It’s a windy day on the road today. I am quite certain it is nothing like riding a bucking bronco; nevertheless, that’s the image that came to mind as Dave tried to keep our RV between the lines on the road.
We passed a farm/ranch/whatever-it-was with a very long fence needing the attentions of a Tom Sawyer.
The vet had an amusing sign:
Sit. Stay. Spay.
Good Owner.
In Jasper, Texas, at a Conoco station we bought diesel for $1.79/gallon! It was cheaper than regular gasoline.
Street signs here are red. The first one I saw said “Bevil Loop” so I thought red might mean it was a dead end road. But the next sign was also red. Maybe they just want travelers to be able to actually see them?
The next sign I noted said “Entering Beauregard Parish”. We are definitely in Louisiana now where they have parishes instead of counties.
In Merryville, Louisiana, we stopped at a visitor center to pick up a new highway map and to pack away the Texas one that is getting pretty battered.
The next sign I noted said, “No Driving on Shoulder.” Texans have to be told that. According to my observations, it’s standard procedure in Texas to drive on the shoulder if there’s someone behind you that would probably like to pass you. Dave doesn’t do that. At first, I felt like we should but then realized if we pulled over for someone to pass and it turned out not to be safe for them to do so we could be held liable. No, thanks. Let them take their own risks and hope they don’t injure us doing so.
It appears the last weekend in March is festival time in the small towns along U.S. 190 both sides of the Texas/Louisiana border. Azalea Festival. Crawfish Etoufee Cook-off. Dave doesn’t like festivals so we are trying to visit these places during the week so as to leave them to their crowds on the weekends.
We passed a field full of row after row after row of parked small house trailers. Dave thinks they are FEMA trailers. I wonder what they will do with them? Are these the ones that made people sick? If so, are they planning to reuse them? If not, why store them?
We planned to stop in DeRidder for lunch. Neither of us wanted to stop at the Cajun restaurant. The DQ was on the wrong side of the road. Dave kept driving expecting there to be more. There wasn’t. I raided my emergency stash of food and we kept on going down the road.
Now we are seeing tree trucks that remind me of Oregon except these trees aren’t nearly as fat. We passed a paper mill, too.
As is usually the case with U.S. highways, we have railroad tracks running along side us. Suddenly Dave said, “Truck on the tracks.” It might have been a signal maintainer. He sure was being careful about stepping out of the truck there where the shoulder was steep and the ballast loose under foot.
We passed a pizza place and a Subway that both had signs only along the front of the building. Without having a sign out on the road we don’t know they are there until it is too late to stop. Dave never saw either of them. Finally, in Kinder, Louisiana, we found a McDonalds with signage that warned us to prepare to turn. I feel much better with some Chicken Selects in my stomach.
South of Kinder I saw a place called the “Cobwebs and Dust Flea Market”. Truth in advertising?
Now we are parked for the night at the Quiet Oaks RV park. More truth in advertising–except for the occasional train whistle, of course.
TTYL,
Linda