Texarkana: Tuesday, February 2nd

After a weekend of spending a lot of time in the car, it was pleasant to spend the day on Monday doing nothing but hang out at the campground. There was a playground and a short nature trail but the campground is not in a wonderful location generally. Without question, it’s convenient, when it says it’s right off the I30, it’s not kidding, the traffic noise was really bad. It does have 'the Nation’s only RV Art Gallery', which we looked around – more art ideas for the kids!

After school on Tuesday, the kids and I drove to downtown Texarkana. Now, I’m never really sure what to expect when heading into a new area but Texarkana is pretty quiet, no problem at all to find on-street parking – thank goodness. The city straddles both Texas and Arkansas and is the only place in the US that has a building built on the state line. The Post Office and Court House building is quite impressive. In front of the building is the ‘line’, good for photo ops!

Our next stop was the Draughon-Moore Ace of Clubs House. The online blurb states:

Built in 1885, this Italianate Victorian home is uniquely designed in the shape of a club because money to build the house was from the winnings of a poker game – a lucky draw of the ace of clubs! Filled with fine furnishings of the late 1800’s – 1940’s, the house is regarded as one of the best attractions in the country and has been featured nationally on Bob Villa’s ‘Guide to Historic Homes’. Beautiful grounds complete this picture perfect stop.

We took the guided tour which began with a video from the point of view of the 5 ‘mistresses’ of the house. We were taken around the house which has one rectangular and three octagonal wings that are arranged around a central octagon, which serves as the rotunda of the house – it’s very cool and the set up of the rooms was wonderful.

We learned about the old-style ice boxes. She asked what was missing from the kitchen and it took us a while to figure out that it was a fridge! The ice box was set in a different room, next to the main kitchen area with an opening to the outside, in order that huge ice blocks could be delivered directly into the ‘fridge’ without having to be brought through the house, I guess this would’ve been quite modern at the time. It’s always neat for us all to see what people did before the convenience of our appliances nowadays.

The most fascinating thing for Caitlin and I were the extraordinary number of pairs of shoes on display in Miss Olivia’s room. She was the final resident who willed the house to the museum system on her death in 1985. The shoes were purchased primarily at Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas. All had their original boxes; it would’ve been impossible to have them all out on display, there were so many; mostly beautiful and ornate. Apparently, she would’ve given many pairs to her maid in the past and to others when she was done with them, so this wasn’t even the complete collection – amazing! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside the house so we will have to recall the wonder of the shoes from memory!

We wandered down to the Perot Theater but none of the kids were particularly inclined to take the tour around it; I think they were ‘museum'ed-out’ for the day; glad we saw it though.