January 5, 2021 Winnie

Winnie-Sowell County Park Winnie, Texas

I did 5 big laps around the Walmart/Lowes parking lots while talking on the phone with my sister-in-law, Dana this morning.  The time passed quickly and I got three miles done.  Tim had finished his morning exercises and had started the RV and was pulling in the slides as I finished.  We topped the RV off with 60 gallons of diesel fuel and got back on Route 10W. 

We bypassed New Orleans by taking 12W to Baton Rouge.  This saved a lot of time.  We crossed the Mississippi River.  Just this summer we were at the headwaters of the river in Minnesota.  Today we were fairly close to the end. 

Parts of the highway are elevated over swampland.

As we approached Lake Charles, we began to see storm damage.  Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm, landed just south of this town on August 27thwith 150mph winds.  “Trees were shredded and houses were cracked open like eggs.”  20 days later, Hurricane Delta made landfall less than 20 miles away.  There are hundreds of house roofs with blue tarp still in place.  These poor people…

We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center and walked the boardwalk nature trail over the Blue Elbow Swamp.  It was great to get out and walk around in warm sunshine.

We arrived in Winnie in mid-afternoon.  We have camped here at the county park a couple of other times.  There are no hookups but it is free and away from the highway.  We rested and then rode bikes though the park and the surrounding neighborhoods.  It was still warm enough and light enough to take our beet salad and cold roasted chicken and eat outside. 

We are looking forward to a quiet night in this small town.  Tomorrow westward ho!

We bought the boys a magnetic map of the US so that they can follow our journey. Yesterday Ollie moved the heart to Louisiana and today he will move it to Texas.