9/27/14 Beaver Dam Campground, Minden, LA

Well, as normal when camped in campgrounds just off major highways we were awaken by fellow RV'ers pulling out early.  According to our clocks it was 8am, but our clocks are on eastern time so it was really 7am.  Jami stayed in bed for a while longer, but I was up so I went outside to see how the weather was and who else was out and about.  Apparently we were in a pretty deep sleep cause over half of the RV's that pulled in last night were already gone.  Jami was up and out of bed by 8:00 local time.  We both got some breakfast and hung out inside doing our normal things, Jami on Facebook and me on the laptop computer.  A little after 9:00 we started getting things ready to travel and by 9:45 we were on the road,  I think that must be the earliest we have ever pulled out of a campground.

We were on the road about 15 minute's on I-59 south then we exited onto I-20 west when I saw a rest stop, knowing we left pretty early and Jami's morning coffee was probably going through her I radioed her and asked if she wanted me to pull in.  Being the "rest stop" sign didn't saw how far till the next one we played it safe and pulled in.  When bathroom breaks were done I asked Jami if she wanted to drive the Dually pulling our 5'th wheel.  At first the reply was Uuumm,  well,  Hmmm, I don't know,  how far is it to the next rest stop?  She looked it up on her tablet and saw it was 75 miles so she decided she would go for it.  Now Jami has driven the dually while pulling the camper before both on the highway and on smaller streets going through town, but I was always in the truck with her, this will be the first time completely by herself.  There she is ahead of me :)

Now up to this point the roads have been smooth with very little traffic, no sooner did she get a few miles down the road the traffic came out of know where with of-course plenty of semi trucks, then the roads turned into the roughest, bumpiest roads we've been on yet.  I think the closest dirt track would have been smoother.  I thought on some of the bumps the trailer tires were about to come off the ground.  Jami made it to the next rest stop, but just before it she got to cross her first real bridge by herself.

She was ready to get out of that truck and back into her Toyota, she said it was stressful with the terrible roads and all the traffic, but being right behind her the whole way in the Toyota I can say she did terrific!!  She stayed centered in her lane, changed lanes and handles the semi's next to her excellent.  Anyone following her would have been impressed on how well the driver of that truck/camper was handling all those obstacles.  Can you tell I'm proud? :)  Although the conditions weren't idea for her first solo drive, I'm sure she gained a lot of confidence in herself because of it.

While in the rest stop Jami noticed a screw driver stuck in the underbelly of our camper.  She asked me about it so I looked to see what she was talking about.

Yep, That's a screw driver alright.  I guess we ran the screwdriver over causing it to bounce just right to stick itself into our underbelly.  I pulled it out and fortunately it didn't seem to hit anything important on the other side of the underbelly.  I'll have to tape the hole up later.  Jami went inside the camper and noticed the recliner was now in the reclined position and one of her pieces of crafts that was attached to the wall came off.  I'm telling you, the roads were awful. 

I took over from there and the roads smoothed out and traffic lessened, of-course :)  We were on I-20 for most of todays trip to "Beaver Dam Campground" within the "Kisatchie National Forest".  This is a National Forest campground and it is beautiful!!  Large campsite with water & 50 amp electric for $15 a night!  This place will probably be getting a rating of 8 out of 10 when I add it to my campground reviews page. 

 

I have no idea what kind of plant this is, just thought the purple berries were pretty.

We were really liking this place so we made plans of a campfire tonight right away which means we needed to run into town to pick up some wine, and since well be in town I offered to cook dinner.  FYI - that means I'm buying dinner :)  We stopped by the first grocery store we passed, no wine, so then we went to a Wal-Mart, no wine.  So we asked where to get wine, whelp, its a dry county :(  So we bought me some mix so I could drink frozen strawberry daiquiris (yes, I drink girly drinks), Jami still had wine for her at home.  We got some subs from Subway in Wal-Mart and headed home.   Once home we ate our subs, got showers and got the fire started.

 
We sat out there till almost 1am local time, now we haven't really adjusted from the eastern time zone to the central time zone yet so my body was thinking it was almost 2am and it wanted desperately to go to bed. I bet we adjust to the new time zone now.