That’s exactly where Joey and I wanted to go for our third anniversary, and that’s exactly what we got. Joey’s friend recommended the Alexander Bed and Breakfast in Gainesville, TX so he booked the country cottage for us for two nights, and we drove out on Friday afternoon last week to spend two days with the squirrels. It was absolutely delightful, and just what we needed.
We drove up the windy, wooded driveway and saw the big house straight in front of us. It has six bedrooms for rent. Off to the left, which we didn’t get a picture of, is a small, two-story guest house.
Our cottage, though, was off to the right and down a gravel driveway a bit. It was mostly shielded from the view by a row of conifers, and the porch which ran along the entire front of the cottage, looked straight out into the woods. LOVELY.
We got checked in and into the cottage by about 1:30. Joey, unfortunately, had some homework to finish up real quick and wanted to get it done first thing. So I left him by himself and took Bentley, the owner’s dog, and went on an Adventure Walk all by myself.
I brought along my camera, but just as I was getting ready to take a picture of a very pretty flower, Bentley sat on it.
You can sort of see it there under his bum.
Shortly after leaving on this walk by myself, I stepped on a thorn which broke off in my foot. So there I was. Stuck in the middle of a forest, off the trail, with a thorn shoved deep into my foot…and no cell phone.
I hobbled back to the country cottage we had all to ourselves and spent the next twenty minutes digging the thorn pieces out of my foot. I couldn’t get it all. This, unfortunately, wound up wrecking half our plans for the weekend, because we had intended to go on hikes quite a bit of the time.
Not to be dissuaded, we went into Whitesboro and had a very romantic and lovely dinner at Pete’s BBQ (where the cashier asked us if we were “from around here”) before hitting the small grocery store to buy Epsom salt, Band-Aids, Neosporin, and something for lunch on Saturday.
My foot pretty much hurt worse on Saturday, but we ventured out on a hike just the same. I had forgotten tennis shoes (and about five other necessities…I don’t usually pack that badly, but I was so excited about getting out of town that I must have lost my head) and Joey teased me relentlessly about not having “appropriate footwear” like he did.
But that’s why I love him. He makes me laugh.
Before leaving on the walk, we examined the llama which was sitting under some shade trees near the entrance of B&B property.
“Please get me that llama,” I asked Joey.
“You have nowhere to keep it…” he reminded me.
“Oh. Well then do you think it would eat me if I got in there and tried to pet it?” I asked, inching toward the fence.
“Um, you can try,” Joey said, noncommitally.
In the end, I didn’t try to pet the llama. It had a tricksy look in its eye.
Further down along the fence row, we did open the gate and walk through the pasture over to the oil pump so we could get a closer look. It was during this cross-pasture walk that I got bit by my very first fire ant — it hurt. Now I truly feel Texan. (Joey reminded me that if I had “appropriate footwear” I would have not gotten bit by a fire ant.)
After discovering that the oil pump was cool, but not that cool, we hit the trails.
It was very muddy, and very dark in the forest. Bentley came along with us for fun, but he got bored of our walk after a very short time and we didn’t see him again the rest of the day. (But we know he was around because he managed to steal and chew up one of Joey’s tennis shoes, which we found on Monday morning up at the big house.)
There were beautiful flowers.
And lots of mud.
But, all in all, it was the best weekend I can recall spending in a very long time. Fourty-eight hours of just me and Joey, God’s creation, and quiet. Ahhhh…
