Donna and I both make entries in the journal, so
my comments will be light blue and plain face, like this, Donna's
will be pink and italicized like this
and the route will be yellow and in plain face, like
this. Let me restate that the notes here
are just our impressions on one trip, so, if any offense is taken,
none was intended.
Day 0—Houston, TX to Dallas, TX
Day 1—Dallas, TX to Sallisaw, OK
Day 2—Sallisaw, OK to
Shreveport, LA
Day 3—Shreveport, LA to
Weches, TX
Day 4—Weches, TX to Houston, TX
Houston—Start
I-45 north to Dallas, TX
Okay, I all but blackmailed Donna into taking this
trip with me. I was going nuts in Houston, and I needed to get away
for a few days.
The trip up yesterday afternoon was boring. Pretty
much confirmed our earlier belief that Interstate travel is hardly as
fun as travel on US Highways. Dallas is a trashy city. Like a giant
cubic zirconia in the heart of Texas. Half of the buildings downtown
are done in neon.
Near Huntsville, there's a fifty foot Sam Houston.
I don't remember it's being there before, but some friends assure me
that it's been there for some time.
US-75 north to Atoka, OK
US-69 north to Eufaula, OK
OK-9 east to US-59
US-59 north to I-40
I-40 east to Sallisaw, OK
Lots of farm machinery rolling down the
highways—US and state, of course, not Interstate. We've decided
to stay off the Interstate as we're really not going anywhere in
particular this time. More fun, really, to go through the countryside
and be able to stop at the spur of the moment. Also, the good stuff
(parks, attractions, etc.) doesn't seem to be near the Interstate, much.
We turned off onto OK-9 to cut across and see the
Spiro Mounds Archaeological site. We didn't make it. We stopped at
Sequoyah's cabin outside of Sallisaw, and that pretty much killed the
rest of the day. The manager of the park gave us a very interesting
lecture on Sequoyah and the Cherokee syllabary he invented, and the
park grounds were very large and very peaceful.
We stopped in Stigler at lunch time, and had some
fruit and crackers in front of the courtyard before going to the
visitors' center. It's fun to take the state roads through these
little towns and chat with the Chamber of Commerce people who don't
seem to get a lot of tourist traffic.
We stopped in Dennison, TX, this morning to
see Dwight D. Eisenhower's birthplace. In fact, he was only there for
a year or so before his family moved to Tyler (where he always
thought he was born) and then to Kansas where people think of him
coming from. He had six brothers and quite the admiring throng. The
house was wonderfully restored and the docent had some great
stories—even a little gossip.
We needed gas halfway through the day and
wanted to stop for lunch and at Wal-mart at the same time. This
became the "Quest for the Slidey Things". We were looking
for a gas station which had credit card payment at the pump.
Apparently, that's not allowed in Oklahoma, because we managed to go
through three good-sized towns without finding one easily and finally
just stopped anyway. It just happened that the gas place was across
the street from a Drive in movie,
and it was still open! Amazing!
We also stopped in Stigler (the county seat)
at the court house to eat some lunch and stretch because it was a
nice little place and the court house had a picnic table under a huge
tree. We then walked over to the Chamber of Commerce and spoke with
(actually, listened to) a woman in a navy dress with white stars and
rhinestone American flag earrings (cool!) who told us about all the
really neat places around Stigler. Apparently, one of the things was
the World's Highest Hill. Hmmm... She was very keen on the new
highway, too. Apparently, this new highway is going to be prettier
than the local well-worn scenic drive. According to the gentleman in
visiting her, she was "quoting the newspaper", and not
really telling the truth.
I-40 east to Fort Smith, AR
US-271 south to OK-9
OK-9 west to Spiro, OK
OK-9 east to US-271
US-271 south to US-71
US-71 south to Shreveport, LA
I-20 west to just outside of Shreveport, LA
Rain. It rained last night and is raining still.
The campground is grey and gloomy. Huddled figures rush from tent to
tent or to the shower building. The lake boils like an angry pot and
thunder challenges the valley like cannon-fire.
The tent has leaked some, though not as much as I was afraid. It's very hard to force oneself to leave the security of the tent and continue on.
We started out the day packing up everything in a slight rain. We headed out to the Spiro Archaeological Mounds — where we had tried to go the evening before, but had run out of time. In fact, that's why we camped where we did, in the area. It was still sprinkling when we got to the Mounds, and we were the first ones there. As we found out, it really wasn't supposed to be open because it was a state holiday (4th of July) , but a student who works vocational there had said he would work the day. As it was, the supervisor showed up to let the kid in and the kid bailed out for the day. Since the supervisor had previously told people they were going to be open, he was stuck for the day.
