I woke up early this morning after sleeping VERY well! I got ready and loaded up so that I could drive a bit in the area before leaving town.

Since today was my last day of driving, I decided I needed to make the most of it. I drove down through downtown, which has some interesting buildings from the old days.

I wanted to see something on the north side and ended up driving into a cemetery off Cemetery Rd! The gate was open, and I drove respectfully along the driveways and wondering who was buried and the history.

Seeing that I wasn't getting closer to the Mississippi River, I went back up the road to turn onto Learneds Mills Rd, which runs northward along the river. It was steep and wet, so I pulled into 4-hi (whee!) and kept driving. I pulled off to get a photo of a barge going north.

The paved road ended shortly and became a wet, muddy dirt road, so I kept going. The jeep just kept going with no slipping or sliding. Eventually, I turned around enough to get the view of the steel beam bridge (Hwy 84) that crosses over the Mississippi River and sit for a moment before heading back.

I drove on, slinging the rocks and mud off for a bit and stopped to look at a bed and breakfast cottage, which has a nice view of the river.

I pulled out of 4-hi once I got back up the wet steep incline. I turned left at Madison St to go east, and along that street on the west-bound side is a house with an unusual front yard... There are American flags, red/white/blue flower bunches set uniformly in the tiny median between the sidewalk and the street itself. In the yard itself and the porch is all kinds of stuff, like a bicycle, signs, and yard ornaments. You just have to see it!

I made my way to Hwy 84 to cross the Mississippi River on the steel beam bridge I saw earlier - this makes the third different crossing I have taken over the Mississippi River, the other two being Memphis in TN and Baton Rouge in LA (years ago). It's an old bridge with steel beams for a frame over the road.

As soon as I crossed the bridge and started heading back down on firm ground (putting me in LA), I could see the clouds up above, and below that some of the darkest clouds I've seen in a long time. It's an absolutely beautiful view for me, as I have very strong memories of seeing them in Corpus Christi as a child. I remember standing outside in my raincoat and carrying my clear plastic umbrella with cartoon images on it. I can still remember the smell of the plastic of the umbrella and playing with Fisher-Price toys in the rain at that age. I can feel and imagine all kinds of things inside me when I see a day like this.

As I drove along, these clouds gave way to a very shallow layer of dense clouds miles deep hanging low, giving the very dark impression when I crossed the bridge. It ended up not raining.

I passed through towns like Ferriday, Jonesville, Utility, Archie (where I turned onto Hwy 28 to head for Alexandria). From Alexandria, I headed southwest on Hwy 165 towards Lake Charles. LA is definitely flat along these roads. I noticed a lot of farm land and various kinds of tractors. There's even some small-sized cotton farms with the tell-tale white cotton blossoms nearing harvest time. Of the farms that appeared fallow, you could tell there was a recent harvest with the cotton bales ready for shipping.

I finally hit I-10 east of Lake Charles. I was not looking forward to this, this being the last major leg of my trip home. Just before I left Lake Charles, I crossed Calcasieu River on the bridge. This bridge has a vertical clearance of 135 feet and is over a mile long. What's a little scary about this bridge is that it has been rated as "structurally deficient" by the feds.

I pulled off to go to the first Texas rest stop on the other side of the border, and I wanted to say I was surprised to find water puddles in the parking lot! I hadn't seen very much rain in Texas in the last several months!

I decided to head for Beaumont to gas up one last time before getting home. By this time, I was somber, knowing that I would be home in less than two hours; I didn't want this trip to end. I stopped in the middle of a love bug swarm at a gas station. Obviously, it rained while I was out-of-state. I'd say there had to be more than 50 love bug pairs per cubic yard! (Those are the black bugs with an orange spot and fly together while mating). I filled up in a hurry and jumped back in fast! The highway was just THICK with bugs. I didn't even bother to clean my death-filled windshield; I'd wait until I got home, as once I was home, it would be relatively bug-free. I started up one last time for home.

I drove for over an hour and a half, making it to the east side of Houston by 2 30 in the afternoon. I have to say that the sight of Houston's skyline made me very sad. This, I did not want to see.