The Travels of the Agnew Family

Har-Ber Village can be found on the scenic shoreline of Grand Lake O'The Cherokees of Northeastern Oklahoma just outside of Grove, Oklahoma about an hours drive from Bella Vista, Arkansas. Jean was the only person from our group that had visited the village but we trusted her judgment when she said that we would like it and like it we did. It is not just a collection of "pioneer buildings and their furnishings" but a collection of a lot of collections. Can you image a collection of 700 types of barbed wire? There was pottery, bricks, dresses, hats, military items, Indian artifacts, farm equipment and much, much more. To see more about Har-Ber Village go to http://www.har-bervillage.com/home.html


Harold, Zaph and I walking through one of the buildings holding some of the collections.


The buildings were taken apart at their original locations and rebuilt when they arrived at Har-Ber Village. Many times original furnishings were found in the buildings sometimes stored in attics.


Some of the grounds and the church.


The music building.


Some of the farm implements.

Two years ago, Ed and I stopped in Bella Vista for a visit with our friends Bob and Jean. A short drive took us to Bentonville and Walmart Museum housed in the original five and dime store that Sam Walton founded. While there we got directions to Crystal Bridges Museum of Art that was currently under construction. The Museum was finally opened on 11-11-11. When Jean and Bob suggested that we stop on the way home to visit the museum we jumped on it.

Alice Walton, Sam Walton's only daughter is the driving force behind the museum. If you want to read more about the museum go to http://crystalbridges.org/

Ed and I were both suitably impressed when we saw the finished building. The building itself is a work of art and it is set in "natures art". It's worth the trip just to see the building. Currently, admissions are covered by Walmart which is an added bonus.


The museum restaurant is set in a "pod" with glass walls overlooking the water and the museum pods.


The "last supper" is reproduced upside down using spools of thread suspended on cords (or some such thing). Looking through the sphere sharpens the image and turns it right side up.


This bird looks like it's going to fly out of the picture and reminds me of the movie "The birds".


We walked outside and enjoyed the gardens and the view of the museum.




One of the many outdoor works of art.


Looking down from the restaurant area at a lower patio and two of the pods containing part of the American Art Collection.

After dinner we drove over to Bob and Jean's house to admire the Dog Wood Trees.





Zaph was happy when he found a stick under the leaves.


Zaph and Gypsy. Something must smell good here.

A couple of years ago when we visited our friends in Bella Vista we saw Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville under construction. It was finally finished enough to open on 2011-11-11. So, when Bob and Jean invited us to stop on the way home to see the finished Crystal Bridges we jumped at.

Bella Vista has a cute RV park at the Blowing Springs Park. You must be a member of Bella Vista or a guest of a member in order to use the park. Luckily our friends Bob and Jean are members.


Glenn (Bob's brother), Linda, Gypsy, Harold and Mary Ann also stop at Bella Vista. We came from two different places and arrived with 5 minutes of each other. Glenn, Linda and Gypsy were parked beside us and Harold and Mary Ann were parked behind us at Oleander Acres.


There were two geocaches in the park and Ed couldn't wait to find them. He went straight up the hill instead of following the path. Lucky he isn't allergic to poison ivy.


There is always a cool breeze coming off of the spring.


Boys will be boys ... Glenn climbing the rocks to look at a cave.

Eisenhower State Park is on Lake Texoma near the Texas Oklahoma border. A couple of years ago we stopped here and enjoyed it so we stopped again. We arrived at the park at 2:30 so we had a few hours to explore the park finding geocaches. Six geocaches were found with three of them being found by me. The other three were in bushy areas that I refused to go into.


The dam that created the lake.




A watershed area across from the dam.

Carol, Darryl and Sarah stopped by for a visit this morning before hitting the road for home. Darryl's mom turns 95 this year so they are planning a visit to Ontario so it won't be long till we see them again.

Ed had seem a number of airplanes flying over the RV the last couple of days, so he decided that we should check the airport out. Turned out the airport was bigger than he expect but he did get to watch this plane take off and land a few times.




This little guy was watching the planes as well or not.

My sister Carol, brother-in-law Darryl and great niece Sarah drove from Tyler to Georgetown for a weekend visit. On Friday evening we had a nice visit and a spaghetti dinner at the trailer. Saturday we combined some geocaching and a event for children at the local park by the RV park.


There were lots of kids at the event.


Zaph managed to get some attention. The little girl had want to pet a dog which jumped a lot, so when the older girl saw Zaph, the older girl decided that he would be a better dog for her sister to pet and asked if it was OK.


One of the things the kids could do was throw a spear using a spear throwing device (it's got a name but I don't remember it). Sarah did pretty good.


Another activity was building a rattle using a stick, dried grass and beads. Darryl helped Sarah to make her rattle. At another station the kids drew on rocks.


