Road Trip

Day 8: Natchitoches, LA to Hammond, LA – 305.5 miles*

We headed due south from Natchitoches (na-ka-tish) to fill our last available National Forest spot. Nice back country touch with the three bullet holes in the sign… Next up was a parish that started with a letter V and because of the scarcity of V counties back home the major prize for today’s drive. We took photos for more four items, but will probably only use 2 of them.

I had a semi-short mileage day planned, but the beautiful weather and scenery of northwest Louisiana just begged for more exploring. When we stopped in Lecompte (luh-kawmpt) for lunch at the famous Lea’s Lunchroom my navigator plotted an awesome detour around the north of Baton Rouge on LA10. As I was tracing the route on the state map I noticed that there were not one, but two toll ferries, which are another Motoring Challenge Destination goal. As we approached to the town of Melville where the ferry across the Atchafalaya (a-cha-fa-lie-a) River was we started to worry as we didn’t see any ferry information signs.

Sure enough, when we got to the river all we found was a Dead End sign. We backtracked to a small closed convenience store to look at the map and check our options. As we were sitting there we heard a voice with a Cajun accent say, “Are ya’ll lost?” Up walked a fellow in a straw cowboy hat, missing half his top teeth and a belt buckle the size of dinner plate with the outline of the state of Louisiana on it. Donna, with a smile in her voice asked,”How’d you know?” The fellow replied,”Because that is right where all you cars and bikers park when you find out there ain’t no ferry no more.” “Ain’t been one in about two years.” We asked if the the other ferry further along the road was still in operation and said he thought that it was.

He was wrong. There is a brand spanking new bridge over the Mississippi River at the town of New Roads where our official, published by the Department of Transportation, 2014 Map of Louisiana said there was a Toll Ferry.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 262 (-43.5) – Total miles so far: 2171.7

Day 7: Fort Worth, TX to Natchitoches, LA – 366.6 miles*

Up at 5 and out of the hotel at 5:30 so we could beat the big city traffic. And we did for the most part, traffic was dense at several spots on the upper loop around Dallas/Fort Worth, but it never slowed down from 75 MPH, even through the narrowed lanes of the construction near the airport. Tiring of the standard “free” hotel breakfasts we sought out a DD in Garland for our morning repast.

We are back in one of favorite states to visit, Louisiana, especially for eating. Today’s lunch was barbeque at a spot our GPS led us to south of the town of Mansfield. As we cruised down the street it didn’t look like anywhere a restaurant would be and it really wasn’t a restaurant, but just a take-out joint. It reminded me of the place that Frank Underwood went to in the TV show House of Cards, one man, his smoker and a cleaver. We both got a sliced pork sandwich and ate it on a picnic table outside and watched a steady stream of cars pull in, get a bag of BBQ and drive off.

Tonight we went down to the historic Front St of Natchitoches and ate at the bar of Mama’s Oyster House. Donna got some of that gumbo she has been craving since we were in Baton Rogue two years ago. Then we shared fried crawfish, peel ‘n’ eat shrimp and spinach & artichoke dip appetizers. The dip had a neat twist, instead of tortilla chips to scoop with, you got battered and deep fried bowtie pasta.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 290 (-76.6) – Total miles so far: 1866.2

Day 5: Hope, AR to Fort Worth, TX – 338.0 miles*
We drove in from Arkansas, spent less than 17 miles driving on Oklahoma’s roads and then back out into Texas. We are “fair weather cachers”, so today’s rain would have normally kept us from even venturing out. But we are a 1,000 miles from home on our way through this part of the country and don’t know when we will be back, so we had to make at least one find here in Arkansas and one in Oklahoma. We did and this added another 2 states to our growing list of state’s where we have found only one cache. Our one trick wonders now stand at 9 of the 29 US states we have cached in.

Highlight of the day was our visit to Paris, TX. From the totally ridiculous replica Eiffel Tower with a giant red cowboy hat on top to the sublime lunch at Burgerland.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 310 (-28.0) – Total miles so far: 1466.3

Day 4: Batesville, MS to Hope, AR – 306.5 miles*
The reason we traveled through this part of Mississippi and stayed in Batesville was because just a hip and a skip down the road was Quitman County. As in the game of Scrabble, in the Moss Motoring Challenge the proper use of the letter Q is important. There is a town beginning with the letter Q in Mississippi too, Quitman, on the other side of the state, but we will miss it on the return trip. Not too much of a problem though as there is a Quinby in South Carolina about a 100 miles from home which we’ll get later.

The letter Q county was my main consideration for coming this way, but Donna noticed that there as a county called Sunflower on our route, so just because of that name, it will replace the recently nabbed Swain County as our S entry. We drove about 50 miles through the middle of Sunflower County and didn’t see a single sunflower.

Also in Sunflower County we stumbled on a Destination that we had been long mulling over how to get, a Jail or Prison. Turns out we were going to pass right by the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. I pulled the Miata into a sort of lane for pulling in to the gate of the prison, Donna held up the challenge cover page near the windshield and I snapped a couple pictures. We didn’t dare get out of the car and try any posing because we were already getting the evil eye from the guards at the gate.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 290 (-16.5) – Total miles so far: 1128.3

Day 3: Huntsville, AL to Batesville, MS – 252.2 miles*

Some of today’s drive and quite a bit of tomorrow’s will be on US278 which is the same road that travels south of Aiken and we take to drive to Hilton Head. The stretch between Oxford and Batesville was a four lane divided highway. The westbound lanes which we were using were made up of that annoying asphalted over 20 foot sections of concrete slabs that make the Miata go bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump rhythmically until you just want to be driving any other road.

Today’s photo will probably used as our second Sneak Peek image for the March to June time frame. Can you guess what this is of? Hint number one is that it is in a town called Tupelo. Hint #2 is that a King was born here. The title of the post is the third hint. Got it?

Other photos taken today were 2 cities, an H & an M, another National Forest and a state spelled em eye ess ess eye ess ess eye pee pee eye.

We have had kind of a running theme going, but unfortunately tomorrow it comes to a halt, we will not be staying in a town whose name ends in -ville. Instead our destination is the town of Hope, Arkansas, where another American King was born.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 220 (-32.2) – Total miles so far: 821.8