We left Monroe, Louisiana, in the motor home this morning. But we only got a few miles down the road before we made a pit stop. Just nine miles north is the Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
True to its name, that water looks as black as Mark's shirt today.
The nice boardwalk that takes visitors on a long walk over the lake is closed for renovation. If you look at the far left of the photo below you can see that they have removed planks to keep us from taking that nice walk. Too bad, because we could see an alligator not far from the boardwalk. We sure wanted to get a closer look.
So we took a different board walk through this section of the refuge where green water plants are covering the black water.
The northern part of Louisiana has gotten lots of rain this spring, and the water was over this section not long ago. It was a slippery walk through the water plants that are now trapped on the boards.
Seeing water over the trail is Denisa's signal to turn around. But Mark will attempt a crossing on that very slippery, narrow, wet rail.
Denisa wouldn't chance a fall into that black water, where at least one water snake was swimming.
We didn't see much wildlife outside in the black water. But we saw lots inside at the un-manned visitor's center. We're used to seeing alligator heads and turtles at the top of the water,
but we never get to see them under the water. The clear water in the tank inside gave us this underwater picture of these two adolescent alligators.
On this cool morning, we walked a few muddy trails at the wildlife refuge. We have stopped at wildlife refuges all over the country, but today we learned that the flying blue goose is their trademark symbol. We took this symbolic picture before we loaded back into the motor home to continue our trip north today.
It wasn't far down the road before we crossed the state line into Arkansas. To tell you the truth, we weren't sad to leave Louisiana and her bumpy narrow roads.
But as soon as we crossed into Arkansas, the road went from bad to worse! Road construction just across the border left us with a narrow road with an 8-inch drop off on the edge of that white line. Add the fact that it was raining, and this wasn't a fun stretch of road.
But we are glad to report that after that construction zone, we found that Arkansas roads are great. We're sure that section will also be smooth and wide as soon as the construction is completed. The trip today was about two hours to get to another one-night stay. We spent the night at the Walmart parking lot in Monticello, Arkansas. We loaded up on some supplies, still in wonder at the fact that people are hoarding paper goods and sliced bread in this pandemic time we're living in. We didn't take any pictures of our over-night spot in the far corner of the Walmart parking lot. But we will say we're a little confused about the guy cleaning off the neighboring parking lot with a leaf blower from 3:30-4:30 a.m. It was not a great night's sleep!
Two one-night stops in a row is very unusual for us, but we have a deadline to make. We are now at our next destination--Brinkley, Arkansas. When we made the reservation, even the owner of the RV Park asked, "Why are you coming to Brinkley?" We have to agree that there doesn't seem to be much to do in this little town. But we are here because we need a safe place to leave the motor home while we go on a road trip. It just so happens that Brinkley is the closest point to Kansas City on our planned path. We usually look for small RV parks in non-destination locations that will give us a good rate for parking the motor home and using just enough electricity to run our refrigerator while we are away. So we got the motor home settled in at Dubl' R RV Park, and now we're on a road trip to one of our favorite locations--the Kansas City area to visit our son and daughter-in-law. We'll be off the road for around a week while we visit them and one of our favorite wonders--our granddaughter!
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