Skooter's Stop: Weekend Camping Trip of May 4th

Lake Sam Rayburn Trip

FRIDAY 5/4/12

We left the house midmorning for Sam Rayburn Lake. At first I was to follow John in the truck to storage then we would load his bike into the trailer and anything else necessary and leave from there, but then John changed his mind and instead we loaded everything at the front of the house to the dismay of passerbys trying to get down our narrow street.

We stopped long enough in Athens (I think) to buy some vodka on the outskirts of town since they don’t allow the sale of hard liquor in town. They are having a May election if they haven’t already to vote for hard liquor sales in town. I really thought Athens would be a bigger town than it was.

At 2:30 we got stopped on SH 69 in Alto by one of their finest. Well not really. He was an absolute tobacco chewing jerk. He asked if we were transporting guns, drugs, bombs or illegal aliens. This wasn’t very funny. If he really wanted to know he could have checked the vehicle and trailer himself. He cited us for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. He told us we were supposed to slow down to 20mph when passing by an emergency vehicle. People on the inside lane wouldn’t let us move over and we couldn’t stop to that slow of a speed although we did slow down quite a bit. This all evolved around him having someone else pulled over but instead of him turning to his right to see if there was any oncoming traffic he spun around to the left and almost hit US! I guess it scared him and made him mad at the same time so he decided to target us as well. What a jerk the cop was. Until now John had a perfect record. John has never had any tickets and he wouldn’t even let John off with a warning. What ever you do, if you see a police car on the side of the road be forewarned, this guy will look for anyway to make more money for his thieving town. This ticket will cost John over $260.10 (What’s with the dime anyway?) The guy didn’t even have a clue what speed we WERE going since he wasn’t even in his car. As far as he knew we could have been going 20mph but I don’t think that would have stopped him from finding some reason to give us a ticket. Other cars were whizzing by and he didn’t give them tickets. I think he saw big truck, trailer – hmm someone that probably wouldn’t have the time to come back to contest it and they probably had money to pay the fine. Needless to say, John was no happy camper.

Alto is between Rusk and Lufkin. It is a hub to several roads that feed into it such as I-69, SH 294, SH 21, FM 1194, FM 152, and FM 851. I also ran a search on Alto to find they fired their police department last year sometime maybe in the summer. When the local hoods found out there was no law in Alto their crime hit an all time high. What a dumb move that was. AGAIN, whatever you do be very, very careful driving through Alto especially while driving down the highway.

We stopped in Lufkin to fill up with gas later that afternoon. The mileage isn’t that good with this truck and trailer; we are getting maybe 9 – 10/mpg. Sturgis is going to be much more expensive this year than it was last year, just in the gas alone. A friend of mine was saying he wasn’t getting much better with his Ford F-150. Of course now he has upgraded to a bigger truck. It is in the shop right now. I am thinking he wished he had held on to the smaller engine truck.

Finally at we hit the town of Huntington, gateway to Lake Sam Rayburn. Now who the heck is/was Sam Rayburn, you ask? We have a lake in East Texas named after him and a tollway in Lewisville, Texas (formally SH 121) also named after him and lots more; too many to list them all.

I looked up Mr. Samuel Taliaferro "Sam" Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961) and here is what I found:

· Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee.

· Rayburn graduated from Mayo College (now Texas A&M University-Commerce) in Commerce, which is located in northeast Texas.

· He attended the University Of Texas School Of Law while teaching school, and was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1908.

· Just after being admitted to the bar, he won election to the Texas House of Representatives, beginning his first term in 1909.

· During his second two-year term in the Texas House, he was elected Speaker of the House at the age of twenty-nine.

· The next year, he won election to the United States House of Representatives in District 4.

· By the time of his death, he had served as Speaker twice as long as any of his predecessors.

· He entered Congress in 1913 at the beginning of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and served in office for almost 49 years (more than 24 terms), until the beginning of John F. Kennedy's presidency.

We finally arrived at our destination, Lake Sam Rayburn State Park, around the dinner hour. It is a very nice park and I think we got one of the nicest sites (Lot 12). Our site is just at the mouth of one of the coves and it looks out onto the lake. It is a great site for watching boaters, fishers and birds. It was quite humid when we arrived and the temperature for the day had hit 90⁰. I think this is going to be another bad summer if this is any indication.

