Tuesday.
Happy New Year’s Eve.
Drove the longest day of the trip today, probably. Drove from dark to dark. Didn’t mean to, it just happened. We did get our ten hours first, though. We dropped down into the prairies and lakes region of Texas, skirted Dallas, then blew through the Piney Woods of East Texas. The book says there is more forest in the Piney Woods of Texas than in all the forests in New England combined. We didn’t stop at Caddo Lake in East Texas, because it wasn’t even noon yet. We decided to drive on into Louisiana, and stop at the Alexandria KOA on a lake. We needed to dump and fill and get some propane, so it seemed like a good idea. But remember that rainy weather that was to the south of us the day before? Well, we could get to the propane tank to refill, but the Alexandria KOA is built on a hillside. Each site has a nice level concrete pad, but the rest of the campground was pretty much blown-out. Wind and rain made erosion ruts and rivers in all the roads. The guy said I wouldn’t have any trouble at all getting down to the campsite, but that I might have a little trouble the next morning getting back out. There aren’t many places to camp in Alexandria. And there aren’t any towns close to Alexandria. We opted to drive on into the night to the next town, Lafayette, almost a hundred miles south. There is a KOA there we have been to before, and really like. Any KOA with it’s own bass pond gets bonus points in my book (picture). They were closed and gone by the time we got there, but there was a nice note taped to the door, assigning us a site, and welcoming us for the night. They made it very easy.
Not all our driving is on wide-open empty freeways. About seventy-five miles of today’s drive was through the Dallas Metro area. Nothing bad happened, but finding our way in unfamiliar territory, through traffic, making sure we’re in the correct lane for each interchange, was the most intense driving of the trip so far. By the middle of the day, I had already developed a serious case of TB (tired butt). Can’t use cruise control through all that traffic. Have to do a lot of actual driving. Guess maybe I tensed up a bit as well. Anyway, nothing a rest-stop run and some Advil wouldn’t cure.
Tonight we have thundering pets. Dashboard to Headboard….. and back. We’ll just stand clear until it’s over.
Five hundred plus miles today.