Sarah with one of the caches, or treasures as she called them. Hanging out at the pool after a tiring day.

Sarah had a great time "treasure hunting". Ed showed her how to use the GPS to track down the location of the treasures. She was also pretty good at finding the caches. Watch out Darryl, you might have to buy a hand held GPS and start geocaching.

Decided to check out downtown Georgetown today. The fellow at the information center told us the town was named after a man named George ... you couldn't have guessed that could you. George Washington Glassock, Jr. donated the land for the town. The downtown area isn't very big but it's cute. We stopped for lunch at a bistro on the square and enjoyed local artists works on the walls.


The court house is in the middle of the square and is very majestic with it's domed roof.


There were many interesting statues around the square, a huge scorpion, a preying mantis, mules being watered and this lady on a bench.


The church was built in the late 1881 and is in it's third location. These days it mostly used for weddings. The Palace Theater was built in 1925.

Ed realized that he hadn't downloaded the little camera for awhile and found these photos on it.

Back on March 7, we went out for Sushi. John had tried some of the sushi that is sold at the grocery store and was interested in trying some real sushi ... i.e. the kind with raw fish. As Ed and I enjoy Sushi we said we'd be happy to go with him. Carol said she'd go if she didn't have to eat Sushi.


The Sushi for two dinner that Ed and John shared. I had my own Sushi for one dinner .... pretty much the same thing but not as pretty.


Carol opted for shrimp tempura.

John enjoyed the sushi but won't rush out and have it again. Ed and I were impressed that both John and Carol persevered and used chop sticks for the entire meal. If you saw Carol with the chop sticks you would have thought she had used them for years ... she said it was from years of writing on a blackboard.

Eddie511 a fellow geocacher told us about a top rated cache in Austin. As it was easy to include Austin in our route home we decided to find this cache. It's actually a like a treasure hunt as you find the first item and it gives you clues to the next item and so on till you finally reach the cache.

We had a little trouble finding the second stop but once we found that one we were off to the races.

The first clue took us to downtown Austin to a monument maker just outside of Oakwood Cemetery. You guessed it the next stop was in the cemetery looking for a particular headstone.


Third stop was another part of the cemetery and another head stone.


Next stop was Glorious Lagoon where we wandered the grounds looking for the next clue which was the wishing well.


After climbing the more than 100 stairs up Mount Bonnell in Covert park we were rewarded with beautiful views of Lake Austin.


This beautiful building is a Tuscan restaurant. Thought about stopping for a bite to eat but we had Zaph with us and there was no shade in parking area. The architecture of this building gave us our final clues to find the cache.


The cache is on the property of the fellow who created the cache. The trail is lined with many eerie sites.




The cache!!!!


Dad, can I climb the ladder too!


View of the fellows property from the top of the ladder.


Turns out the property with the cache on it is for sale .... because he's building a new house.

Monday and Tuesday were spent getting ready to leave, doing last minute errands, answering computer and photography questions (Ed) and playing cards (me). Today we start the trek home. As we're planning some stops along the way it's going to take us 10 days to make the journey home. First stop Georgetown Texas, about 20 miles north of Austin. We'll spend five nights here as we are meeting my sister, brother-in-law and great-niece for the weekend.

Jean and Bob left on Tuesday and e-mailed me the location of some beautiful wild flowers at a parking area on highway 35 just south of San Antonio.

Today is my birthday and we are celebrating Mary and Harold's birthdays as well. The morning started with an outdoor breakfast consisting of juice, coffee, fruit salad and home made cinnamon rolls. Yum! Thanks Rosetta and Jean for the cinnamon rolls --- they were delicious.

After breakfast a bunch of us visited and played Bean Bag Throw and Ring Toss. A nice lazy way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Red Lobster was the choice for dinner. We had to wait a bit but they managed to seat the fifteen of us together. After dinner I played hand foot. All in all a pretty perfect day.


Something interesting down there.




Can we have some?





Me, Harold and Mary


The group --- from the right Herb, Rosetta, Harold, Lois, Bob, Jean, Zaph, Harold, Maryanne, Glenn, Norma, Linda, Mary, Ed, myself, Gypsy Jewel


Rosetta had wanted to take a picture of Ed and me at breakfast but I put it off till just before we left for dinner. Thanks for the last three photos Rosetta.


Each person celebrating a birthday received a complementary desert with candle and song.

The group celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a barbecue. You can count on Cheryl to make any event fun. She brought the green and everyone had fun with it.
















Relaxing with the boys.


Gypsy looking beautiful as ever.

at least for me. Rosetta arranged a lunch out for a dozen women at a local Tea Room. Very good food and a lot of fun. Ed ran some errands and did a little geocaching well I was out, so he was happy too.


