sandcastle – Page 155 – The Sandcastle

Eunice, Louisiana

The Internet at Quiet Oaks RV Park was so unreliable that we gave up early this morning and headed on out–about 10:30 a.m. Hey, that’s my early!

In Kinder there’s a pizza place with a phone number for “Room Service”. Now I have pizza on the brain.

As we drove through Elton, Louisiana, I saw two brick jail cells in a park by the railroad tracks. We were past them before I had time to realize what I saw. If any of you pass that way would you please stop and find out why they are there?

I saw an Edsel in a car port with a 4 sale sign on it. I wonder if it had push button shift?

As we drove into Eunice I saw a WalMart sign. Since we had spent part of our pre-departure time this morning working on our grocery list, I suggested we stop there. WalMart is one of the places that give you enough notice of their location that you have time to make a last minute decision to turn in there. They didn’t have my pizza, though.

Then we visited the Prairie Acadian Cultural Center.

Did you know the French Catholic Acadians landed in Canada about the same time the British Protestants were landing at Plymouth Rock? Or that after years of fighting between the French and British, the British forcibly removed the Acadians? Interesting then, isn’t it, that the natives of that country are called Canadians? The Acadians that wound up in Louisiana morphed into today’s Cajuns. Where they are still mostly French Catholics along with being Americans.

All that I learned from one of the movies available for viewing at the Acadian Cultural Center. We would have watched more movies but the Center’s air conditioning was broken today and the humidity is nearly 100%. I did see a bonnet in the museum’s displays I think I should have. It is designed to protect you from the sun while allowing the breezes to pass through. I would look even more weird than usual wearing it, though.

We drove by several cities of the dead. Since the water table here prevents underground burials, there are above ground mausoleums instead. They are well maintained with lots of flowers making them look like inviting places, but I wouldn’t want to live there. OK, that was pretty bad but I couldn’t resist.

As we passed some rice paddies Dave said one of the things he learned at the Acadian Cultural Center is that, in winter, some farmers use those rice paddies to raise crawfish. I have never been hungry enough to be tempted to eat a crawfish.

In Opelousas, Louisiana, we saw a Pizza Hut and turned in to have lunch. But it was strictly take out. So we searched on pizza and learned there’s another one in town only a few blocks away. Yay! We ordered enough pizza to each get a couple of meals out of them. Dave’s has several kinds of meat on it and mine has no meat at all. Things like that sometimes make me wonder how we wound up together–for nearly 45 years so far.

Then we headed to South City Park in Opelousas which advertises 67 campsites with water and electrical hookups for $10 a night. There are two paved parking lots with electrical poles around the edges at the north end of the park and huge, grassy, lumpy, meadows at the south end with hookups scattered all over the place. The ranger recommended not picking the one we were looking at because it will turn to mud in tonight’s predicted rain. So we picked the most level other one we could find and have settled in for the evening.

TTYL,

Linda

Entering Louisiana

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

Big Thicket

Leaving some parks takes a long time. Not just the fact that we spent several days at Rainbow’s end but the leaving process itself. To start with, I did lots of research while we were there so I needed to print new lists of possible places to go and things to do. (There’s new stuff on my public park camping list if you’re interested.) Then we had to read the electric meter and pay for the camping and electricity we used. Then we stopped at the book exchange for me to trade five paperback books. Then we stopped at the air hose to fill the left rear inner tire that was low–that was a challenge! In addition to the unusual things like dumping the trash. But, we did, finally, get back on the road.

At one point we came to a three prong fork in the road. The one to the left led to a cemetery. The one to the right led to a different cemetery. We took the middle one. Hopefully, it won’t lead us to a cemetery.

That made me think about headlights. It used to be if a whole string of cars coming towards you had their headlights on, you were witnessing a funeral procession. Now it just means they have their daytime running lights on. I wonder if it’s harder to keep other vehicles from cutting into a procession now?

