A Story Remembered

I must add a short addendum to our blog. Last night in talking round the campfire with our friends, I recalled an event and think that I should include it in our blog. Way back in October when we were staying in Chicot State Park, Sally decided that it was time to get her hair done, so on enquiring round she was given the name of a local hairdresser, about 10 minutes from the State Park. I dropped Sally off and having an hour and a half to amuse myself it went to a Flea Market (it called itself Antique, but it was a flea market) I had noticed on the way to the hairdresser. I had a lovely time there. It was an old barn completely full of junk, overflowing with junk in fact. The dear lady their invited me to dig around as I wanted and left me to it. There were old books, old record (even found an old Rolling Stones E.P.), cowboy hats, boots and shoes old video games (saw a really old ping pong game), however resisted the temptation for everything, except a nice ‘no parking’ sign, which I paid $2.00 for, mostly for the entertainment value of my time there.

As I was approaching the entrance to the shop a young man walked in, looked a bit of a scruff (but so do I) and was looking round - seemed a bit strange for someone his age to be in a flea market. So the three of us talked, he seemed quite pleasant, the woman kept offering items at silly prices, but it was a pleasant way to pass the time (I was still waiting for Sally) We sort of looked at some of the bits and pieces. As we were casting round the lad came across some sports equipment, a whole bag of soft balls and a variety of bats. So we looked at these, swinging the bats, to get the feel of them.

Then as the conversation proceeded.

I mentioned I was from the UK, he mentioned he was from round here.

I said I was retired, he said he was on parole!.

I said I was just looking to see if there was anything interesting. He said he was looking for a baseball bat. (Now at this point I could have got slightly alarmed).

That was because he was on parole he could not carry/own a gun.

“Right” I thought, checking where the exit was.

But no, there was no malice in his voice at all.

He was just your average local, country hoodlum making sure that he could defend himself. So we spent a good 10 minutes checking out every baseball bat, discussing the weight distribution, length and swing inertia, finally deciding on a fairly short bat, with a heavy end, which he paid $5.00 for. Having had a satisfactory conclusion to his shopping we went our separate ways, the best of friends. I went to pick Sally up and he went home feeling well defended.

Once again the phrase ‘Only In America’ rang loud in my mind.

Rain Dear

Wednesday, the weather took a turn for the worse this week, with showers, which dropped about 4 inches of rain in a couple of days. We have not ventured far, using the weather to enable us to build our energy reserves. However, in staying in the park we have been able to see a little more of the wild life. The deer seem to like to graze on the grass at the side of the park roads, so we are always seeing startled deer as we drive round the park.

Deep in the woods

Thursday - With Sally slowly improving, but not well enough to go out, we have been looking in more detail at the wild life around us.
So far it seems that there are a lot of amardillos, like this one.
I saw a small group of Cotton Tail deer from the car.
We had a visit from a couple of raccoons last night, they were busy investigating some petrol cans I had left out at the front of the trailer, we could hear them moving around in the dark.
Yesterday while we were having coffee our on our patio we were fortunate enough to see a Pileated Woodpecker close up. This is the largest woodpecker, apart from the very rare Ivory Billed Woodpecker, which is now only found in one part of Sout East Florida. It is also the one which modeled for the famous (amongst oldies) Woody Woodpecker. It has a very loud drum which really does sound like a pneumatic drill. It is between 12" and 15" long.

Chill Down

Wednesday, we are now well settled at Chicot State Park in Louisiana and it is very pleasant, it is 6500 acres of forest surrounding a huge lake.
The lake level is low at the moment, so lots of old cypress tree stumps are exposed. I took a walk down there this morning, dozens of large herons of all sorts, I heard an alligator belch somewhere, lots of mosquitos (but the good old 'Go Juice' took care of them).
I have a photo here of a large white heron, with an enormous, but dead, Cypress tree in the background, if you look very carefully there is a very large turtle sunning itself on a little saandbank. I have put in a close up of them.

It is very beautiful and very quiet and peaceful. One downside at the moment is that Sally is not feeling too well, so it is a good job we are taking a fairly long rest here.

Chicot State Park

Monday - We have moved 50 miles north to Ville Platte and the Chicot State Park. It is a large (270 sites) RV park on a lake, however the lake levels are very low at this time. We have a nice site in the middle of the forest and we can see one other site about 30 yards away. This site feels very secure, with State Park Rangers on the entrance to the park about a mile down the road, a camp host parked at the entrance to the RV site, locked gates at night (you get a combination number) and rangers patrolling. This site is costing us $20 p.n. (£14). So we have booked to stay a week as we think it is time for a holiday and this looks like a nice place for us to relax, do very little and recharge the batteries. (metaphorically)
This will give our mail a chance to catch up with us, which includes a part for the trailer and an extra cupboard (cabinet) door for our bedroom area. As our phone has blue tooth I have also bought some blue tooth stuff for the laptop, so that we can download pictures directly, and also be able to use the voice controls for our GPS. We will see if this all works or not.