Wednesday 2/23/11

A quick family photo before getting Austin off to school.



Karen and Cam loading the truck and ready to hit the road.

This morning Caralee took us to the Hope Center where she works.  This building is a western mountain-style, 185,000 square foot structure housing 43 different Christian ministries.  The Hope Center was conceived and developed and financed by June Hunt (of the Texas Hunt family) with the purpose of "bringing together like-minded Christian ministries as they work together to fulfill the message of Christ".  It is a beautiful facility that is fully self-contained with convention rooms, a book store, a cafeteria, fitness center, chapel, meditation/prayer room, sound studio, outdoor prayer garden, etc.. We met some of Caralee's co-workers, and her boss who happens to be one of Cam's old Sigma Chi fraternity brothers.

Cam and Caralee inside the lobby of the Hope Center

 As we were heading west out of Plano this morning, Cam decided to call his cousin, Scott, to say hello.  Karen and Cam were happily surprised to learn that Scott had taken the day off work to spend some time at the ranch he shares with his brother, Bart, in Eastland which just happened to be directly on our route to Abilene today.  Scott invited us to meet him at Hardin's BBQ in Eastland for some take-out chopped beef sandwiches.  Cam was greeted as he entered Hardin's by 3 bikers and a biker-chick who wanted to know if he was from anywhere near New York (they saw his NJ license plates), and had he ever heard of Orange County Choppers.  It just so happened that Cam had a collection of photos on his IPad from a trip he took to OCC this past fall.  Cam shared the photos and made some new friends.

After picking up the sandwiches, Karen rode to the ranch with Scott, while Cam followed in our truck.  We took a quick tour of the "lodge", had a picnic lunch on the porch overlooking the lake, then went to feed the cattle.  Our visit with Scott today was a serendipitous detour, and we were grateful for Cam's unplanned urge to give Scott a call this morning.

We finally arrived in Abilene to see Karen's mom (Shirley/Gigi) and Marshall.  Unfortunately, the side-trip to Eastland put us into town too late for Marshall to join us for dinnner because he had a meeting to attend at church this evening.  Shirley, Karen, and Cam had a huge sliced BBQ brisquit and chicken dinner at a local smokehouse.  Karen and Cam were hoping to have a chance to eat a little Texas BBQ on this trip, but we had no idea it was going to be an almost daily staple in our diet.  No complaints.  We can't get BBQ back home, and every time we have BBQ on our travels through the Lone Star State is welcome!

Cam rocks Tippy to sleep.

We drove 288 miles today.