The ladies ... thanks Rosetta

Forgot to mention, we saw the movie John Carter. Ed really enjoyed it, I thought it was pretty good, John needs to see it again to figure out all the nuances and Carol said it was OK. The series books (Barsoom) the movie was based on was written in 1911 by Edgar Rice Burroughs of Tarzan fame and is thought to be the first modern day science fiction book. My source (Ed) tells me that many science fiction shows, movies, book have borrowed some of their ideas from Barsoom.

John, Carol, Caitlin and Justice (the cat) left today for Big Bend National Park. They weren't in a hurry as they were only driving 250 miles, so they finished packing this morning, spent a bit of time saying good-bye to people, and hitched up. That's when the fun started. The brake controller for the trailer brakes wouldn't activate the trailer brakes. Lots of fiddling, a call to the brake controller company and still no brakes. At this point the guys decided the brake controller was broken and a new one was needed. Luckily, they decided to call around to see who carried that brand of brake controller before they drove off. After the 3rd phone call a dealer was found but no one was available to check the brake controller till one o'clock. At this point Ed decided to take the cover off the brake controller and have a look. Turned out the brake controller was fine, the plastic wheel that change the settings was broken. The brake controller was set appropriately, installed in the truck and tested. Yeah!!! it worked. John, Carol, Caitlin and Justice departed two hours late but it was only 11:50.

Ed and I left shortly after to run some errands and when we returned a couple of hours later I was very sad to see the empty spot where John, Carol, Caitlin and Justice's trailer had been.

Plans for going home have been made, reservations booked and stocking up has started. Won't be long and we'll be on the road heading home.

Things are starting to wind down as we think about heading home. A number of people have left already and others have started packing. People have also been doing the "We want to invite you to dinner before you leave" so we've also done a fair bit of eating.

Sunday we did our last "smoke" .... salmon. Hard to believe but it was even better than the first time we smoked it. John and Ed were given instructions to buy enough salmon for two meals. It's wonderful warm on Sunday and even better cold on Wednesday with a salad and fresh sour dough bread.

On Monday, Glenda and Ron hosted a dinner party for six of us; John, Carol, Gayle, Carol, Ed and myself. Dinner was grilled venison steaks wrapped in bacon, roasted vegetables, roasted potatoes and onions and salad. Hm, hm, good! Think this was the first time I've eaten venison steaks and I'd eat them again.

After dinner we were all sitting at the table chatting when John looked like he was gagging ... it took a minute then we realized that he wasn't breathing. Ed and I knew the Heimlich maneuver needed to be performed and Ed was ready to do it but as both Gayle and Carol were retired nurses it made more sense for one of them (Gayle, he's a big guy) to do the maneuver. Gayle. In a couple of seconds John breathing again .... and so was I.

On Tuesday, Jim and Esther had a dinner party, inviting John, Carol, Cheryl, Eva, Ed and I. Esther made a Mennonite Chicken Pot Pie..... yum. Happily no excitement after dinner.

Just noticed that we seem to be doing interesting things every other day. This does not mean we are sitting in front of the TV eating bonbons the other days. For example, yesterday I defrosted the refridgerator, did three loads of laundry, cleaned the trailer, went grocery shopping, baked Pupcakes and blueberry cottage pudding for desert ... Ed sat in front of the TV and ate bonbons .... just kidding (he taught a photography course, went shopping, walked Zaph and ate the blueberry cottage pudding).

As Cait's first birthday party was such fun, her parents decided to throw a party to celebrate her second birthday. This year about 20 adults and seven dogs attended ... yup even people without dogs came. The weather only partially co-operated, no rain but it was chilly.


Cait came over to show us her birthday bandanna ... yes Cait, red is your color.


Trying on the party hats.


Should I wear the doggles? ... don't think so


Pupcakes and birthday cake. The pupcakes ingredients are: an egg, flour, carrots, peanut butter and honey; icing is cream cheese and peanut butter; the decorations are dog treat. Ed and John sampled the pupcakes minus the decorations and said they were tasty.


Ready to party ... sunglasses were a better choice. Gives Zaph the celebrity look.


Where's the party?


Hi big guy? What's with the hat?


Yum.... that pupcake was good.


I wasn't the only one with hat, gloves and winter coat. Don't think it was even 60F.


Presents!!!! Gotta try this toy out.


Even found some time to wrestle.


Thanks for the great portrait Jean and photo shop.

Ed has seen La Joya Lake on the local maps for years and decided that today was the day we were going there. La Joya is about 15 minutes west of us. There was only one problem with Ed's plan ... you can't get there from here, at least not as the general public. Found two driveways into the lake, one was a private fishing and hunting club and the other one had a big gate with lots of padlocks on it emitting a huge sense of PRIVATE. Even though we didn't see the lake we still had fun geocaching.

