19 Years and We Still Can’t Get it Right

Sir D and I left Friday afternoon for Canton Texas to camp at Purtis Creek State park and pop over to the giant garage sale that is First Monday Trade Days in Canton.

All started out well, we pulled into the campsite at about 4pm. This was our view.

Nice! It was a wee bit cold, the mercury registering at about 30 degrees, but we had a nice warm camper. I made a nice dinner of stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes and salad, and a nice glass of merlot. Pretty fancy for camping, no?


We even had candles.


We went to bed Friday night and that’s when things started to go awry. See, I’ve been trying to fight off a cold since last Saturday. I’d planned to pop in to the dr’s office on Friday before we left just to see if it was turning into an infection, but it seemed to be getting better so I let it go. Well, it hit turbo on Friday night. I coughed all night. Serious, cough up a lung, turn blue, can’t catch your breath, coughing. It was crazy. Saturday morning my fever was back, my throat was killing me and I sounded like I had a three pack a day habit. Happy anniversary, babe! Come kiss me! Cough cough, hack hack! Romantic, yes?

So we started out our day by going to the CVS for cough drops and Tylenol for me and high doses of zinc and vitamin C for Sir D. We then asked around for some sort of Care Now type clinic. Apparently Canton is not as big of a place as I thought because, no, there is no such place. They suggested a hospital ER down the way. Great. I’m going to the ER for a cough. This will cost me a $100 co pay. If I’d just done it on Friday at my regular dr (who I’m sure could have gotten me in) it would have cost me $20.

So off we go in search of the ER. We get there, sign in and wait, and wait and wait in a room full of people who either have exactly what I have or do indeed have a three pack a day smoking habit. I finally find out that I do not have strep, even though my throat is on fire, but instead bronchitis, sinusitis and an irritated throat (really?) Prescriptions in hand we head out. It was a nice surprise to find out that what we thought was an ER was actually a walk in clinic and they only charged us $20. YIPPEE!

So back we go to the CVS to get the meds. This was our third time in the CVS since we stopped there on our way into town for directions. They now know us by name there. The lady behind the counter told me she was glad it was not strep and only bronchitis. The man in line behind me agreed. Strep is much worse he says. Ahh, small town life.

Now that I’m appropriately drugged up we grab some yummy lunch at a little Mexican place and head out to Canton. We get out of the car to roam around the open air market and…it’s snowing. Yes folks, snowing. But we’ve worked too hard to get here to give up now. I want to find the perfect butter dish. It’s all that I want. A butter dish. I’m not leaving Canton till I find the perfect, unique, butter dish. Snow or freezing temps and a breeze that cuts right through you, be darned! We donned our coats and hats and headed out.

HOLY COW it was cold. After about 2 hours I thought I was going to die. Turns out, antibiotics to do not cure you in 20 minutes and being out in the freezing temps may not have been the smartest decision.

We finally came upon a pretty milk glass butter dish; not exactly what I had in mind, but it’d do. We headed back to the car having only seen probably .087 percent of First Monday Trade Days. Once we got back to the RV and I stopped coughing enough to catch my breath, we decided we needed a little nap. 30 minutes maybe. An hour and a half later we woke up. Woops.

Next on the agenda was a movie. I had looked around before we left on our trip, to find the nearest theater that was playing Sherlock Homes. It was about 30 minutes away. We drove out to Athens Texas in search of Sherlock. The theater where the movie was playing was hidden behind a department store with the smallest sign ever. It took some doing to locate the place.

Once we got there we were loathe to discover that Sherlock homes was no longer playing and our only choices were some movie about the tooth fairy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, (hello! Adult time here! I think NOT) and two movies that were scary, about death and dismemberment and murdered children. Not quite anniversary celebration fare. So we headed back into Athens proper and had a nice dinner at Mazzio’s Pizza.

We then stopped at a store for a bottle of wine. Upon perusing the store we came upon a bottle of Mead. How cool? And historic! The Homeschooler in me could not pass this up. How many stories have I read where they warmed up around the camp fire in the Middle Ages while drinking mead? And it was Irish Mead! The drink of my people! So we bought it.

We came back to the camp site, put on our warm fuzzy pj’s, stuck a DVD in the player and opened the bottle of Mead.

Turns out? Mead is disgusting! There is a reason we’ve moved from honey to the lovely grape as our choice for a fermented drink.

So far, our anniversary trip is turning into a typical trip for my family, nothing ever goes as expected and I have much blogging fodder when I get home.

Next post, I’ll tell you of Sunday, the last day of our trip, where we got stuck in the mud, badly, and there was a front end loader involved…and goats.