Travel Days to Texas

A cold front was moving into Arkansas, so it was once again time to head further south.  We talked to some RVer friends of ours from the 2008 RV-Dreams Rally, Don and Cheryl, and made plans to meet up with them for a few days.

They are currently staying in their motorhome in the campground at Barksdale Airforce Base in Shreveport, Louisiana, and they were able to sponsor us for a few days in the campground.

We don’t often travel on Sunday, but we had a great travel day south on I-30 and I-49 through Arkansas and Louisiana.

That was until we got on I-220/I-20 just north of Shreveport . . . those last 20 miles were the roughest we’ve ever had!  We thought everything was going to fall out of the cabinets!  Yikes – now we know why people complain about Louisiana roads!!

We made it to the Air Force Base finally, and Don and Cheryl met us just outside the gate.  From there, they led us in, and we went inside the security office to get our passes allowing us on the base for 3 days – fingerprints, photos, the whole works!  We haven’t even had to do that for any of the bases Nicolas has been on.

With our passes in hand, they led us to the campground and we got checked in.  We had our choice of sites in the old campground loop when Don and Cheryl are, or in the new loop, which are all concrete, pull-thru sites.  Don thought we’d have an easier time getting on and off a site in the new loop, so we picked one of those.

Nice sites!

We got set up and Don and Cheryl came in for a tour – the last time we saw them (Reunion Rally, 2015), we were still in the 5th wheel. 

We spent the next three days just getting caught up and visiting with them and their grandson, Benji.

Tom and I did manage to go off base one afternoon to go to the store, and even got back in time before the gate closed at 6 – if we hadn’t, we would have had to drive all the way around to the main gate on the other side of the base . . . and this is a HUGE base!

We made it through the gate on time, and only made one minor wrong turn – didn’t take us anywhere we weren’t supposed to go, just made the return trip slightly longer.  It did take us past some cool aircraft displays, though,

and we got to see the sunset over the airfield as we drove back to the campground.

I managed to catch one more shot back at the RV.

During the day, we often heard planes flying overhead – they flew very low over the campground – it shook the whole RV.

We had a great visit, but with the big storm headed that way last weekend, it was once again time to continue south.  Shreveport was expecting 8 – 10” of rain, and we wanted no part of that!

With our ultimate destination being the Rio Grande Valley, we wanted a route through Texas that would avoid all the big cities.  We also wanted to get as far south as we could to avoid the rain, and we had the George H. W. Bush funeral service to work around.

We planned an early start – we had a 250 mile travel day, and weren’t sure how long it would take.  We said good-bye to Don, Cheryl and Benji the night before, and got on the road by 8:30.  It was a chilly, frosty morning!

Our selected route ended up being US-79 to US-77 . . . no interstates, but we were hoping that these would be good highways.

We needn’t have worried – both were great roads (with the widest shoulders I’ve ever seen!)

We made great time, and arrived at our overnight stop – Stoney’s RV Park – by 1:30pm.  We checked in at the Liquor Store (that’s a new one!), and got set up on the pull-thru site without unhooking the Jeep.

We only planned an overnight stop because this area was still under the target of the storm coming through, with 6 inches of rain predicted, so we wanted one more travel day to get us out from under the bulls-eye.

The next morning, we had a few more miles on US-79, and then got on US-77 headed south.  It was another good driving day on good roads with little traffic, and we made good time again.  We arrived at Wilderness Lakes RV Resort by 2pm.

Again, we had a nice pull-thru site, but we were staying 6 days, so unhooked the Jeep.

We still got hit by the rain on Friday, but not nearly as much as further north in the state.  The rainy day gave me a chance to do some sewing and some online Christmas shopping, so that was good.

This is a nice RV Resort, and bigger than we originally thought it was.  It’s a Passport America park, too, so quite a bargain at $18.50/night!  Once the ground dried up a little, we’ve been able to get and walk on some of the trails, and enjoyed a few nice sunsets.

There are lots of sites decorated for Christmas, and the office is very festive, too . . . including lights playing to music!

The people here are very friendly, too.  Tom and I joined in their Monday night playing card BINGO game yesterday, and it was a lot of fun.  We had quite the case of beginner’s luck – Tom won once, and I won twice, plus I won a door prize!  They weren’t large jackpots, but it was a lot of fun and we got to know a bunch of people!

They wanted us to stay all winter . . . until we started winning, then they told us we had to leave!! LOL

Meanwhile, back in Michigan and Virginia . . .

Nicolas attended the frocking ceremony for a couple of his friends who were promoted to 1st Class Petty Officer,

and his ship’s Christmas Party.

Bryce attended the MSU Football Banquet with his Athletic Training classmates that he’s been working with all semester,

and now he’s taking final exams and getting ready for their trip to the Redbox Bowl in Santa Clara, California, on New Year’s Eve.  It’ll be a busy Christmas Break for him!

Tomorrow, we travel to our first long-tern stop for the winter.  It’ll be nice to settle in for a while.