One of our stops was at the Hand Drawn Ferry crossing in Los Ebanos. We had heard the ferry wasn't running this year but found that information to be incorrect when we arrived in Los Ebanos. In fact, a new customs building is under construction. We chatted with some winter Texans who explained they were there to purchase some duty free liquor. The procedure is purchase liquor at the duty free store, the store takes the liquor to the border, the purchaser walks down to the ferry after paying the dollar fee to ride the ferry, the purchaser then rides the ferry to Mexico and remains on the ferry and rides back to the US, the purchaser then goes through US customs with the the duty free liquor. If you time it right it takes less than 15 minutes to ride back and forth and go through customs.


One of the caches was at a National Wildlife area. Didn't see any wildlife but did see this moth/butterfly (how do you tell the difference?)


Two more caches were at this cemetery. Mexicans fill their cemeteries with flowers and decorations.


The cache was called Fidel's Stogie ... we were in the town of Havana and the cache was a cigar container.


While looking for another cache we came across these burned / burning fields. Our neighbor says it's a method of weed control used when fields are irrigated and the owner doesn't want chemicals to leach out.


The "Big Tree". Ed and I have been here before but John and Carol hadn't. This is a 900 year old Montezuma Cypress. Yes, there was a cache here but we opted to pass on it as it was in the middle of a scrubby area with 2 foot tall weeks all around.


The Big Tree is south of the wall (built to keep Mexicans out) but there is a break in the wall so we went through. The breaks in the wall are for the farmers who have fields south of the wall. Not sure that this wall has stopped any Mexicans from illegally entering the US.

Finally time and weather co-operated so we were able to visit Estero Llano Grande State Park. It's about a 1/2 hour drive from the park and for some reason we had trouble getting there this year. It was a tad on the windy side so a lot of birds were hunkered down but we did manage to see a number of aquatic birds.








and turtles sunning themselves.


I think these are stilts (they were far away) --- we were on top of the levy attempting to not be blown away.


One of my favorites .... Roseate Spoonbills


The vultures seemed to be enjoying the wind.


Everyone was staring across the pond at the Night Herons until I spotted this one a little further down the path but on our side of the pond.


I'm guessing that this may be a wild poppy of some sort. There were a number of yellow ones as well.


The cacti are very happy with the recent rains. The prickly pear are covered in babies.


I thought this guy was very cute.


these ones too!

Today the people in the park celebrated 50th, 60th and 65th wedding anniversaries as well as over 90 birthdays and farewell, people no longer returning to the park. Two of our friends, Herb and Rosetta, celebrated their 50th anniversary this year.


The card table


Herb is in the purple shirt and Rosetta is in green


It was a picture perfect day today so we decided that we needed to go for a walk to really enjoy it. John, Carol and Cait join us for a walk at Bentsen State Park.


Ed and John finally found the cache that we had searched for a couple of times.


Cait was very curious about the butterfly.

Stopped by the office this morning to see if there was any mail for us. I was expecting a bill but instead received two good pieces of mail. One contained 2 gift cards for dog food. The store I buy Zaph's dog food was out of the "dog rolls" I always buy and the clerks there thought they weren't carrying it anymore. As Zaph really likes them I e-mailed the manufacturer to ask why the store wasn't carrying it any more and where I could buy it in the valley. A few days later I received a call from the manufacturer's rep who said there was a computer glich but the store would be carrying it in the future and to compensate me for my troubles he would send me a gift card for a roll of dog food and a second gift card for a bag of dry dog food.

The second piece of mail was from Zaph's uncle Jack. There was an early birthday card for me and a bandanna for Zaph.

Another beautiful morning for walking on the beach. Though some preferred to spend their time digging.




A new bar and grill was built last summer beside the hotel. The stored chairs begged Ed to take an art shot.


Time to load the truck and head back to Mission. Zaph and Cait decided to help take the luggage cart back into the hotel.

Had a bit of a shock driving back to the RV park. As we drove inland the temperature kept rising. It was 95F and humid at the RV park. First job was to turn on the air conditioning, second job was to bathe Zaph, third job was to mow the lawn. It seemed like our yard became a jungle in the couple of days we were gone. As the evening cooled a little, Ed decided to mow. Saturday was going to be cooler but there was rain in the forecast so he thought he better get it done. Looks very nice now.

Another beautiful day on the island. The morning was spent on the beach enjoying the surf and sand. The afternoon was spent with the guys flying kites and the girls watching the kite flyers and reading. In the evening we went to what is becoming our favorite restaurant on the island .... Daddy's. It's a Louisiana style seafood restaurant. As none of us have ever eaten Alligator we decided to share the Alligator appetizer. You guessed it --- tastes like chicken.


La Quinta Inn --- the beach is just past the line of lawn chairs.


Zaph, Caity and Gypsy enjoying the beach.


Zaph's head seems to gotten large compared to his feet ... maybe too much salt water.




Caity's learning to catch balls too.


The flats on the bay side. This is the location of the kite festival.