We chilled and relaxed the rest of the evening after unloading the bike and bringing in items from the truck. While we were out there we thought we heard geese, swans or some sort of web-footed bird. I walked around a stand of trees since that was where the sound was coming from but I didn’t see a darned thing. I figured it must have been bull frogs since it sort of had that kind of sound.

We fixed shish kabobs for dinner on the grill before it got too dark. We ate these in the trailer where it was cooler. Lesson 1: Buy a couple of TV trays to use in the trailer while eating, if we don’t want to put up the larger table.

Later we sat out under the awning for a while enjoying the moonlight and stars. This was the weekend the moon was supposed to be closest to the earth. So far it didn’t look any different to me.

When we called it a night and went in, we folded out the sofa/bed and took out a movie to watch; (ah the life of trailering, so much roughing it). Some toyhaulers have sofas that don’t come together but this one does. It makes for good cuddling and the mattress isn’t that bad to sleep on. We decided next time if we wanted to watch TV while we had the sofas made out into a bed we needed a wide triangle shaped pillow to be able to sit up in bed without crushing the blinds. Lesson 2: Buy big pillows to use for support to lean on and watch TV. Other than the pillow thing, the sofa/bed was really were quite nice.

SATURDAY 5/5/12

We were awaken around 3 and thought a raccoon or some other wild life was tearing into our cooler. I popped my head out to find it was the awning popping in the wind after the wind had picked up over night. Once we found out what it was, John rolled up the awning and all was fine again AND quiet. Lesson 3: Roll up the awning over night. Because of the wind blowing and the awning being out it was also causing the trailer to sway; kind of scary. Once we rolled up the awning everything was right as rain and no swaying of the trailer.

We woke before my weekend 9am alarm clock went off due to the light streaming through the window in the door and chirping of the birds. I fixed our first breakfast in our little kitchen. I fried up some bacon and then the eggs in the bacon grease (not too healthy but we forgot margarine), and then rolled that up in tortillas sprinkled with cheese. It was pretty darned good but what isn’t when you are out camping?

Later John had seen an egret land on a log and it was making that loud obnoxious sound we heard last night. Now we know what the sound was and I also know why people in Carrollton hate those birds besides them being really nasty, dirty birds for being so white and they make all the areas they inhabit stink due to their feces and the bugs they carry like fleas, I believe. It is amazing they are still on the endangered list and haven’t been removed. The people use loud noise makers to keep them from nesting but over one night one snuck in and now they have to leave it alone. If they have a nest they cannot be removed. They were placed on the endangered list due to being almost extinct. People were catching and killing them for their feathers for hats. Well, that was then and this is now. They really need to take them off the endangered list. OK shoot me because I don’t belong to PETA. But then again, these people did move in on their sanctuary; thanks to progress and builders and landowners trying to make a buck in the Dallas TX area. Shame they cannot all live in harmony but I am sure this is happening elsewhere as well.

We cleaned up our little kitchen and then left for Louisiana late in the morning. We were heading for Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-uh-tish). I had never been there before although John had. He had told me what a pretty town it was.

Along the way there were all sorts of sweeping and swaying roads as well as up and down ribbons of road with wild flowers still growing along the side of the road. On the way we also travelled over several lakes besides Sam Rayburn – there was Toledo Bend Reservoir, Sabine River, Angelina River and Carrice Creek to name a couple.

Once we got to Natchitoches I could see he was right. All the way from their welcome sign to their college, Northwestern State University you could see the beauty of this town. It has a lot of history in it. It was named after an Indian tribe before they shipped them off to the reservations in Oklahoma. Isn’t that just downright wrong?

After stopping we walked around the shops on the Cane River. There are quite a few boutiques, shops and restaurants. One of the shops we went into was the oldest general store in Louisiana. Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile, est 1863. Established in 1863, the Kaffie-Frederick General Mercantile store of Natchitoches, Louisiana is not only the oldest business in the city, but it’s an important landmark for the entire community. The store was founded by Jewish Prussian immigrants Adolph and Harris Kaffie. The store has since done its best to maintain the original appearance of the store – even though its products have changed across the decades since the 1880’s. You can find more about Kaffie at their website below.

Kaffie-Frederick, Inc.

