town is a place called Jefferson, which used to be a big inland port - paddle steamers would come all the way up the Red River from New Orleans. In fact Jefferson supplanted a place called Caddo Landing as a port, which used to be pretty much where we were camping, as far as I could tell. It was founded, grew to be a bustling port, and faded away again to the point where there's nothing left in some ridiculously short time - about 60 years! It seems incredible from an English point of view.


It was a good weekend and great to see something which you just can't see in the UK. We just don't have that kind of lake.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu
5 comments
Read more

our new apartment

Moving was a slightly surreal experience given that our new place looks almost exactly the same as the old one, except for being a different layout. That's what you get for living in a throw-'em-up-and-pack-'em-in apartment complex I guess - albeit a very nice one. So, entering apartment 433: To your right is the master bedroom: with en-suite bathroom: and looking back, from your left, that's a walk-in closet, door to the hallway and door to the bathroom: Following the layout so far? OK, go back to the hallway and put your back to the front door again, and this time walk straight forwards into the sitting room: As you can see, ahead of you is the door to the balcony: for which I have grand plans for a herb garden and other plants. Leading off the living room is the dining area: and if you walk through that and round to your right you reach the kitchen: Go back through the living room again: and if you turn right (
3 comments
Read more

Sand, slides and stepping stones

You will probably remember me blogging about Granbury and Dinosaur Valley State Park before - it's a favourite place of ours to take family when they come to visit, or just to hang out ourselves.  Normally we would just do a day trip down there, but this time we decided to make it a weekend. Maddy, Graham and Toby in Granbury Granbury town square was all dressed up for Christmas, with cowboy-hatted Christmas trees and wreaths in every window.  Anthony and Maddy picked up some Texas souvenirs in the stores and we ate lunch in our favourite 50's-themed diner, Rinky-Tinks, with a bit of Elvis on the juke box. In Rinky-Tinks Venturing outside the square for a change, we strolled along a pleasant street and found a park.  Standing in a playground for the afternoon would not previously have been high on our list of weekend-away activities, but having a one-year-old kinda changes your perspective on these things.  Toby discovered slides for the first time and went righ
2 comments
Read more