Quick day today, because I am behind on the updates. We pick up in Lake Charles, and we pick up a scorpion keychain. It glows in the dark. Not the scorpion, that would be too realistic.
Crossing in to Texas, we grabbed our first map of the day, and took a wander through the visitor center. It’s basically built on swampland, and out the back they have a boardwalk where you can walk out in to the swamp. It definitely set a high bar for future visitor centers. Speaking of which, we turned around and went back in to Louisiana to grab the map from there which we missed on the way in. They also had a swamp boardwalk. Unlike Texas though, they had interesting animals. No ‘gators though.
We really only had one planned stop in Texas, a burger from Redacted Burger. Which was a pretty damn solid burger. The dude behind the counter appreciated my shirt, #winning.
Moving on from Redacted Burger, we turned north to Arkansas, however passing through Huntsville, Texas, we spotted a Good Will store and stopped in to pick up a mascot and a pair of shoes. Not the mascot I wanted, but the mascot we deserve.
There was also a Hobby Lobby next door, so I grabbed a keychain and some velvet rope for reasons. Maybe some other gifts. It all blurs together, we’ll find out when we empty the car.
At this point our next stop was 450km away, so we made the decision to add a new rule: unless we have a reason not to, we should take interstates after dark. It’s faster, safer (less chance of animals), and there’s not really much to look at after dark anyway. So it’s fine to cover miles, and cover miles we did, all the way up to the Gurdon Lights, which is meant to be a place where you can walk down the disused railroad track, and see mysterious lights in the sky, which are always visible.
After driving to the middle of nowhere, we park the car, grab our flashlights, and start walking down the tracks. It’s not clear where the lights are meant to be though. There’s a followable trail, but it’s not great. After crossing two sketchy bridges, the trail opens up to a well maintained, 2m wide trail. We’re not sure what to expect, but so far we haven’t found anything, although it’s quite creepy. Especially when in the distance we can a small shack in the center of the trail comes in to view. But we persist, cautiously approaching the shack, which turned out to be a hunters blind. Moving past it, we follow the trail until we hit a section that’s completely blocked off. At this point, all the information we have says we should have seen the lights by now.
Not much to do except go back, every 20 meters or so we turn off all the lights and stand in the dark, hoping to see something.
We never did.
Summary
- Daily distance: 1140km / 708 miles
- Total distance: 2953km / 1835 miles
- Keychains: 2 new, 7 total
- Maps acquired:
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Florida
- Texas (new!)
- Louisiana (new!)
- Arkansas (new!)
- Days behind live: 3
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