Cross Creek and 'cross the state

We visited upstate so briefly that we should call it a drive by.  Since we returned, my dear sister sent me a notice of a Cross Creek Festival.  Momentous. I wish she and I could go.

We are both avid about Cross Creek, written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.  We have always said that we would like to go and see for ourselves the environs where Ms. Rawlings wrote and cooked and hunted.  
That particular book resonates with our childhood, I believe, although the only things I have ever shot (at Uncle Wag's and Aunt Doris's place) were guavas placed as distant targets in the grass.  I was deadly when shooting at those.  If we had ever been attacked by guavas . . .

Observing Uncle Wag, I saw how readily the training of dogs was achieved by  repetition, patience and praise.  I love doing that, to this day.  

I really do wish we could have gone to Cross Creek together.