Some stops – such as Hot Springs – turn out to be better than expected. Others – like Bossier City/Shreveport – balance that out by being disappointments. We were so unthrilled with Bossier City that we left after just one night, instead of the planned two.
Because I have so little to report on Bossier City, let me catch you up on a couple of other things.
First, the truck has been starting fine. I was a little worried, when I replaced the battery, that it would be a waste of money, but it seems to have done the trick.
Second, the mouse is gone. Oh… I didn’t mention the mouse? Ever since we left NH we have been been hearing little feet on the roof. At first I thought it was birds, then possibly a squirrel. But we had found a dead mouse in the front basement when we were preparing to leave NH and when I found additional droppings later I was forced to conclude that we had a hitchhiker with us. When Jett found droppings under the kitchen sink we knew we had to take action. So we bought some mouse traps in Memphis and placed two in the basement area and one in the kitchen. I baited them with cheese (which shows how little imagination I have) and – voila! – we caught one in Hot Springs. I was too much of a softie to kill it, so I walked it over to the other side of the stream and released it into the woods. It was nearly dead and coated with some combination of sweat and/or cheese grease (it had been a hot day and the cheese kind of melted), but once he realized that he was out of the trap he burrowed under the leaves and disappeared.
So watch out, Arkansas – there is a NH mouse on the loose, ready to breed with your local mice. A new race of supermouse is on the way.
Back to Bossier City. Apparently Shreveport/Bossier (pronounced bo-shur) City is the Atlantic City of Louisiana. It has numerous casinos – I counted five and there are probably more. Most are along the Red River and have riverboat motifs. But Diamond Jack’s Casino puzzles me. I can see from the satellite view in the Google map that the casino is in a dry-docked riverboat. But you would never know that from the inside. What you get in the casino is three stories of windowless rooms. Absolutely no riverboat charm or charm of any other kind, for that matter. It is, without question, the darkest, most depressing casino that I have ever seen. Not even a view of the river. Whoever designed this loser completely wasted its natural assets. I don’t get it.
Speaking of losers, the slots there were tighter than Mick Jagger’s pants. We lost $50 and had no fun doing it. But they did have a pretty nice buffet that included a carving station with roast pork, ham and beef, a very nice salad bar and some interesting soups and desserts.
We stayed in Diamond Jack’s RV Park, adjacent to the casino. It is convenient for those who would want to hang out in the depressing gaming rooms, but it had no laundry, no baths and no amenities of any other kind. What it did have was train traffic heavy enough to shake the bed at 4am and an overpowering odor of raw sewerage. So one night was plenty.
Diamond Jack’s RV Park
Before we left I spent a couple of hours on the bike path in Shreveport along the Red River. My intention was to get a brisk workout and try to do most, if not all, of the 8-mile path. But I spent the first 30 minutes trying to fix the rear brakes that had gotten out of whack – crushed by Patience in a tight turn, maybe? – but failed. I had to remove the rear brake, then travel slowly using only the front brake. And the path was not as interesting as I hoped. Pretty bland, really. It did have a skateboard park, which my son would find interesting. Not much else.
Skateboard park
The bland bike path
On to Livingston, TX!