Shreveport, Little Rock, and the Beginning of Houston

Where to start?


We haven’t had internet access in awhile, so I hope I don’t forget a lot here.

We’ll start with Little Rock since we left off there.

We checked Maggie for restaurants in the area and our first choice was Farmer’s Daughter and our last was Willie D’s and there wasn’t much in between. We saw a Waffle House and had actually heard of that, so we opted for the hugest Waffle House we’d ever seen. I counted seating and the place would seat 50. Pretty big for a Waffle House. We were in Little Rock and our waitress had a New Jersey accent. Go figure.

After sustenance, it was time to go to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. We’d never been to a Presidential Library before, so we didn’t quite know what to expect. We got there and parked and there were a bunch of people setting up a something called Mexico 2010. Not sure what was going on there, but some sort of festival or something.

We went in and went through security and then went on to buy our tickets. We splurged for the audio tour since we had got a lot out of our last audio tours. This was the first place I didn’t have to leave my license with the desk in exchange for the audio gadgets. I found out why later. While looking at the Presidential Limousine, I, of course, got too close to the door and my audio gadget starts alarming. Oh, geesh. Figures.

We took the tour and it was interesting. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was actually pretty cool. Bill Clinton himself did most of the narration on the audio tour and on the film that was shown.

The Library is located on the Arkansas River and there’s an old drawbridge right there. I took pictures – I liked the drawbridge.

After the Library excursion, we got back on the road to travel through Arkansas some more. I thought maybe the scenery would change since we traveled the first part of Arkansas at night and pretty much saw trees, grass and little else. Well, during the day in the other half of Arkansas, that’s pretty much what we saw, too. There were a few more exits in the second half, including the exit to Hope, which is Bill Clinton’s birthplace. We also saw signs for Okalona, Arkadelphia and we actually stopped in Texarcana. There was also a Nevada County. We began to wonder if Arkansas came up with any of their own names for anything. I must say that Arkansas still hasn’t impressed me a lot, but this drive was slightly better than last night’s, but mostly consisted of trees, grass and a few exits scattered here and there. The other cars we saw along the route we figured were all trying to get out of Arkansas, too. And, by the way, Arkansas has THE roughest roads. Probably because everyone is trying to get out.

We finally got to Louisiana, which looked a lot like Arkansas except it was actually populated and you could tell it was populated – there were houses interspersed amongst the trees and grass. They weren’t great houses, but they were houses. And we were on this scary little two lane highway because apparently you can’t get from Little Rock to Shreveport very easily.

Finally, we got to our hotel in Shreveport. Hotwire has chosen a nice looking Holiday in for us. The lobby was nice. There was a bar and restaurant (no complimentary breakfast again…oh well) and there was an indoor/outdoor pool – part in the lobby and part outside – and a Jacuzzi.

We checked into our room and well, it was a disappointment. I figured we were in trouble when I saw it had a metal door and usually only the old hotels have those metal doors. I looked inside once we got the door open (it was quite a feat considering it was stuck) and the bathroom looked nice – it almost excited me since it apparently had been updated, until the odor hit me. Musty hotel room. Great. And we went inside and experienced the toilet – which was quiet for 28 seconds and then ran for a few seconds. Oh my gosh! All night long – every 28 seconds, the toilet ran. Great. We also discovered that we didn’t have internet or cell service.

Next on the agenda was eating. There are not many choices for food in Shreveport – at least not in the area we were in. Fast food and pizza – great choices when you’re looking for gluten free, huh? We decided on a Steak and Seafood place – named Savio’s. Maggie told us “You have arrived” and we were at a McDonald’s. Hmmm. There was a strip mall behind McDonald’s , so we looked there and we don’t see Savio’s, but there is a Becca’s Steak and Seafood, so we take a chance. It was a hole in the wall, but sometimes those places are good, so we decided to take a chance since there really were no other great options available.

We went inside and were seated and quickly noticed that there were people who were going in and out of this back room with a swinging door. That room, we glimpsed, had much nicer tables and chairs and its own personal waitress. Wonder what that was all about? But I didn’t really want to find out – we ate and left as quickly as we could.

And when we left, we went to that McDonald’s we spotted thinking they’d probably have internet access since most do – it didn’t . Geesh. So, cut off from all communication from the civilized world, we went back to the hotel and listened to the toilet run every 28 seconds and slept on pillows that felt like they were full of cotton balls until we fell asleep – only to be awakened sometime in the early morning by cheering in the lobby – that we could hear clearly in our room. And then, we fell asleep again – until early in the morning when the very LOUD housekeeper knocked LOUDLY on a door – down the hall, I might add – and said HOUSEKEEPING!!!!!. I gave up after that and got ready for the day.





