Heading to Houston!

It’s day two of our travel to Houston, and we’ve settled into a pretty good routine with Consuelo driving and me in the “co-pilot” seat… Consuelo is a very good and conscientious driver – I feel absolutely safe with her at the wheel – the only time her attention drifts is when she starts punching information into the GPS (we try to avoid her having to do that while we’re driving).  And she does wake me up if I’m napping when she starts to feel drowsy. We chit chat and talk about the other RVs we see on the road or the flowers we see growing on the sides of the highway.

Consuelo’s taken to talking to the other drivers… especially the people who don’t accelerate on the entrance ramps and dilly-dally merging onto the interstate. Today, she invited a truck driver to play a game of Scrabble because he was taking so long to pass us on the left.

The dogs have also settled in very well. Sydney spends most of her time lying on the “dog house” between the driver and passenger seats… sometimes with her chin propped up on the dashboard, but usually staring balefully up at Consuelo as if to say " Are we there yet?" Barley’s happy stretched out on the floor in the living area.

We boondocked last night at a Wal-Mart in Meridian, Mississippi. We were a little bit nervous because this particular Wal-Mart was quite a distance from the interstate and we were the only RV in the parking lot. I did a little shopping when we arrived; Consuelo did some cleaning inside the Trek; we ate a sandwich and settled in for the night. The dogs enjoyed a nice long walk around the mostly empty parking lot this morning before we got back on the road.

We made such good time yesterday and today, we decided to drive as far as the Lake Charles area in Louisiana and find a state park for the night instead of boondocking. This way, we can hook up to water, take some nice leisurely showers, walk the dogs somewhere besides a parking lot, and dump our tanks before we get to Houston. We located Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles and stopped at a Wal-Mart on the way to the park for gas and groceries… Consuelo ran in to pick up some fried chicken for dinner. She bought a bag that was labeled “fried chicken dinner” but when we got set up in our site and opened the bag we discovered a giant burnt turkey leg! I made some rice and Consuelo warmed up some vegetables and we sat down to enjoy our “fried chicken” dinner! We tried our hardest to make the best of the meal and realized the best thing we could do was laugh… As we peeled the skin off the turkey leg, we uncovered turkey meat that was an unnatural pink color - lesson learned today: unless you can stomach bright pink turkey, always check inside the bag – don’t believe the label that says fried chicken: 2 breasts, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs”.

Click here to view some photos of our drive through Louisiana.