November 3, 2009 – Homeward Bound

Good morning. Welcome back. Spice got me out for an early morning walk. We could actually see the campground as the sun was rising. As she and I walked away from the campsite, we hung a left turn up the hill to see where it would take us. The road led us up the hill to a switchback where the road continued to climb along the ridge. After a ways, we turned around and headed back for breakfast. Later, I found out that we had almost climbed to the summit of one of Mississippi’s highest points; 603 feet above sea level.

While Carol bundled up the inside, I grabbed the step stool, Windex and a couple of rags to clean the windshield. It seemed that on Monday, a couple of thousand ladybugs elected to commit suicide on the front of the RV.

Last night we studied the maps and decided to take US 82 west through Mississippi and southern Arkansas to Texarkana. This route will put us between I-40 and I-20 and should be a pleasant drive. If we stay on Rte 82, we will proceed just north of Dallas, south of Amarillo and into New Mexico.

Saying “adios” to the Trace, we were off on to real roads with real traffic. The road was good, four lanes and smooth (I like smooth). As I have said before, we enjoy seeing the various towns along the way. It is a segment of America that we miss, racing down the Interstates. We do lose the rest stops and we do have the opportunity to catch some traffic, but it is worth the trade off.

One of our first observations was that Mississippi is pretty level. Many of the fields we drove by were wet, evidence of last week’s storms. The ground is saturated and the water is just not being absorbed quickly. Along the Trace and in northern Alabama, we saw pines grown as a cash crop. Here in Mississippi, the pines gave way to cotton. Carol had never seen cotton being grown, as far as she could remember, so we stopped by a cotton field. We waded through the weeds along the road and trespassed into the cotton field for some pictures.

Crossing the Mississippi into Arkansas, flooding of the low lying areas is very much in evidence. We had heard on the radio that one of the National Wildlife Preserves was closed as all of the trails and roads were submerged. Half an hour later, we saw it as we passed by the entry to the preserve. We were west of Greenville, AR in the Ouachita river basin and everything along the road was either wet or underwater. Arkansas is like a runway model, not flat, just enough rise to give a tease of character.

Carol found a KOA in Texarkana. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it. We made the left turn as instructed by Gigi only to find ourselves lost. As it turned out, the exit off of I-30 has been redesigned. Gigi was accurate for the old exit, but not the new design. A quick call to the KOA and we were back on track. It is a decent campground with only two drawbacks: the RR tracks pass within 500 feet as does the highway. Can you say “road noise”. But they did have a showing of “The Long, Long Trailer” staring Lucy and Desi. It is a great film for those of us who have time in an RV. We can identify with many of their misadventures.