SHREVEPORT

So after such a restful night’s sleep, we were ready for our day in Shreveport. The agenda was to go to the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum. It was free, but I had read that it was a Smithsonian Affiliate – I didn’t know Smithsonian had those, but I guess they do, so I had high hopes even with it being free – after all the Smithsonian is also free.

Let’s just say that it wasn’t the Smithsonian. Nor was it anything remotely like the Smithsonian. I’m not sure why the Smithsonian wanted to affiliate to tell you the truth. The museum itself was in a historic building (on the National Register of Historic Places) and the building was kind of cool. The museum was formed in a circle with dioramas in windows all around the outside of the circles showing various things about Louisiana – crops, natural resources, etc. The middle had glass cases with stuff in them – weapons, replicas of ships, etc. and the inside wall had paintings and more stuff including a replica of an alligator. We were done in about half an hour – and we went around the outside once and went back around the inside once. Oh well…Shreveport was a dud all the way around, and not a vampire in sight anywhere either.

So on our way out of Shreveport, we did see a few interesting sights – a building had a sign that said “Louisiana Baptist University”. There was one building. It looked like an old Shoney’s. Seriously.

It wasn’t long before we reached Texas and we started seeing signs for FM 352 or some such. We looked it up and FM means Farm to Market. We did see a lot of farms. And cows. And horses. It was a nice change from the nothingness of Arkansas. And no, Arkansas didn’t even have cows. I’m not sure why with all that grass, but I never saw a cow.

We also passed Palestine and Damascus. Made me think we took a wrong turn into the Holy Land. And we drove some more. We were on 59 South and the road turns and turns. You’re on it for like 40 miles and then you have to turn left. Not yield, but turn. And then you’re on it for 15 miles and you have to turn again. And there are 472 little towns along the road, so the speed limit goes from 70 to 45 with some frequency. And sometimes it goes from 70 to 55 to 70 again in the span of a few yards. You can see all the signs. Yes, I’m serious. I have NO idea what that’s about. And there’s not even a town that you can see. It’s like they say, geesh, we need a speed trap here, let’s put up a sign. I don’t know. It was really, really weird.

And so at some point along the way, I was getting tired and Abi had never been to a truck stop, so we stopped at a truck stop so she could have that experience. She thought it was cool and she got a doo rag kind of thing with flaming skulls on it. She was quite a happy girl.

Driving in Houston is scary, by the way. The roads do not do what you expect of them based on the signs. The highways have multiple exit lanes coming in and then going away and deciding what lane you need to be in for what road you actually want to be on is quite the feat. But we made it.

Hotwire was good to us and we were in a 4 star hotel – The Intercontinental. Which, considering their points card is the same as Holiday Inn, I would assume is a fancy Holiday Inn. Really fancy. Valet parking and a guy who carries your bags to your room fancy. Abi was a little overwhelmed and I’m sure we both looked like the hicks from South Carolina that we are. The restaurant and bar were pointed out to us numerous times by numerous employees. There was a robe hanging in the bathroom. The guy who carried our bags asked if the temperature in the room was alright. I’m not used to that kind of attention. It was a little creepy.

We decided to pass on the restaurant and decided to take our lives into our hands and drive in Houston again. It was early and Abi didn’t want to stay in the hotel room all night. We went to eat at The Cheesecake Factory that is in The Galleria which is a mall here. We actually found free parking (parking at the hotel is not free - $16 bucks for overnight parking – geesh) and parked below decks there. We found our way to the restaurant and had a nice meal and decided to walk around the mall some after dinner to see what was there. There was a lot of stuff – apparently people in Houston have money is all I can say. There was a Tiffany’s, a Saks Fifth Avenue, and a store for every designer I’d ever heard off, plus a few I hadn’t. Abi had to wander into the Saks and take a picture of some suit that cost like $2000 or something. Of course a salesperson asked if she could help us. Not on your life.

After wandering around the mall, we got turned around and couldn’t figure out how to get back to the entrance where we parked our car. We knew we were near Stairwell 14, so when Abi found Stairwell 15, she thought we were close. We ended up in some dark hallway behind the stores and it took us forever to find civilization and our car again.

We did make it safely back to the hotel somehow.