5/14/12 – Today started at 8:30 AM when we left Baton Rough headed for Dallas, TX. Knowing that there would be nothing of significance to see today, we set out to put a lot of miles behind us and so we did. We arrived in Dallas at 4 PM.

The drive had promised to be drab and uninteresting, but there are a few items of note. And the big event of the day was crossing the Muddy Mississippi. (Funny, that word was a lot easier to spell when I was 6 years old, than it just was, when I tried to type it. LOL) We saw a river boat and barges, and it was clearly a working river with lots of industrial activity where we crossed it on I-10. 

The word for the day is ELEVATED. We drove over more elevated roads than even yesterday. One single stretch of this aging elevated highway was at least 30 miles long.  Kind of scary if you consider the fact that some day that road will need to be rebuilt.

Heading north towards Shreveport, LA we saw a crawfish farm…large square areas of muddy water full of floating traps, and the farmer, in a flat bottom boat, was collecting his catch by dumping the critters from the traps into his boat.

The remainder of the drive north could have been Maine, but for the pavement bleached by the hot sun.  It looked a lot like I-95 between Augusta and Bangor, where the white pines were replaced by southern yellow pine, and the maple and birch trees replaced by oak and many species that I could not begin to identify, at least not from the car. But it was all very green. The significant thing was that there were no palm trees, so we knew we were definitely headed north into cooler country. And we did see something we have not seen in a very long time…a sign that said "Bridge may ice in cold weather".

We did pass through Alexandria, LA in which we noted a lot of hospitals and churches. Steve calls these towns M&M, Medicine and Ministry. I first heard him say that when I lived in Little Rock, where there were a lot of both.

From Shreveport we headed west into Texas and the next 4 hours were unremarkable. There was little to see and few towns along the way. We crossed the border into Texas and the first exit number was 635. Kinda gives you an idea of just how big Texas is.  We saw a handful of oil well pumps along the way. And in one field we saw 2 cowboys and a large heard of cows. The ranchers were on horseback, about 200 yards from the heard, and the cows were obediently lining up for I don't know what. But if  I could only train my dog Beamer  as well as these cows, I would be in business!

Later – OK so we decide to go out to eat for the first time and leave Beamer in the room. We are only gone for an hour and when we return the desk clerk is standing outside our room, the door is open and she tells me that our dog is OUT. OMG, I have a heart attack. All I can think is that he is loose in Dallas and we will never see him again. Well, then she tells me that she has him in her office.  BIG PHEW!!!! He had been running the halls freely until she managed to catch him and put him behind the desk for safe keeping. Meanwhile our room is open. Geeeze. Bad on us. We know Beamer knows how to open a door with a lever handle. But we just didn’t think!  We have changed the door handles that open out of the house. This door swings IN. But it is on some kind of a spring that pops it inward when the door handle is released. This dog is way too smart for his own good. Crisis resolved, thanks to a wonderful Mexican desk clerk. Believe me, I thanked her profusely!!!