The Road to Florida: Day 3

After Rodney made us coffee "bombs" and scrambled eggs with sausage for breakfast, we got dressed and made the rounds with Jennifer to check on the critters.

Sam and River, who is a few months old.

A River, Sam, Tallulah, Tori, and Jenni selfie in the pasture

Last departing critter pics before we hit the road @ 10:30 this morning.

Back down the long dirt road...

And on to Texarkana and then Shreveport

  

It wasn't long after we snapped our entry into LA that I looked down and got the panic moment of the trip. 

Oh, right. 

Gas.

The light had just come on and the gauge was sitting squarely on E.

Turns out, we get about 6 hours drive time on the top half of the gauge, and all of TWO on the bottom half! If you've driven from Texarcana to Shreveport, you know: there is NOTHING on the road. We still had about 30 miles to get to Shreveport and I was doubtful we would make it. 

Sam googled the nearest gas station, told me to exit, and then started shouting at her phone because the "nearest station" at 6.8 miles then jumped as we exited to 12.5. Way to go Google. The slower back roads were getting me seriously nervous. We'd never tested her low gas light to see how long it would go. Did we turn off the AC to conserve? Hell, no. It was 104°. Cross your fingers we don't have to walk the last part, because the few shacks we were passing weren't too promising. 

The station Google was directing us to never materialized, because we spotted another one 2 miles before the one we were chasing. I pulled in, looked out the window from the gas pump and saw this:

I told Sam we had to eat there. There could be no other reason for my stupidity at forgetting gas.

We filled the tank to 20.2 gallons and went inside. While we waited, we googled the capacity of a 2005 Honda Pilot. It's 20.4.

In Vivian, LA on LA Highway 1, where the top special on the board is 4 Frog Legs with two sides.

We ordered the 8 piece shrimp basket instead.

Sam had 11 shrimp in hers, I had 10.

Pretty much the rest of the drive looked like this. Road work and bridges over rivers and swampland.

We are crashing at a cheapie motel near LSU tonight.

We literally checked in and haven't moved. Dinner was the last of the cheese, crackers, and turkey we'd been carting around in the cooler. The only time we left the room was to fill the ice bucket.  

We only have the 90 minute cruise into NOLA tomorrow for two nights at the B&B with NO CAR RIDING NECESSARY. Hallelujah.