My best friend and I are planning a road trip to East Texas on Thursday.

We've both always enjoyed just driving and looking around. Neither of us has been to East Texas in over 20 years so we decided to take a day and just go and look around.
It will be a one day trip over and back. We aren't planning on spending any money except for gas and food. No shopping for us!

Right now the plan is leave really early in the morning and head to Tyler, then move on down through Jacksonville and Rusk --then make our way towards Palestine and then back up to Denton County.

We just want to look around. See what it looks and feels like and see what might be for sale and how much its going for these days.

Hubby is nearing retirement. We've been talking about moving out somewhere and he expects me to do the majority of the leg work.

So I did some. The only place we haven't marked off our list of possibilities is East Texas!

So you guys out that direction keep an eye out for us.

Coming through Jacksonville to Rusk, you'll go right past the Cherokee County Master Gardeners demonstration garden. You should drop by for a short look at the garden - it looks really good right now and it's a pretty nice garden considering it's done by a group of only about 20 people.

And if you're looking for a nice brick 3 bedroom home in the country on 4 acres but only 4 miles from downtown Jacksonville, I can help with that.

Well we just might be interested!

Though not quite ready to put the money down.
We're just sight seeing and looking around to see if its worth dragging hubby out to take a look.

How will we find the demonstration garden?

Just come down Highway 69 from Tyler into Jacksonville. Go through town and at the end of town, turn left on the loop 456.

Go half a mile and turn right into the Texas Forest Service. You'll see the signs behind the building to go to the demo garden. If the gate is closed, just open it up and walk right in!

Jacksonville is a 'nice' small town, I think. Close enough to bigger cities for convenience, but not so close as to feel like a suburb. At least it was in 1987. But if Trish and Dave moved the family there, it has to still have superior qualities.

Thanks Dave... don't know when we'll get there.. not even sure what time we're gonna hit the road or where else we're going along the way!

Jacksonville is definitely among the higher quality "small communities" of east or central Texas. I feel like I know almost all regions of the state very well. We visited and lived all over the state and we specifically chose Jacksonville as our settling down area.

There is a lot of land available for very cheap. Property taxes are comparatively low. There are many homes available with large lots (a few acres with a house is common).

Made it back home! It was a great day and a wonderful road trip. We loved Lindale, Tyler and the area on the way to Jacksonville. Just wonderful. Jacksonville was much larger than we expected and we really liked it. Rusk and over to Palestine we didn't like as much. We just didn't 'feel' the same in those places as we did in the others.

Then we headed up to Frankston, and then to Chandler along county roads. From there we headed along county roads towards Canton making our way back to 20 just east of Canton. We decided we like the scenery further east much better.

We were surprised at how quickly we made it from town to town. There's so much more to see out there we're going to have to make several more trips just to cover the areas we want to take a closer look at!

Because several people told me to, we did stop at Chamblee's , we walked and looked and said.."ok.. we've been here" and left.

I'm not buying one more plant until I have a spot for it and ready to put it in ground.

We found the Cherokee County Master Gardeners demonstration garden. My friend took a bunch of really nice photos of the butterflies there. Its a lovely garden and we were both just amazed at the tomato plants there! Someone needs to get out there and start picking.

I can't wait for another road trip. We really did have a great time and laughed a lot. My phone only rang once: hubby at 4pm wanting to know were we were and when we'd be back. Not that he had a clue where Palestine is!


We got back home and told him to start packing!

When the time comes, I'll be calling on you Dave!

Jacksonville is much closer to Tyler than I thought!
We're going to be checking out a lot of areas out there over the next few years.
Then narrow down what we really think we're looking for.

Thanks for speaking up about the area and giving more insight into it.

Until I came to this forum I had never heard of Jacksonville, Tx!
After watching your barn go up, I figured that if you moved there I should take a look at it.

Thank you Debra for your comments as well. I'm happy to say we haven't crossed that one off the list!

Melvalena said:We found the Cherokee County Master Gardeners demonstration garden. My friend took a bunch of really nice photos of the butterflies there. Its a lovely garden and we were both just amazed at the tomato plants there! Someone needs to get out there and start picking.

Those are my plants. Ordered them new this year from a company that Horseshoe recommended. Glad you enjoyed the garden!

See? I really was there!



Some of the tomato plants :


Kelly's favorite photo:



My favorite: (I stopped the car, backed up and made her take the photo!)


It was between Rusk and Palestine, closer to Palestine I think. We had just been talking about wanting to have a house with a "big gazebo" on top to take in the view. Then we saw that and had to pull over. It was great.

We told hubby about it and he called it a widow's walk.. but Kelly and I are picturing something much larger and more comfortable than just a widow's walk.
Something that we can winterize so it can be use comfortably year round.

The kind of view we really liked:

Great photos!!

On another exploring trip check out the area from Tyler toward Shreveport LA. Spend some time in Longview, Kilgore, and Marshall.

Yes Cawcaw! We plant to do that!

Go to Marshall for the pots too!

Huh? pots in Marshall? but we have a pact not to spend any money!

Oops, don't go to Marshall then. Just breeze on by......

Melvalena ~ seeing as you are shopping through the east Texas area, you might enjoy this site. http://www.texascooppower.com/ It has lots of interesting information. Kristi

Pod, I love that magazine! We get ours because of the lakehouse. Some of the articles are different for areas. I figured that out when certain letters to the editor would be about something I hadn't remembered reading. I look forward to the photo page where there's always a theme.

In a recent issue, there was even an article about keyhole beds, a permaculture gardening concept!!