Brett and he had an extensive discussion about bows and the Indian history in the area and the US in general. The only real reason it ended was because another couple showed up and he had to welcome them as he had welcomed us.
We toured the site, looked at the artifacts, watched the slide show, and spent about 2-1/2 hours all together. We got on the road and headed east through Arkansas on a scenic drive which was gorgeous. We didn't really stop again until we made Shreveport at around 5 pm. We didn't intend to just drive, but there really wasn't anything that caught our eye to stop for along the way.
We did have trouble in Shreveport finding a place to stay. All the chains we like to stop at were full, so we ended up at a truckers' motel called the Country Inn. It was serviceable, but overpriced and not quite as nice as a Comfort Inn or a Best Western or a Motel 6. Oh well...
What Donna said, only with an occasional
expletive and a "yip" or two thrown in.
I-20 west to Marshall, TX
US-59 south to Nacadogches, TX
TX-21 west to Weches, TX
The day started with Brett drying out the tent over the hotel railing and us watching VH-1's "ABC's of Video". They were up to the "G's" when we left. They had started the night before and were continuing through Monday afternoon. Not having cable, it was entertaining — at least until they got to Debbie Gibson...
We drove a very short way to the American Rose Society's Gardens outside of Shreveport. Lots of pictures taken there and lots of smells. I'm glad we hit it early enough to be able to get the fragrances and the dew. The even had a "green" rose, which looked very much like the beginnings of a crabapple, which makes sense. It had a whole section of rose beds which held the new roses and experimental roses. Those beds were arranged close together in rectangles and covered quite a large area. I'm curious to see how the video comes out. The main part of the gardens, however, was a series of formal gardens sponsored by different Rose Societies from across the United States. Gave us some good ideas for if we ever have a place big enough to do extensive landscaping.
We left there close to lunchtime and headed south looking for a place to eat. I must note, here, that we hadn't eaten anything but snack food since Tuesday, and we hadn't spent any money on restaurants so far. We happened upon a cafe by the side of US-59, in Tipton, TX, called Frank's Cafe. It was a small, privately-run place with an awesome chicken fried steak (and 3 veggies) and chocolate pie to die for. All at a cost of only $15 (for the two of us). There was also a flea-market/garage-sale-type attachment which had what seemed like a whole slew of pageant clothing — sequined shoes and dresses, velvet gloves, large, sparkly jewelry, etc.
The people at Frank's had a wonderful attitude, which we rewarded with a large tip. Our young waitress was worried that we didn't mean to leave her a five and followed us into the variety store area to check. Also, Brett asked for matches (or to buy a lighter) and the owner went next door to scare up some matches and came back with a box of promo matches which she said someone had given her to hand out. They said, "ALL-NEW 1979 FORD LTD AND MUSTANG".
After that, we headed down to Nacogdoches toward the Caddo Mounds Historical Site. We stopped for gas and water at a Texaco that had "SLIDEY THINGS!" Oh, I saw a sign in the window for a water called "Water Joe" and asked Brett to get me some. It's natural spring water with caffeine added. Who thinks these things up?
At the Mounds, we looked around, took some video, and inspected the place. This site was somewhat different than the Spiro Mounds and the Toltec Mounds. Brett will have to elaborate. Much to our disappointment, there wasn't a person on duty who seemed willing to talk about the place like there was at the other two sites. It was also a bit busy, but that was to be expected on a holiday weekend.
The talking part was made up for, however, by the Ranger at the campground. We talked to him for about an hour(?). We tried to leave twice (he had other "customers" and had to answer the phone), but he kept saying, "Wait a second." He was cool! He manages the Caddo Mounds and Mission Tejas. The phone call he received was from the docent at Caddo Mounds to tell him that a couple had arrived in swimming attire asking about facilities there. She was calling, I'm sure, to see if he had sent them there as a joke.
I was awakened in the middle of the night by
Donna crawling across me and shining our big torch at the picnic
table. Seems a raccoon had discovered our bag of food and was helping
himself to some cookies. Donna put the bag with the rest of the food
in the truck, and I, since the cookies were a loss (the whole bag had
been slimed in the 'coon's attempt to open it) put the cookies on the
barbecue stand. They were gone when we got up, so I assume the 'coon
is a big fan of Keebler brand Pecan Sandies.
TX-21 east to Alto, TX
US-69 south to Lufkin, TX
US-59 south to Humble, TX
TX-8 west to Home