Sunday, June 14th

This has certainly been an eventful trip. Tonight I called my mother who told me that her arm is very swollen (she just had a pacemaker put in last week). I told her to call her doctor, to which she replied, “No one’s in the office and I don’t want to bother him now.” I told her to please call and whoever is on call will tell her whether it’s serious or not without even getting up out of his chair. She did and they told her to go to the emergency room—that’s where she is now (her wonderful neighbor, Dan, brought her). As the only child, I wonder at times like this Should I go home? On one hand, she would have a fit if I did that and wouldn’t ever let me know if something happens in the future for that reason. However, on the other hand, I think I should be there and be with her for emergencies like this. She’s 88 and I would hate myself if this turns out to be more serious than it seems right now.
So, I’ll wait for Dan to call me and let me know what is happening.

On a lighter note, camping is a wonderful experience thanks to the people you meet. Today, we met a Texas character that will have to be in my book and a very nice campground owner in Ajax, LA. The campground is darling—trees, a pond and Bob has seen purple martins, night herons, bitterns, turtles (yellow mud turtle), right here. The campground owner adopted us—showed us around (immaculate restroom and shower) and then gave me brochures about Natchotoches (pronounced nak-a-tish). It is the oldest permanent settlement from the Louisiana Purchase and it is where Steel Magnolias was shot. Denise is an ex-nurse from Ohio who with her husband purchased this 4-acre campground from the original owner.

We set up the tent and had dinner in 95-degree, 100% humidity Louisiana heat—phew! Okay, Arizona’s dry heat doesn’t suck as much life out of you (unless you’re out in the sun, of course). Dinner, delicious, steaks and peanut-sauced noodles.

So, let’s talk about Marty, the Texas natural gas/oil land leveler. What a riot. I saw him peeking out at us, I waved, and he took it as an invitation to come over and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. He was very smart, interesting, and very funny. From his funny facial expressions to his down-home expressions, “Ain’t nothing like a Texan. We think that nobody’s utopia comes close to ours, ya know?” He’s worked on a shrimp boat, owned his own landscape business, native plant mover, erosion control and has worked in every continent except Antarctica. He has a house on the Gulf Coast and was here in his big RV because he’s working here in Louisiana at a drilling site. He looked the part, too—big handlebar mustache, v-goatee under his lower lip—the quintessential good ole’ boy (but he wasn’t prejudiced as he told us many stories about his black friends—for what purpose, I couldn’t tell you.

After dinner, we went down to the pond because as Bob said, the frogs and toads “are calling to me.” It seems those suckers are also ventriloquists and can throw their voices. The noise was almost deafening—but it was very beautiful as well—all these horny amphibians just looking for love (only the males call). He could not catch any or see any so we went into the tent to try to go to sleep. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. For one thing, we didn’t put the fly on our tent because we would have suffocated in the heat. So, the numerous mercury vapor lights around the campground made me feel that it was daytime already. After awhile, I became agitated rather than calmed by the calls of the horny amphibians and even offered myself up if they’d shut up. We were sweating even though the sun was down. The blow up mattress took up ¾ of the tent (we had two singles but these babies were Biguns), so I slept on the mattress and poor Bob slept on a mat and a sleeping bag squished against the tent wall (which was wet all night because of the high humidity).

Finally, we both fell asleep, but not for long because two very exciting events occurred that night.

I woke up and Bob was not in the tent. Oh well—he went to the restroom; he’ll be right back. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five—oh no—do I hear dueling banjos. Don’t get that comment? When Bob and I were younger and looked like hippies, we were afraid to go into the south, especially after seeing the movie Deliverance (where a group of white men go camping and white-water rafting in the south and they are shot out (and killed) and raped by men from the area (I think it was more in the Ozarks or Appalachians than in the south, but they had that drawl) and Easy Rider a movie that terrified me when Jack Nicholson gets beat to death by southerners—just for the hell of it. Such was my only experience with the south.

So 30 minutes go by—I’m terrified that Bob is being raped in the bathroom—I’m sitting up and a flashlight spotlights me. It is Bob who exclaims, “I saw one and they’re only about ¾ of an inch big!” He was so excited and I was, well you could say I was pretty excited too—but not in a good way. If he wasn’t so damn cute telling the story, I would’ve slapped him silly. He was down at the pond (it was 2:30 AM) trying to find and catch frogs and toads. Silly me—I should’ve known—after all these years being married to a biologist.

As the sun came up, Bob goes into one of his sleeping tirades—he has a tendency to scream in his sleep and talk about disobedient students, soldiers or whatever else was in his subconscious. He starts to scream, and I cover up his mouth, thinking he would wake up any second. Instead, he grabs me by my hair, pulls me toward him and knees me in the stomach. Honest to god! What the f------? He’s staring right at me, eyes wide open, and he’s still asleep. He finally wakes up and I know that I’ll have at least two shopping trips as his mea culpa, so I get over it.

No breakfast today—just showers, pack up the tent and other camping gear and we’re on our way to Natchotoches, y’all.