First Mondays, Big Cats and Little Cats

You can buy just about anything in Canton

Too bad it wasn't open!

Our next stop was the village of Wills Point, near Dallas.  Other than a really nice main street, there wasn’t a lot that was remarkable about the place UNLESS you figure it was 3 miles from Canton, Texas, home of First Mondays.  What are First Mondays, you ask?  Well, the town of Canton is basically closed for 3.5 weeks a month.  Oh sure, there are a couple of restaurants open and a couple of places that sell giant colourful Mexican pots (still haven’t figured out what they’re used for).  But the town is mostly warehouses and parking lots.  Until, that is, the first Monday of the month.  Then the entire town becomes a giant flea market!  All the businesses and restaurants open up, all the parking lots are full and you can’t get into an RV park unless you reserve months in advance!  They even have shuttle buses!  There’s a small group of very old, very colourful buildings called “The Mountain” which is quaint and which would be a real tourist draw if they only opened up more than 1 weekend a month.  It’s a very bizarre thing.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for the actual First Monday because the park we were in was fully booked and we had to go.  We’re definitely going back though!

While we were there, we took a side trip to Tyler Texas to go visit the Big Cat Animal Rescue.  Wow!  We walked around for a couple of hours, gaping in awe at the tigers and lions and cougars and assorted cat critters.  These are all animals who have been rescued from private homes, circuses, etc.  One of the workers was telling us about their idiosyncracies.  There was one cat who hated ATVs and would start howling whenever one appeared so they had to park away from his enclosure and walk in.  Lol!

So, back at home, we were watching TV and a little cat came to the door.   We learned that there were numerous feral cats in the area.  This poor little thing was starving.  Naturally, I threw her some food.  Also, naturally, she came back the next day.  I gave her more food but, instead of eating all of it, she jumped up and just wanted to cuddle!  On the third night, I got her back to my RV and put the food dish inside.  She just came right in and made herself at home.  Mostly, though, she just wanted to cuddle.  So, we called her Myrtle and tried to entice her into using a make-shift litter box.  That freaked her out and she managed to hold it in for 2 days.  Then, with what can only be described as an indescribable sense of relief, she peed all over me.  Ahhhhhhh!

Myrtle making herself at home

I really thought hard about keeping her but it was just too impractical.  Luckily I found the Kaufman Cat Rescue organization and Lynn came out and picked up Myrtle.  I’m happy to report that she was adopted within a week.  Thank heavens!

On our last day in the Dallas area, we picked up our sister-in-law, Lulu Lugnuts, who just retired and decided to come out and play the RV way.  The next day, we took off for Louisiana.