Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

[Note:  Was evaluated for P.T. earlier this afternoon, but that was it.  Except for 15 minutes lying on heat, which was heavenly.  Bought an expensive, but best suited, heating pad on the way home and can't wait to start P. T. next Tuesday and get home traction setup then.  Meanwhile, the long weekend in pain ahead fills my vision.  Dee]

April 1st – Wednesday Afternoon, On The Road From Abilene

 

 Just as I had predicted weeks earlier, it was exactly 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon as I floor boarded the gas pedal in Mom’s 13 yr. old 4 cylinder Toyota Camry to get it up to speed to ease onto Interstate 20 on the north side of Abilene.  Actually, ease isn’t the word.  The West Texas winds were blowing fiercely with gusts up to 45 mph or so.  It took all I could do to hold the car on the road, much less stay within our lane.

Mom pulled sandwiches and drinks out of the ice chest on the floor behind me and she and Laura ate lunch.  I had eaten half my sandwich before we left, knowing as driver I’d need my full attention on the road.  But, I wasn’t prepared for this.

The winds stayed strong and wore me down by the time we began to get out of them about an hour down the road.  After that inauspicious beginning, the rest of the trip would be a breeze.  (Get it – strong winds/breeze?  Am I lame, or what?!)  Now the wind was more from behind blowing us east and increasing our gas mileage.  We "flew" by Arlington, Texas about 3:30 p.m. (see map above) and stopped to take a break.

I called Tom, telling him we were making good time and he suggested we might want to think about driving on to Shreveport and stay at one of the casino hotels on the Red River.  His reasons were that we could pull up and not only have valet parking, but have someone take our numerous bags (and ice chest) up to our room and have a good place to eat without having to go out again after dark.  I told him I didn’t think so, thinking that somehow my mom (or naive Laura – not that I’m particularly worldly, you understand) and casinos didn’t quite go together but would keep it in mind.

Mom was doing great, she said, and ready for more.  Laura had been trying to take a nap the whole way from Abilene without success, but offered to drive.  I told her I was still good to go and really didn’t think she would like having to drive on across the south side of Dallas in all of the heavy afternoon traffic.  She agreed and off we went.

Once we got past Dallas, still on I-20, the road was good with not much traffic.  Laura had been studying to get ahead with her little class that she does with BFS.  She’s been doing BFS (which I can never remember and am always asking "VBS?", "IRS?", "FBS?") for years, but still goes and likes it.  Anyway, she decided she needed to give Mom & me some Bible tests from things they’d been studying.

Okay, we figured.  Can’t do too bad against two year olds.

But, she "cheated" and gave us questions that BFS thought were inappropriate for 2 year olds.  (Translated:  Too difficult.)  Like, why (more than one reason) did God have Moses raise the bronze snake on a pole in the desert for the Isrealites to look upon to keep from dying from poisonous snake bites after God had told them to not have idols.  Just simple stuff like that.

You know.  Like name all of the 10 commandments.  Name the five reasons Moses gave to God at the burning bush as to why he could not go back to Egypt to meet with King Pharoah and then lead the Isrealites out and to the promised land.  Name each of the 10 plagues of Egypt.    

But, not to worry.  Mom & I aced the quizzes!!  On my part, luckily for me, both Patrick (Mead) & Greg (England) had just run blog posts dealing with the bronze snake on the pole in the Sinai desert.  Who’d a thunk, you know?  I mean – blogging does indeed have worthwhile value.  I was really excited to be "examined" on this Biblical topic.  

Anyway, the quizzing caused the late afternoon on Interstate 20 to pass rapidly and when I came out of my mental reverie concentrating on my Bible knowledge of 60 years (good grief – has it been that long?!), I found that we were approaching my last scouted out city in east Texas – Longview – and it was only a little after 5 p.m.

I pulled off the Interstate and into a good ol’ MacDonald’s parking lot for a potty break and for Laura to get coffee.  We traipsed into the empty store and I told Laura to ask for fresh coffee to go.  She did and we, once again, related our road trip adventure to the bored staff behind the counter.  

Then we had our photo taken by one of the crew.  See below:

After that, I took Laura & Mom’s pictures by Mom’s car, which she marveled had NO bug splats on the windshield after 336 miles.

 

Then, I took one more picture, just to completely document this road trip to end all road trips, even though having a clean windshield at MacDonald’s in Longview, Texas, some 336 miles from home (Abilene) seemed a bit of a stretch, you know.

 I’d kept asking Mom all along if she was doing okay, and she kept saying,  "Yeah, I’m doing fine."

Laura, meanwhile, was taking strong pain medication (boy, can I relate now) for damaged covering on one of the nerves in her right back shoulder blade (mine’s left) from a big bone spur in her neck, which she had operated on about six years ago.  

I called Tom, who asked where we were and how things were going.  I told him, "Mom’s doing great, but Laura & I are kind of iffy (I was tired)."  

"You girls should be ashamed of yourselves," he admonished.

 Laura asked if she could drive.

I don’t think so," I said.  "You just took a strong pain pill and said you were sleepy."

The next thing I knew, we were coming into Shreveport, Louisiana!  Halfway home to Picayune.  And it was only a little after 7 p.m.  I was amazed.  And, unprepared.

I pulled off I-20 where the sign for a Hampton Inn (where Tom & I usually try to stay) was, but we immediately discovered this four lane 1/2 mile "boulevard" was lined with hotel/motels ending with the Shreveport regional airport, the Hampton Inn being the last one before the airport gate.  There were no places to eat.

We all agreed this was no place to stay and I pulled back on to I-20 to forge ahead.

All of the way through Shreveport and across the Red River, there was nothing.  So, I got off the Interstate to the right over the Red River in infamous Bossier City, Louisiana to check out the casinos as last resort, as Tom had suggested.  There were two and the second somehow appealed to me more than the first
.

Mom & Laura were totally relying on me, I understood, and felt a great burden on my shoulders to make the right decision.  Acting with much more confidence than I really felt, I said, let’s stay here tonight, and pulled under the portico of the DiamondJack Casino Hotel.  The last lights of day were fading away as the valet handed me a ticket for the car and a bellman appeared to take our luggage, ice chest and other paraphernalia up to our room.

 Mom & Laura were both totally out of their elements and totally relying on me, so I led the way to the check-in/check-out counter where we came upon a personable young black man who had the name, of all names, Steven Hotel.

  To Be Continued . . .