Day 171: South Toledo Bend State Park, LA

If all goes as planned, this will be our last night in Louisiana.  We've pedaled 400 miles or so through the state, and I must say that I found it a lot more scenic than I had imagined.  And we were pretty well shocked that the roads were mostly in very good condition, and very often there were good shoulders.  The vast majority of motorists were very courteous - no close encounters with objects being thrown at us, and very few people who wouldn't swing wide when passing us.

Of course the heat and humidity were no fun.  Ditto for the recent infestation of love bugs.  We were thinking that we had seen the worst of them, as they were waning when we left North Toledo Bend.  But today they were far worse than what we had previously experienced.  Alea had a tough time keeping them from getting behind her glasses and in her eyes.  And when we stopped for the day they swarmed us, having a particular and rather peculiar attraction to our Dometic refrigerator.  After a brief effort to sit outside, we sought refuge in the cabin of our camper for most of the afternoon.

Alea rode 40 miles mostly due south today, and we are camped at South Toledo Bend State Park ($22 + $6 reservation fee, power, water, free wi-fi, free laundry).  Toledo Bend is a huge reservoir on the Sabine River between Texas and Louisiana, and is sort of interesting because it was a joint project between the states with no federal financing.  Of course Lana doesn't care about that; she keeps looking at the water, wondering why we don't let her go for a swim to cool off...

Since the love bugs were swarming so bad, we opted to dine out.  Our only choice within 10 miles was a gas station deli, where we got a chef salad and pizza to go (it was too hot out to leave Lana in the van while we ate).  The price was good and the food was a bit better than I had expected.  The folks there were certainly friendly enough.

We learned that one of the campgrounds that we were planning on staying at in Texas was recently flooded out, with all reservations canceled through September.  So the free wi-fi has come in handy to determine how to rearrange our schedule into Austin.  It also gave us a chance to figure out whether it makes sense for us to buy a $70 Texas Parks Pass.  It is looking very likely that we will come out at ahead by at least $50 by doing so, mainly because Texas State Parks charge daily park entry fees on top of camping fees.  And that is for each of us, yet the card covers the entry fees for both of us.  

The lady at the deli told us that if we like Louisiana State Parks, we would love the parks in Texas.  We hope so, as it will take some time for us to get across Texas (at its widest point, no less).