We visited the Big Thicket National Preserve.

This was the first one established in the U.S. back in the 1970s. Apparently the difference between a national preserve and a national park or national forest is the preserve prevents harvesting native trees.

This is one of those places where different ecological systems come together in unusual ways. How many places have you been where you can see pine trees and prickly pear cactus in one park?

Plus, this park has four of the five insect eating plants found in the U.S.

When we left the visitor center, we passed through the town of Woodville–evidence of the lumbering industry in this area that prompted the establishment of the preserve.

As we drove up the road we saw hurricane symbols painted on the shoulders. Signs say those are Evaculanes–to be used for driving only during an official hurricane evacuation.

I also saw a road that made me think of double vision–County Road 4040.

They’ve been repaving this road and they stuck down those reflectors where the center lines will eventually be painted. Every so often one is not quite in line with the others; it looks like the guy installing them had the hiccups.

Then we crossed Steinhagen Lake to camp in Martin Dies, Jr. State Park, a bird watchers paradise. We got here at 4:45 pm but the clerks had already closed their registers for the day so they gave us a map and said to come pay in the morning. I refused to ask them what time they meant so this morning there was a form on our windshield saying we are supposed to pay by 9 a.m. That didn’t happen. But we will stop and pay on our way out as soon as I post this and finish packing up.

TTYL,

Linda

Sitting Still

When we left Houston, we planned on going east towards Louisiana. We didn’t. We went mostly north to Livingston, Texas, to the Escapee’s Rainbow’s End RV Park. One of our SKP classmates is here and he’s on a medical merry-go-round. We came to see how he’s doing. He’s frustrated at the lack of forward progress but otherwise is doing OK. The doctor has put him on medicine that makes him senstitive to the sun. I take one of those so I know how it is. He stays inside all day except for doctor appointments. When the sun goes down enough, he goes for his daily walk then stops by to visit with us.

Last night we talked about what route we might take when we leave here. He’s headed in the same general direction we are but he’s planning a different route. Since he’s been this way before we picked his brain for ideas and got some good ones. He also brought over his guidebook to the Corps of Engineer campgrounds and I made some new entries to our lists of where to go.

We could go on now but it’s both Friday and Spring Break time in Texas. With absolutely no confidence that we can check into any of the state parks or Corps of Engineer parks around here, it seems wiser to sit still and wait for the party to break up. So we’re here for at least a couple more days. Then we’ll see. The value of writing our plans in chalk expresses itself once again.

TTYL,

Linda

Sofa

This is the sofa that came with our Winnebago View:

When the slide is in the aisle with my shoes in it looks like this:

When the slide is opened out it looks like this:

And when the sofa is opened in the process of turning it into a bed it looks like this:

I have now “slept” on that bed for six months. But it has never been comfortable. We added a memory foam pad to it–nope, still not comfortable. We added a bed bridge down the center to help fill in the crack–nope, still not comfortable.

Finally, we decided it need to be replaced. After much discussion we decided to replace it with a plywood platform to hold a Tempurpedic mattress. That’s the brand of mattress we had in our house and I slept better on it than I had on anything else in years.

Yesterday PPL Motor Homes in Houston, Texas, built me a new bed using as their model a daybed style where you just throw lots of cushions on it when you want to use it as a sofa. Using all the pillows we already had, it now looks like this:

When the slide is closed the aisle is two inches narrower.

But when the slide is open, the aisle stays wide all the time because this bed doesn’t open and close. So, when I get out of bed my feet land on the carpet instead of the cold tile.

Plus, now it takes much less effort to be ready to go to bed at night or hit the road in the morning. And during the night last night the sofa mechanism did not poke me. And this morning my hips did not hurt. I am, once again, a happy camper.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. If you know anyone in the market for a new sofa, PPL has ours for sale. It is UltraLeather which is very soft to the touch. We really liked it as a sofa; just not as a bed for someone with a body like mine.