Itasca Travels 2017: Magnolia Market, and Mistletoe

Wednesday, Feb 15…

No hot water this morning! Spit bath and a cup of heated water to force my hair into some semblance of style. (I often spend much of the night under my pillow; by morning my coiffure looks like it’s been thru electro-shock therapy.) Greg into MacGyver mode again. At the moment he’s tracing the outline of a broken part onto the plastic lid of a discarded peanut can. 😃

(I stole this from the website cuz it
shows almost all the components.)

Like the QFC deli, you get a little pencil and a
check-the-box sheet of options. Works!

Mid-morning we head into Waco (pop 125,000), home to Magnolia Market at the Silos and Silos Baking Company – both extensions of Chip & Joanna Gaines’ Fixer-Upper empire. The bakery was great, and extremely efficient (no crowds in Feb, but spring starts here in about a week and tourists visit this place in hordes). The Magnolia complex takes up a city block, including the original grain barn (now warehouse & store) and silos (which will eventually also be restored and converted to retail use). The bakery (formerly a floral shop where Chip often bought roses for Joanna) is in the right front corner. The remainder of the perimeter is lined with a variety of food trucks, and the remaining inside area is an astro-turf playfield edged with beanbag chairs. For my Seattle readers, I’d compare Magnolia Market itself to Molbak’s home/gift section. Very much the same feel when you walk in. I limited my purchases to a SHIPLAP#

T-shirt. (Greg was happy w/ just his cranberry biscuit.)

Play area
(food trucks and picnic tables out of sight)

No leaves, just balls of mistletoe.

The rest of the day we hung out at the campground, which is gorgeous. Lots of walks, lots of pics. Lots of mistletoe in the trees. (Also washed the MH – lots of work!) We’d like to stay at more Army Corps of Eng campsites, but by now we’re latecomers and many places are already fully booked.

Lake Waco is big (13m²) with a highly irregular shape that yields miles of interesting shoreline. There’s a marina next to the campsite, and the lake is a popular fishing spot.