Wednesday, 19 February 2020
Today is the birthday of both my sister Louise and my puppy dog Gracie. Today is the day I adopted Gracie, so I celebrate it as her birthday, and today she turns 10 years old. Thanks to Dexter, she's much younger than she was a few years ago.
Louise would have turned 68 today, which is a sobering thought and makes me feel older than my own age of 70 does.
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| today's route |
As we were leaving the park this morning, we surprised 4 deer along the road. They stopped and stared at us, Dexter got real interested, and I finally got tired of just sitting there waiting for them to move. So I started inching forward, which caused them to move along themselves. I guess I was lucky we never saw them when we were walking around the park yesterday.
I discovered I'd taken a wrong turn when I saw a sign saying Texas State Line. I knew I didn't remember crossing the dam at the Sabine River, which I'd just crossed, but wasn't sure enough for that to be a clue. The sign was a pretty strong hint, though.
I turned around and went back to Anacoco and turned north. It was a chilly rainy morning so not really great for sightseeing.
We went through the town of Hornbeck, the Village of Florien (Boise Cascade has a strong presence there), Fisher, and then on into Sabine Parish.
I never actually saw a highway sign announcing the parish but I did see it written on a water storage tank and at the landfill, and decided those were good enough.
State-owned cars often have a bumper sticker with the slogan "Love the Boot, Don't Pollute" superimposed on an outline of the state.
I came to the town of Many - "The Heart of Toledo Bend." Wikipedia says the town was named for a Colonel Many who was stationed at nearby Fort Jesup. And that's all it says. That sure doesn't seem like enough of a basis for the name of a town. They don't even say when the town was established. Someone in Many should figure out how to add information to that page.
The land is no longer flat up here. Route 171 has become rolling hills - and very bumpy again.
I passed a sign saying to turn right for the Rebel SCA Country Music Museum. Well, that didn't mean anything to me, but I'm guessing (from a search) it's referring to the Louisiana Country Music Museum at the Rebel State Historic Site near Natchitoches (a town I'll visit in a day or two). But that's not exactly what that sign said.
I passed by the towns of Noble and Converse, entered DeSoto Parish, and passed the town of Benson.
I heard on the radio that the Pearl River is flooding near Jackson, MS, where I was last month. The town was already saturated then and honestly couldn't afford to take on any more water. I hope everyone's okay.
The road went through what seemed like a forest of telephone poles - tree farms in various stages of growth, all the way down to young trees.
It was still raining, with strong cross winds, neither of which were much help navigating this bumpy road.
I saw a sign that said WPA Road and assume it was a Works Progress Administration project in the '30s. I didn't find that specifically on this website, but I did find an interesting article about how the power struggle between FDR and Huey Long played out during the Depression, resulting in what was called the second Louisiana purchase. https://64parishes.org/new-deal-in-louisiana
At Mansfield I saw a sign saying the city is the site of Mansfield Female College, established in the 1850s and the first women's college west of the Mississippi River. Mansfield State Historic Site, a Civil War battlefield, is also here. I'm attaching this link because I thought the explanation of the fight and its historical significance is interesting. https://www.crt.state.la.us/mansfield-state-historic-site
The DeSoto Parish Coroner's Office sits in a prominent position on Route 171, something I've never seen before. Aren't coroner's offices usually hidden?
I passed the Historic Village of Grand Cane. Welcome to Yesteryear they say. Established in 1899, current population 242.
I saw a large herd of cows, most of which were moving - some actually running - toward the side of the field. I can't imagine why they were running.
I saw a highway sign that said, "Keep Right Except to Pass or Turn." I never saw that "or turn" part before.
In Stonewall, we stopped at the North DeSoto Schools - they were all together. The signs said the high school was for grades 9-12, middle school was 6-8, upper elementary was 3-5, and lower elementary was PK-2, the PK presumably meaning pre-kindergarten. I guess this upper and lower elementary bit is a Louisiana thing, and it makes sense, but I've never seen it before.
It was winter break, according to a sign at the school, so we stayed and ate lunch and walked around the parking lot.
At the Stonewall Baptist Church I saw a sign that said, "God Bless and Protect Pres. Donald Trump."
I came into Caddo Parish, the towns of Keithville, Southern Hills, and then into Shreveport.
Shreveport
From the sublime ... I saw a billboard with a photo of an attractive young woman and the message: "Justice Jacque, Cajun Court TV - Have Your Case Heard."
Throughout Shreveport I saw old neon signs for businesses that no longer exist, but the signs are still up on the original buildings. It'd be nice if there were enough money in town to renovate them, but at least they haven't torn them down.
Some of Shreveport's brick streets are still there, too. Nice to look at but tricky to drive on.
Shreveport didn't exist until Capt. Henry Shreve unclogged that logjam in the Red River back in the 1830s. Then its proximity to the trail to the newly independent country of Texas and the newly navigable Red River made Shreveport an instant hub. It now has about 190,000 residents.
I passed something they call Asian Garden in the middle of downtown - nice feature. In fact, it seemed a cozy, slightly old fashioned downtown.
The State Fairgrounds are in town, as they are in Indianapolis. I know because I passed them.
There was and continued to be intermittently heavy rain, leaving a lot of standing water in the streets, adding to the trickiness of the driving conditions.
I saw a billboard saying: "Report Corruption to the FBI."
I passed into Bossier City headed to a recycle drop-off place - Shreveport didn't seem to have one, oddly enough. It took some work but I did find it and got rid of everything but the glass. A nice worker there told me the only place he knew of in the area that took glass was at the nearby military base.
I stopped at a liquor store and then went back to Shreveport. I faithfully stayed on State Route 79 all the way, paralleling I-20 most of the way. Much more scenic as the route took me through town. I saw that Libbey Glass has a plant here - they say it's one of only 2 in the US. And I passed by the north end of the runway at the city airport.
Shreveport KOA
I'd decided to stay here so I'd have an address for David to send me my mail - and especially my ballot. But he called yesterday to let me know that the ballot hadn't come so he'd hold off on sending the other mail as well. Thanks, Collin County.
Still, I was hoping for a decent place to stay, considering the high price this place was charging. It wasn't their fault it was still raining and everything was waterlogged. But the campground's layout wasn't at all sensible and the campsites were right on the edge of actually uncomfortable. Yes, they'd given me a concrete slab and yes, there was a reasonable distance between the sites, but each slab was barely as wide as my RV (which isn't a wide one), so the dogs and I had to step out into mud and puddles, and the slab wasn't even level. They had room to make them wider so why didn't they? I had a wider concrete slab at my last campground for a fifth the price.
But I wanted to celebrate my sister's birthday with what was her favorite meal (the 21-year-old self she was when she died - I'm sure her tastes would have changed over the years). So I had pork chops and mashed potatoes in mushroom gravy and peas and drank champagne to toast the life she'd had and the one I wished she'd had the chance to live.
And I watched The Post, a movie I think she'd have liked. She was very interested in women's studies when she died in 1973, and I seriously doubt she'd have lost interest in that subject over the years. And this movie chronicles the moment when Katharine Graham first exercised her strength as an individual, rather than as the wife, mother, and daughter she'd been all her life. Louise would have liked that.
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