IN LOUISIANA

Well well well - here we are sitting in the camper on Thurs afternoon at 1:30 pm. Jim just got back from visiting an old Army buddy in the "ASA", he is a chicken farmer down here in Ruston LA. Raises up to 80,000 chickens at a time Mark, so what do you think of that on a larger scale, he has 4 chicken houses that are each 400 feet long. It takes 7 weeks to get them from day old chicks to 6 pounds so we can devour them. Savages - we are a bunch of savages.



Back to square one - we left our house on Sun, got to Mac's by 3 or so - we were able to park around his corner overnight, the kids slept in the camper, we used so much gas two days before we left and the first two nights out we ran out by the time we got to Ruston and Jim had to take the tans in to fill them up.



On Sun night Jim went to see John Peterson, Carrie -Dave and the grand kids, little Jimmy Juniors B-day on the 2nd and pick up a converter box from Heidi's. Laura make us wonder beef Au juice sandwiches. I just have to do that on this trip - sooooooooo yummy, we slept there on Sun night and I got to spend many hours with Hope. Jim had a blast with Little Jimmy and Little Jimmy Junior and what fun I had watching Hope. I expect next time I see her she will be reading.



Wonderful Jim woke me at 3:10 and said let's go, I can't sleep anymore. My snoring kept him awake I guess, the joys of aging. Maybe walking in my sleep is next. We headed out and had a fun day on the road on Mon with the kids. We got to Joplin MO at the Big Red Barn Campground. Got in a little later than we planned on because we took a wrong turn in KC.

Let's see Mac you said about 4 things would go wrong on the way down here , the first thing was the engine light wouldn't go off, second was getting lost in KC, third was getting lost in Eldorado's MO but when Jim went to ask directions (yes you heard right, a man asking directions) he got a hot baked macadamia nut cookie, I even got a bite, we stopped there and made lunch in the camper. Fourth was running out of gas and by the way there was a Fifth, we couldn't get the gas grill to work our first night out because it was just too cold. There was 3 inches of snow on the ground of the Big Red Barn campground but it was 42 degrees out. We thought it was nice but what's a little snow.

Jim met with two of his army buddies yesterday morning - Sandy and Toomey, short for Thompson. One lives in Carthage and one lives in Ruston, only a few miles apart. Jim took me to the same dive for breakfast this morning. Very forgetable, my waffel was doughey and ham tuff. Milk and coffee were great!

Our TV died, that would be the flat screed we had in the guest room at home, and yes Mac that makes 6. Jim bought me a new 19" flat screen TV and DVD player. Quite nice. We are going out to dinner tonight with Sandy and Toomey and his wife. Will check in later.

I wish you could see this camp ground, Lincoln Parish Park Camp Ground. It has a lake with a paved path all the way around, walked around it twice yesterday with the dogs. Rained today but I took Otto for a long walk, Jim and Makons went to see Sandy. My goodness its beautiful out, even in the rain.