Some of the rest areas have the most beautiful views.

Looking out on the 9 mile ridge above lies a valley where an Indian trail and later a pioneer road crossed. In 1846 this became known as McKee's Gap after Thomas McKee led a group of Presbyterians here from Tennessee. Around 1900 John Wesley Love developed a 600 acre Peach Orchard there and this point became known as Love's Lookout.

Thank you Cooley Bay Winery, a Harvest Host in Van Alstyne, TX, for letting us spend Sat. night with you. We won't have far to go tomorrow. We are heading to a state park about 40 miles west of here and north of Dallas/Fort Worth but they didn't have an opening Sat. night.

Another Charcuterie tray for dinner and Pat did a flight taste-testing. They even had live music. Enjoyed visiting with a nice couple from near Chicago, Shelly and Steve, who are also spending the night here with Harvest Hosts. Learned, or rather tried to learn, how to play Monopoly Deal.

Thank you Valle Della Pace Vineyards and Winery in Garden Valley, TX for participating in the Harvest Host program and letting us spend Friday night.

A nice charcuterie board and we came away with 2 bottles of wine and a port.

No, he's not real.

The largest quilt store in Texas. It was nice and had a lot of premade quilt kits, but after having been to Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton, MO it would take a lot to impress me!

I wanted a t-shirt but this display was too hard to watch. 

Alexa is a member of Deer Park's Art Park Players.

We split a sandwich. Neither of us were fans of having french fries ON the sandwich.

Deep fried Oreos or Twinkies for dessert.

A couple of pictures on the camera from our trip to Galveston Island State Pstk.

Where are the Piepers now? Van Alstyne, TX

Family fun

Who wouldn't like to throw noodles at a few family members?

Eric's Dutch Baby Pancake was delicious.

Toni gave her family a scratch-off book for Christmas filled with fun activites. You don't know the activity until you scratch it off and then you MUST complete it. We paired off and took turns catching noodles. Some of us were trying to play more fair than others!  We had to count our noodles to find the winning team. 

We had 3 girls with nothing to do one night so we agreed to go to Seabrook Waffle Co. for dinner. I had the strawberry, banana and Nutella waffle. One of Seabrook's Pelican Statues sits there.

Then we played Treking the National Parks. Lilah was the winner with Alexa second

Teddy had to have another surgery. I patched him a year ago but someone rubs him on that spot every night.

The Giant Swallowtale was perhaps the largest butterfly I've ever seen. In fact, it is the largest butterfly in North America.

These curls were found on the bathroom floor when Mom and Dad were out of town. We're hoping Lilah had a trim and Clara wasn't trying out a pair of scissors.

Alexa wanted to see some constellations. Too bright when we were in San Antonio so last Friday we went to Galveston Island State Park for one night for some stargazing.

There is a bay side and a beach side. The beach side had been closed since we started going to Galveston 4 years ago but reopened this spring. We got one spot (no hook-up loop) on the beach side for just the one night.

It is a beautiful park. We had a view of the ocean and only had to cross the dunes to get to the beach. 

After viewing the sky we watched a movie, stayed up late. All of us were very tired.

What a fun time!

We started out with something from Sonic.

The girls couldn't wait to see the beach Friday night.

They said they wouldn't get wet! Red flag warning with big waves. 

Clara helping Alexa check out her constellation book.

A predicted rainy day for Friday turned out nice and the predicted cloudy night gave us a beautiful starry show. By 10:30 fog was heavy but we had seen what we came for.  S'mores while we waited for the stars. 

An app, Stellarium, gave us real-time stars and constellations at Jamaica Beach. Alexa had already pointed them out though. She came prepared. Her favorite I think was seeing Mars.

We were out swimming early Sat. morning. A great day for the beach. 

Last weekend I was breakdancing, this week I tried the boogie board.

Taking their oath as Junior Rangers. 

We had to be out of our campsite by noon. Might have been Clara's first trip to IHOP.

Heading to The Strand we saw a couple of cruise ships in. We had a view of Carnival Vista's top deck waterpark and rope course. 

Our final stop: LaKing's Confectionery on The Strand in Galveston. Ice Cream and candy, a must stop.

Where are the Piepers now? Houston, TX