Day Eight; the first of many in Louisiana

We decided to try a series of Texas Farm to Market roads to avoid freeways in the Dallas area. This might have worked better if William had gone over the route with me prior to departure. Here is William planning the route with Val in a picture shot by Ben.

Farm Roads can change direction abruptly and although you may be going in the most traveled direction your Farm Road may have cut off to the left or the right. William said why are there no big road signs and I said if people are driving here they already know where they are and the small signs telling you that you are in Wylie or Emory are sufficient.

We needed to freshen up our groceries a bit so we stopped in a Brookshire in Emory. We pulled out of the parking lot and went a bit before we realized that we were on the wrong road. We had entered the parking lot prior to an intersection and exited after the intersection and the road we wanted had taken a jog.

Farm Roads are also fun to drive with no shoulder, narrow lanes and 55MPH traffic that feels like you are flying along a tiny curvy track. We crossed Lake Lavon twice in different directions on different roads. Gray shallow water with skinny tree trunks sticking up like sparse dark hair and tiny white caps from the fierce wind on the narrow bridges. This is where Val's tap water comes from. Water is sucked up out of the reservoir into a tall water tower so the water can flow to the houses and come out of the taps smelling like a swamp.

Finally we found Route 69. We decided to just follow it to I20 and then I49 rather than do any more fooling with back roads. But you do miss a bit of the countryside. Once we were on the interstate with wide mowed meridians and verges bordered by skinny short needle pines and hardwoods, we might have been on an interstate south of Jacksonville FL except for no kudzu.

We pulled off at Ajax into the Country Living RV park. Quiet now that the small sawmill across the road has shut down for the day. William shot a few pictures and spent time looking for the resident alligator in the RV park pond. That alligator is sleeping on the job as he has missed a few little yipper dogs tied up outside RV's.

William found no sign of the alligator, though he was told it had been seen today.




Ajax, Louisiana sawmill