Does Mike Weston ride off into the sunset?

A quick catch up, Wednesday the 11^th we left Bridgeport Texas on Rt 380 and passed north of Dallas/Ft Worth. The area gradually became suburban as we neared Dallas and soon we were passing shopping centers and housing developments. East of Dallas the countryside became more like what we’re used to seeing in the east, green shrubbery and trees, Millie even said “this could be anywhere”.

We overnighted at another lakeside Thousand Trails Campground, this one called Lake Tawakoni. This lake like the one at Bridgeport has very low water; each of them looked to me as if the water level was down 12-15 feet. They must have gone through a long drought period here.

On Thursday we drove to the Texas/Arkansas border and a campground with cable TV. As I said in a pervious blog it was paramount that we had cable so we could watch the last episode of the show, Burn Notice.

The show which has aired on the USA network for seven years is about Mike Weston a sullen ex- CIA operative who lives in Miami.  Besides trying to right the contrived charges that got him expelled from the CIA, the episodes often had him helping people who had been wronged and the matter couldn’t be righted through legal means. If you’ve read any of John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, you pretty much have the gist of the story line. In Burn Notice Mike’s cohorts are Fiona, his trigger happy ex-girlfriend. and Sam Axe, a tropical shirt wearing, beer swigging retired FBI agent/Navy SEAL. The sometimes campy episodes often have MacGyver like munitions made with everyday materials and other unrealistic special effects. Of course the good guys always win.

After six successful seasons the powers that be decided to end the show. The entire seventh season leads up to the final episode which we saw on Thursday. How did it end, we almost didn’t get to find out ourselves. After watching an all day marathon of this years episodes the cable went out just before the finale. In the spirit of TV heroes saving the day at the last moment I ran a long cable half way across the park to an outlet that worked and restored our reception just as the last show started. So how did it end, I’ll never tell, you’ll have to buy the DVD set and see it for yourself.

Today (Friday) we drove into Arkansas, we are at a really nice State Park called the Crater of Diamonds. It is the only diamond producing site in the world open to the public. Tomorrow we search over a 37 1/2-acre plowed field, the eroded surface of an ancient volcanic crater that 100 million years ago brought to the surface diamonds and semi-precious stones. Wish us luck!