Summer 2009

This was a long day, 540 miles. The first two-thirds of the run were fairly uneventful. We got out of the French Quarter RV Park early enough to avoid any serious rush hour complications. We encountered a little bit of traffic going through Baton Rouge and then it was smooth sailing to Lafayette. The Baton Rouge to Lafayette portion of the trip is made more interesting because I-10 crosses over the Atchafalaya Basin on a twin set of bridges that are over 18 miles in length. We have been over the bridge several times and you are always looking out over the railing to see if you can spot any wildlife (I was looking out for trucks and cars). In Lafayette we switched to I-49 which runs north to Shreveport where we picked up I-20 and the final leg to Dallas. We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center rest area, a few miles west of Shreveport. Up to this point the going was easy.

Not long after we left the Welcome Center we could see dark, ominous clouds on the horizon. It was not long before we were in a series of thunderstorms that covered at least 25 miles of our route. The rain came down in sheets, so much so that our visibility was down to a few hundred feet at times. These conditions slowed us, and most everyone else, to 30 mph or less. After we got through the rain we had an easy time for a few miles until we got to the outskirts of Dallas. I never liked the traffic conditions in Dallas and this ride made me like it less. Unfortunately for us the rain delays cause us to hit I-635, a beltway around Dallas, at the beginning of rush hour. There are four, sometimes five, traffic lanes with people zipping in and out. I hit the brakes hard a few times. At times, the traffic came to crawl or a complete stop. What made it worse is that most people didn't have the courtesy to allow me to change lanes so that I could get to the right lanes and the exit ramps. Fortunately there were enough good drivers, usually in commercial vehicles, that allowed me to move from lane to lane,

The driving conditions in the last thirty miles just tired me out so that when we finally got to the RV park, I did a poor job of getting the trailer set up and had to maneuver it back and forth until I got it right. A set up task that usually takes me about 10 minutes took twice as long... something that is a little embarrasing in a pull through site.