Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Southern Leisure Resort, Many, LA: Feb 22-23
This "resort" is built on the top of a hill one mile into LA across the Sabine River (which separates TX & LA). The spaces are squeezed together in tight little rows with badly deteriorating electric boxes & water hookups that you just know you have to sanitize before using. None of the spaces are level. Ours was 2 inches off -- one of the more level spots in the park. We saw some RVs with as many as six boards under one side. We got here on a Sunday & the office was closed, so we drove around & couldn't find an open space until one helpful guy told us that one area that looked like a stretch of dirt road was actually a site, so we set up there. It had full hookups, and the manager drove by several times and never asked us to move, so we must have been okay.We spent much of our time driving around exploring or birding. While on the Texas side we saw a sign for Indian Mounds Rec Area, so we drove back to check it out. This is one of those places where they put a sign out on the main highway heading you down some road, and then never give you even a hint of how to get there after that. We drove here & there and finally decided to head back when we drove past the entrance sign. As much as we could tell, there were no Indian mounds, but there was a good-sized, practically empty campground with quite a few good solar sites -- unusual in this part of the country due to the ever-abundant tall trees. There used to be five camping loops but they had closed three of them, probably due to lack of use. The area is quite lovely but way too far off the "beaten path" for our future interest.
We continued back into LA & up towards Zwolle, stopping to check out a couple of campgrounds on the way. This part of the country, it turns out, is known for its tamales. Sort of bizarre when you think about it, since you associate LA with Cajun & Creole, and you don't associate tamales with either. The AAA guide recommended stopping in Zwolle for a tamale, and we were barely in town when we spotted the tamale company. They only sold by the dozen, however, so we bought 12 fresh, hot & spicy tamales that were so tasty that we each had 3 (they're not very big) and immediately ordered 2 more dozen frozen to squeeze into our freezer.
That evening on NPR we heard a segment about Comet Lulin, which was making what is believed to be a first-time pass through the solar system. We immediately went on heavens-above.com to pinpoint its exact location, which was good, since the description they gave on NPR somewhat off. It didn't take us long to locate it through our binoculars. A lot of people would not be impressed by this little comet looking very much like a tiny cloud, but for us this was very exciting knowing we're two of a small number of people to see it, and it may never pass by ever again.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 2:44 PM 
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