Along our way to Natchitoches, we stopped at the Gardens of The American Rose Center in Shreveport. We were there the first of April, so the roses were not blooming quite yet. Although the roses were not blooming, other flowers were. The gardens even without the roses were beautiful. The little chapel behind the building is pretty. The trails are an easy walk from the main building. The people that worked in the main building where you purchase your tickets were friendly and helpful.

After a few changes in our plans, my mom, sister, and I finally hit the road for our long awaited road trip.  It was almost 7:30 a.m. before we were able to "hit the road."  After a quick stop at a fast food place for a bite of breakfast, we were on the road again.  The weather was cloudy with light rain showers when we left and pretty cool for Texas for this time of year.  Our first activity on our trip was to go to The American Rose Center Gardens in Shreveport, Louisiana.  It was a beautiful place even though the roses were not in bloom yet.  The lady who was working at the desk told us to be sure and make it to see the prayer garden which was around half a mile from the building.  On the way there we stopped for a few pictures of a beautiful little chapel surrounded by azaleas.  Unfortunately, we never made it to the prayer garden that the lady recommended.  About half was to the prayer garden, a thunderstorm moved in with a lot of lightning.  Since we were in the middle of a bunch of huge trees we decided we'd rather not get struck by lightning, not to mention the fact it was starting to rain pretty hard and we didn't want to get soaked.  We had to cut our stop at the rose gardens short because of the nasty weather.

After leaving the gardens, we headed on in to Boosier City for a quick stop at the local K-Mart.  You see back at Christmas my mom's work gave their employees a choice of $100 gift certificates.  My mom thought she was getting Target but some how selected K-Mart.  While there is nothing wrong with K-Mart, there is not a K-Mart with in a 150 of our home.  She tried using it online but they don't accept them online.  So we found a K-Mart in Boosier City, so she could use her gift card.  Next stop along our journey was Subway for sandwhiches before getting back on the road to finish the drive to Natchitoches.

Took an easy ride north to Shreveport where I found the Elks Lodge with no problem. They have set aside an area for 6 RV to park in but, the parking was very difficult. They had laid narrow strips of concrete which wern't much wider than the trailer tire. You guessed it, I came in a bit crooked and the truck was off the strip. I paid for that when I left and because of recent rain, I got stuck. it was so bad, I had to call AAA and get towed out.

Barksdale AFB is in Shreveport so I went to see the museum which was dedicated to the 8th Air Force. The plane displays were the in the worse shape I have ever seen. They all needed paint and some needed major rebuilding as parts were missing. This base is the home of B52's and was empty because of the need for them in the war. All of the active planes had been deployed to the middle east.

Summary:

Elk Lodges: 23, Escapee Parks: 7, Public Parks: 10, National Parks: 21, Major Ships: 5, Forts: 15

Expenses: 11 months on the road with an average expense of $1813/month.

I got lucky today and had Lilttle Pat and jeremiah in my van to keep me company! We had a good ole time on the road listening to Weezer and other great bands. Jeremiah and I did 1000 crunches! Not too shabby for a guy not even riding! The only problem today was that I lost my walkie talkie L I put it on the ground when I was doing crunches so I could hear what’s going on. The only problem was that I forgot to pick it up. I drove off and realized that I had left it. By the time I made it back, it was already gone. Good thing we have an extra one for our team. We had a lunch/arrival/friendship visit at the place that we are staying tonight. In ’03 it was a high gym that one of our teammates got locked out of. He came back well before curfew, but the doors were already locked! So he had to sleep outside on the benches. This year, however, we are staying at Holy Angels campus a Catholic Church campus that serves people with disabilities. “Get thee to a nunnery” as Hamlet would have said it. Steve Austin, a crew member from ‘03, was there with other guys from his alma mater to say hi and cheer on the guys. It was great seeing up and catching up. For the friendship visit, we had a fun dance with everyone. Billy and I made up some sweet moves; you would have been mesmerized. After all of that, we headed to Ernest Johnson’s lake house for some R&R. EJ is the president of Pi Kappa Phi. He graduated from Auburn so we a nice little chat about the GT Auburn games from back in the day. Instead of heading out to the lake, I did some blog updating, tv watching, and napping. It was very nice to not have so much to do all of the time. He also provided a really nice steak dinner for us which definitely hit the spot. That night, Jeremiah and I went and scouted the route. It was a fun little adventure into downtown Shreveport.