Georgia to New Mexico - Part 4
Today's destination is more distant than anything we have done this week. We will cross all of Louisiana and most of Texas before arriving at our campground for the night.
It's a sloppy, rainy start to our drive. And warmer too. In an earlier post I mentioned that we were heading out from our Georgia starting point at a time that might let us get through a gap in severe weather that was crossing the southeast. So far so good, we have had rain but no thunderstorms, hail or tornadoes. But it has been close, just last night, some of the communities we went through on our way to our current campground were hit with strong, damaging storms. Some were hit directly by a tornado.
But weather is not our nemesis today, no, it's the road. I-20 has turned into a real beast as we approach and pass through Shreveport, LA. We spent nearly an hour at a speed of less than 50 mph, much of it at 35 mph and still were getting jarred so hard that I worried truck and trailer suspensions were being damaged. As soon as we crossed into Texas we stopped at their visitor center for a break. There was a host there that asked how we were doing and I asked that they pass along my request for Shreveport to fix their part of I-20. The host replied that I would not believe how many people ask the same thing every day.
By noon we were approaching Tyler, Texas. From a previous stay at Tyler State Park some years ago we knew that there was a Flying J truck stop and good bar-b-que joint coming up at an exit. Since we are going to drive late into the afternoon we thought this would be a good time to take on fuel for the truck and us. Right there at the end of the westbound exit ramp is somewhat of a large shack that is Bodacious Bar-B-Que. The big dirt parking lot off to the side is populated with oil field trucks but we slipped right in between a tanker and a dump truck and called it good. The hot link sandwich and pulled pork sandwich were worth the stop.
The trip across the overpass to the Flying J was less satisfying than Bodacious Bar-B-Que. Trucks were lined up for fuel like nobody's business. We watched the progress for awhile and it was clear that it would be at least a couple of hours before we would get to a pump, so we pulled out of line and got back on the road. There will be another truck stop soon enough.
Not too much farther down the road and we hit another Flying J that had lanes specifically built for RV's. There was no waiting at this place and we soon had a enough fuel to get us to the end of the day. It was also enough fuel to get us past the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. What a zoo.
Just a little west of Fort Worth we ended our I-20 journey and nosed into our campground for the night in Weatherford, TX. It took us a little over seven hours today and we are pulling into our one and only "resort" campground on this trip. They have a lot of amenities at this campground - swimming pool, gym, community room and a bunch of other stuff that we don't have time to take advantage of. What they don't have is room between RV pads or wide enough roads or a way to get out the next morning without a complex set of manuevers to get to turns wide enough to get to the exit. We really didn't feel like we got value for our money at this one.
There was no time for exploring Weatherford, we just got ourselves something to eat, watched a little news and hit the rack. Tomorrow is not going to be long but it is going to be hot and the wind will not be in our favor.
It's a sloppy, rainy start to our drive. And warmer too. In an earlier post I mentioned that we were heading out from our Georgia starting point at a time that might let us get through a gap in severe weather that was crossing the southeast. So far so good, we have had rain but no thunderstorms, hail or tornadoes. But it has been close, just last night, some of the communities we went through on our way to our current campground were hit with strong, damaging storms. Some were hit directly by a tornado.
But weather is not our nemesis today, no, it's the road. I-20 has turned into a real beast as we approach and pass through Shreveport, LA. We spent nearly an hour at a speed of less than 50 mph, much of it at 35 mph and still were getting jarred so hard that I worried truck and trailer suspensions were being damaged. As soon as we crossed into Texas we stopped at their visitor center for a break. There was a host there that asked how we were doing and I asked that they pass along my request for Shreveport to fix their part of I-20. The host replied that I would not believe how many people ask the same thing every day.
By noon we were approaching Tyler, Texas. From a previous stay at Tyler State Park some years ago we knew that there was a Flying J truck stop and good bar-b-que joint coming up at an exit. Since we are going to drive late into the afternoon we thought this would be a good time to take on fuel for the truck and us. Right there at the end of the westbound exit ramp is somewhat of a large shack that is Bodacious Bar-B-Que. The big dirt parking lot off to the side is populated with oil field trucks but we slipped right in between a tanker and a dump truck and called it good. The hot link sandwich and pulled pork sandwich were worth the stop.
The trip across the overpass to the Flying J was less satisfying than Bodacious Bar-B-Que. Trucks were lined up for fuel like nobody's business. We watched the progress for awhile and it was clear that it would be at least a couple of hours before we would get to a pump, so we pulled out of line and got back on the road. There will be another truck stop soon enough.
Not too much farther down the road and we hit another Flying J that had lanes specifically built for RV's. There was no waiting at this place and we soon had a enough fuel to get us to the end of the day. It was also enough fuel to get us past the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. What a zoo.
Just a little west of Fort Worth we ended our I-20 journey and nosed into our campground for the night in Weatherford, TX. It took us a little over seven hours today and we are pulling into our one and only "resort" campground on this trip. They have a lot of amenities at this campground - swimming pool, gym, community room and a bunch of other stuff that we don't have time to take advantage of. What they don't have is room between RV pads or wide enough roads or a way to get out the next morning without a complex set of manuevers to get to turns wide enough to get to the exit. We really didn't feel like we got value for our money at this one.
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| Oak Creek RV Park It looks pretty good in a picture but the spaces are close together and this road funnels down to a nightmare for big rigs. |
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