Breaux Bridge, LA to Wichita, KS
I know none of you will be surprised when I tell you that we woke up and headed north around 6 AM instead of 7:30 as we had planned. And by “we” I mean Bruce. I stayed in bed until the designated time of 7:30. Somebody has to stick to the plan, right? While I was in bed, Bruce stopped and took some pictures of the cemetery in Breaux Bridge. All the graves have to be above ground because rumor has it, if it rains alot they will end up above ground anyway.
His next stop was a cool little donut shop where he bought us coffee, donuts and these little bread loaves stuffed with sausages, cheese and stuff.
Somewhere between Willow Glen and Shreveport Bruce wanted to take a shower so we switched drivers. It was a bit of an odd sensation tooling on down the road driving Harvey in my pj’s and house shoes while Bruce showered. I waited until we stopped for gas to grab a quick shower and get dressed. No reflection on Bruce’s driving, but I didn’t want to take a chance on getting thrown out of the shower on a sharp curve or big bump.
We had planned to have dinner with our friends Terri & Roger and their daughter, Emily. But sadly Terri’s mom had a stroke this morning and so of course they needed to be with her. I am glad to report that she is out of the hospital now and doing well. I guess Bruce is right when he says I’m not realistic about time. I’m not sure how I planned for us to leave at 7:30, drive to Tulsa for dinner with our friends and THEN stop and see my aunt, THEN head home. We probably would have had to pull Harvey over and sleep at a truck stop.
Driving through Oklahoma on the Indian Nation Turnpike reminded me of when we were on it last Saturday heading to Louisiana. I was driving Harvey and the gas needle had passed 1/2 and was getting precariously close to 1/4. From there it is a pretty fast drop to E. The gas stations on the Indian Nation Turnpike are few and far between. We were getting a little nervous. Bruce got on his favorite app, Gas Buddy, and found a fairly close gas station, but it was about 20 cents more a gallon than another station 25 miles down the road. So when we pulled off and stopped at the close station Bruce decided to only put in 2 gallons, so we for sure had enough to get to the next station and fill up. We forgot to order a KTag so we have to stop at all the toll booths and pay the toll person. When we got to the next toll booth, I paid the lady and asked her what they were actually using all that money for since they clearly were not using it for the roads. She agreed that the roads were terrible and said that they had been told to say “infrastructure.” Our little conversation ended, she gave me my change and I drove off…right past the exit! Now we were really sweating! We were trying to come up with a good plan if we ran out of gas, since the cycle was not an option without a key. Hitchhike or Bruce could jump on his bike and pedal to the next station. Hitchhiking was not really an option because I am way to chicken to let Bruce do that. We turned off the A/C and radio and anything else that could possibly require gas and I slowed down to 55 because we decided that was the optimum speed for low gas consumption. Luckily we made it to the next station! And vowed once again to NEVER let Harvey get below half. But we are slow learners. Due to a combo of far apart gas stations, Gas Buddy and my thrifty husband we had a few more nervous moments heading to the best priced gas stations on the way home.
We got to Tulsa around 4:15 and had a delicious dinner with my Aunt Mart at Charleston’s restaurant. After a short but nice visit, we were on our way.
We arrived back home around 9:30. Not bad!
