AstroGypsies

Entering Louisiana will be remembered for drive-through daiquiris. The shops have been a fixture in the state for four decades. In 1981 Louisiana was one of 24 states that did not prohibit drinking alcohol and driving. That was when the drive through daiquiri was born. Daiquiri shops use tape to close the lid. Legally, if the tape over the straw hold is on the lid, the drink is not considered to be an open container. If the tape is removed or broken, it is considered an open container and subject to open container laws.

Welcome to Louisiana! We’d just left all the lawyer billboards behind in Mississippi to get these! Ha! From choosing a lawyer of any shape or colour you may decide, to having a frozen daiquiri after stopping at the den of iniquity! What a country!

We left Roosevelt State Park headed for Lincoln Parish County Park in Ruston, Louisiana for the night. It was cold when I got up, damn time change and into central time as well has me wide awake at 5, OK, 4, but I stayed in bed until 5. It was 31° out, just below freezing. I wandered out for some pyjama photography with my winter jacket on! I didn’t last long! Damn it was cold!

I went back in and waited for it to warm up. We had our electric heater going in front and the electric fireplace going all night. With the propane leak we can’t use the furnace! Bundle up! The sun did help once it was up!

Early mornings hold magic, the light, the mists, the quiet, all combine to create a wonderful way to start the day. We took the cats out for a stoll, hoping it would wear Gamora out so she would sleep while we were driving. Ha! I looked unsuccessfully for the spray bottle. It had been nice stopping for a day, the only driving was out to the Exxon station at the park entrance to diesel up.

If anyone can explain the top billboard to me that would be great, an AK 47 or M4? What exactly does it mean, is it code? WTF? What was noticeable along that stretch of the I 20 was the many empty billboards, or faded signs that hadn’t been replaced for a very long time. I’m not too worried about being shackled by lust, interesting choice of words there, I do wonder about their grammar…Jesus sets free, doesn’t quite sound right, who wrote this crap? Ha! I guess I need to talk to James…

We did cross over the mighty Mississippi River, it looked drained, with beaches running towards the center for hundreds of feet, drought is real here, hard to deny.

We’d read about Lincoln Parish County Park, Louisiana Campground of the year 2022, we were not disappointed. It was a lovely park, many of the sites backed up onto a small lake, full hookups, cement pads, balconies and picnic tables. I can imagine it would be full over the weekend. The man I spoke to the night before laughed and said we’d have the choice of many spots on a Sunday night and not to worry, pay when I get there, it is all first come first serve. Its famous for it’s mountain bike paths. I read on a sign by the lake it had been the mission of one man to get this park done,  it was Ruston’s Fredrick Hoogland. Sale of the water in the lake to an oil drilling company subsidized much of the construction. There was a small waterfall but turns out the stream is now just a trickle, we saw a sign coming in that said “Pray for Rain” in front a church.

All I saw were birds in the lake when we backed up…short attention span! Ha! Mike had read that the last site was the most private so we took that one. We were a bit low in front but better than having the jacks all the way up, the front wobbles about then when Groot and Rocket jump off the bed!

We did take the cats for a walk before I wandered down with my camera! Seemed we were parked at the end where the fish were, and ducks, muscovies, cats were not fond of their very loud quacking! Some kind of aquatic monsters Rocket said! Ha! Very friendly wandering people, amazed we’d come all the way from Canada to their little park, very pleasant spot! I lost the sun so decided to get up early to walk the lake and look for birds:)

Sorry about the bird overload, it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten to spend much time with cooperative Egrets and Herons. After a walk around the lake in the morning I realized they were it, for the lake wildlife:) Right in our backyard. After the morning cat walk I wandered the paved path around Hoogland Lake, found an uncooperative Kinglet, and a Hairy woodpecker.

I went back and sat on the bench and watched the two grumpy old men of the lake, the Heron and Egret interact, all while being chastised by two very loud Belted Kingfishers.

Get out of my backyard the Belted Kingfishers were yelling at them! Ha! This is my nemesis bird, they usually are very shy and I get pictures of their ruffled bums! Love that crest!

We made a quick trip into town, Mike was sorely disappointed to find that Ben Christmas’s Crawfish shack was closed, out of season thought the young girl at the grocery store we stopped in at after refueling. Instead we bought a pound of possibly the largest shrimp I have seen in awhile. Groot thought he might have died and gone to heaven when we got back to the trailer, we’d eaten the last of our Canadian frozen shrimp the night before…and shrimp AGAIN? This was just TOO good to be true! All the cats each had a feast of two whole raw shrimp each and then Rocket begged for the cooked ones as well. These guys:) Spoiled rotten!

The next day, well, we were headed to Texas. Tyler State State Park, but that is a whole other state, a big one, well, not that big actually, we could fit several into Ontario, but don’t tell the Texans that. We were reminded why we didn’t come back this way in the Spring of 2020…Shreveport, my God please let someone scream in my ear before we decide to drive the I 20 through here again. The worst roads of the trip. no concept of joining their bridges and overpasses to the actual highway as both truck and trailer lept and bounced over wild cracks and joins. White knuckle for the driver and Gamora voiced her complete displeasure but at least the rain held off until we passed the hideousness of that part of I 20 and we settled into a calmer remainder of the drive. I was feeling very melancholy, the rain, maybe the miles catching up and I managed to get the small front trailer door to the hydraulic system smushed by the truck tailgate when we were hitching up, I thought it would clear but Mike had to come in on an angle. Mike used his foot to push it back in place after I bashed on it with the blocks of wood we use for the jacks…sigh…one more thing to fix. I’ll try and take it off at our next two nighter to see if the hinge can be salvaged, if not, it’s locked and closed for now, lesson learned, I just hate breaking stuff that could have been avoided. Bye bye Louisiana, see you in the Spring, just NOT Shreveport! Sorry about the novel today;) Saludos amigos, hope you are not shoveling snow my Northern comrades!