Gators? Murphy Found Us!!

Friday morning we dawdled and dawdled as we slowly moved a few things around to get ready to Shreveport.  We were in no hurry and had under 200 miles to go.  So, what’s the rush?  Eventually we were on our way.  Traffic wasn’t too bad but we certainly were happy when we exited the 635 and headed due east.

Longhorns decorating Fry’s Electronics

I think the Dallas Elks was a very nice Elks Lodge.  It was gated with a nice pool.   

However, for as nice as the property it was, it wasn’t a real active Elks.  We weren’t sad to leave the Elks and we weren’t sad to leave Dallas either.  For a while we were wondering if the location of the Elks had something to do with the gating of the whole property.   Police and ambulance sirens seemed to be going constantly.   We did discover those sirens were mostly due to the large assisted living complex across the road.  Either way it was noisy at times. 

There was a better reason though to get out of Dallas.  Dallas has huge hail storms in March and April.  How do I know?  Both our kids lost vehicles due to hail during those months.  We decided to move on.

The I-20 in East Texas does not give one the feeling they are still in Texas.  Gone are the deserts and gone is the barren terrain.  It could almost pass as Washington.  The farther east we went, the taller and greener the trees.  It was a nice easy drive even though we did get pelted with some pretty heavy rain at times. 

This sign even made me think we were in Washington. Longview, Washington that is.

Getting to the Shreveport Elks was a cinch.  It looks and feels like we’re in the country but we’re not that far from the center of town.  It’s quiet and has a huge deck on the beautiful Red River.  The lodge is really nice , friendly and fairly active.  They even had a great band Friday and we really enjoyed that. 

This particular Elks sponsors activities for the Boy Scouts.  They have a marvelous Olympic sized pool with a couple of slides.   This is quite a place to stay for just $10 a night.  It’s 30amp at your site plus water and a dump at the lodge. 

We asked about kayaking on the river.  They just laughed at us.  There’s big gators in that river!!!  What?!  So much for kayaking here and we thought it would be perfect for that.

Does this remind you of typical southern fare?

I can’t call Shreveport a big city.  I can’t call it a small city.  It’s actually just about the right size with a population of close to 200,000 people.  We hope to check it out before we move on.   After securing our RV, we schedled a taxi to pick us up Friday morning.  We HOPED to be back to Phoenix by night and to Portland on Monday.  We HOPED.  Our fingers and toes were crossed that everything would perfect.  Well, it would have been except Murphy from Murphy's Law discovered what we were up to and had to throw a jinx or two our way.  At least that's who we're going to blame ... Murphy.

The taxi was on time.  The flight from Shreveport was perfect and also on time.  Arriving at DFW was uneventful.  The first thing I saw was the Salt Lick BBQ restaurant.  We decided to stop there and try a little brisket and ribs.  All I can say is it was just OK.  However, sitting down gave us a chance to check on our next flight which was supposed to be to Phoenix.  Oh Oh ..... that flight was booked.  Unless quite a few people opted not to show up, we wouldn't be on a direct flight all day.

Well, we had options.  We could hop a flight to Las Vegas and then hop another from there to Phoenix.  Those flights looked good.  So, that's what we figured we'd do.  I think that's where we really met Murphy.  The flight to Phoenix was delayed 40 minutes and on arrival in Las Vegas sat on the tarmac for another 15 minutes.  Thus, we missed our flight to Phoenix by mere minutes.  After another 3 hour wait in Vegas (with all those slots around), we were finally on our way to Phoenix and $34 more in my pocket than what I arrived with.  

We arrived much later than planned.  Upon arrival we grabbed a taxi at the airport.  We've been in lots of taxi cabs but the cab driver we had was the rudest we had ever encountered. Wow!

I hope Murphy finds someone else to bother because now we need to hitch a ride to Portland.

‘Tis life on the road.