General Mercantile

http://www.oldhardwarestore.com/

Address

758 Front Street

Natchitoches, LA 71457

Phone
(318) 352-2525

(877)865-6681

Hours of Operation

Monday – Friday 7 AM - 5 PM
Saturday 8 AM - 5 PM
Sunday - Closed

After viewing and oogling all the goodies and interior at the general store we decided it was time to stop and have a beer. It was pretty warm out and we needed to cool off for a spell. What better place than the Landing. John wanted to sit on their patio but it was too humid so we sat inside instead. I am so glad we did. This is another establishment with lots of character.

They had heads of all sorts of furry deer-like animals on the wall from the original owner of the bar. According to the bartender he was an avid hunter and loved to go on safari in Africa.

The Landing Restaurant & Bar

‎ thelandingrestaurantandbar.com

Phone
318-352-1579

AddressThe Landing Restaurant & Bar
530 Front Street
Natchitoches, LA 71457

Hours of Operation
Tuesday thru Sun 11 am to 10 pm
Closed Mondays

Before leaving we stopped for a Poor Boy Sandwich at the Crawfish Hole restaurant. Neither of us got the crawfish one, although I got the fried shrimp and John got the fried oyster poor boy. This restaurant looked like an old carhop type restaurant, maybe an old Sonic. It looked like the center concrete area was built in with a pitched roof over it. It had windows on both sides of it but no real air conditioning to speak about though there were huge recirculating fans above. It was pretty hot in there too. Their décor consisted of crawfish on the walls, nets strung about, crawfish curtains, and the helm (steering wheel). The tables all have a big ole hole (hence the name) in the middle of them with a trash can underneath to throw away your crawfish shells. The bags of crawfish are HUGE! Oh and before even stepping into the joint we could smell the spices from the street.

Crawfish Hole

Address
119 La-1 S (119 South Drive)

Natchitoches, LA 71457

Phone

(318) 352-2379

Hours of Operation

Monday – Thursday 11 am – 8 pm

Friday & Saturday 11 am – 9 pm

Sunday 12 – 7

Restaurant open crawfish season only

October - May

After we ate we left back to our campsite. We were going to take an alternate route but instead decided to go back the way we came.

Below are the roads taken & sites on our travels to Natchitoches & back

· Farm Road 2109

· North State Highway 147

· San Augustine County Line

· Milam

· Sabine National Forest

· Carrice Creek

· Sabine River

· Welcome to Louisiana

· Toledo Bend State Park

· East LA 6 (Same as Texas State Highway 147)

· Many, LA

· Hagewood Community

· Natchitoches Corp. Limit

· Cane River National Heritage Trail

· Cane River

· Historic Natchitoches

· Business South LA 1

· Cane River National Historical Trail/Plantations and Historical Sites

· Business LA 6

· Northwestern State University

· Robeline

· El Camino East/West Corridor

· Sabine River

· Welcome to Texas

· West TX SH 21

· Nacogdoches County Line

· Angelina River

· Farm Road 1669

· Huntington, TX

· North Farm Road 2801

· Hank’s Creek Park

All-in-all it was a great ride and I got to see pieces of Texas and Louisiana I have never seen before. Again, there were lots of up and down ribbons of highway as well as gently sweeping curves along the way. I took over 300 pictures today on our trip. The temps were again in the 90’s and humid but as long as we were riding it wasn’t noticeable.

We got back to our site at dinner time. There were many more campers by now at the park. We lounged around our campsite the rest of the evening. We fixed hamburgers for dinner and ate in the trailer where it was much cooler and bug-free.

We watched Kill Bill tonight but this time we left the sofa up. This really was much more comfortable than lying down and watching TV. We wouldn’t have known if we didn’t try though.

We tried out the bed in the bedroom tonight. No TV watching in bed since we were tired and it was late after watching Kill Bill. Besides, we also need an angled pillow in there as well or maybe we could use the same one for both the sofa and the bed; they are different widths though.

Sunday 5/6/12

I woke around 8:30. The light again from the door was streaming through and shining in such a way I couldn’t sleep. Lesson 4: Find something to cover the window on the door. We showered, and then I fixed the same breakfast I had made yesterday except I also fried some tomatoes and sliced avocados.

After breakfast we chilled around the camp for a bit and then started packing everything up. We probably could have left more in the trailer till we got home but I just figured since I would have to unload in the house, I might as well load it in the truck now. We finally left around 1.

On our way home we stopped in Rusk so I could take pictures of one of the longest foot bridges. When it was built it was to combine the two sides of town when there were rains that isolated the two sides of the town. It isn’t necessary any more but it is a great photo opp and it is extremely long.