Loosiana to Texas

We left Vidalia at about 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3. There wasn’t much in the way of excitement, just lots of water, except for one little incident that had us parked on the side of the road, climbing the RV, and literally trembling.

We were traveling through the country side, Larry, driving and glad for wide shoulders on the two-lane road, and me, playing with the computer, looking at maps, generally in my own little world. When you are together 24-7 sometimes it’s best to zone out a little, to the zone the other one isn’t in.  Anyway Larry said, “Did I just see a sign that indicated a low something, like 12 feet 3 inches?” Of course, I hadn’t been looking out the window. I hadn’t seen a thing. We couldn’t see are reason for a low overhead anything. There sure weren’t any tunnels in western Louisiana. There weren’t even any mountains. Most covered bridges are in New England aren’t they? There weren’t any major highways that would have required an overpass. So ahh, just forget it. He must have misread the sign. We continued to scramper down the highway, meeting trucks much taller than us and becoming more confident. And then, there it was, at a tiny intersection that we whizzed up on:

 

 Only ours said 12’3”. Talk about heart dropping. We had discussed the height of our vehicle earlier on the trip in Hohenwald. There the overpass had only been 11 feet. But the Thousand Trails website had warned of this (pat myself on the back, I read it before we got there), and said we could get under by going off the road to the left on a little gravel shoulder. Larry said then that the best he had been able to calculate our rig was 12’2”. And I probably didn’t mention that we had a truck come to our campsite in Clinton, MS, right outside of Jackson and check our air pressure. And sure enough we needed more air. So now our RV was taller. How much taller? Who the hell knew….Not us.

 We had missed the intersection and had one mile to decide. There was one house with a circular driveway that we might have been able to negotiate a turn to go back, but, wouldn’t  you know, there was an RV already parked in it. By now we were sweating bullets. And then, there it was, a big, old, heavy, mean-looking, rusty steel bridge. Luckily there was a pull-off, just big enough for us to get into right before we got on the bridge. We pulled off. Larry measured from the ground to the top of the RV and got 11 feet. If we didn’t mind losing two air conditioners, three vent covers and the satellite dish, we’d be fine. Then like a monkey, he maneuvered himself over the rock guard at the back and up the ladder. (The little devil is limber, I’ll give him that.) So, after measuring the AC at 13 inches, we hoped we had two inches to spare. As we were sitting there a truck, a tall one with diesel pipes gleaming, flew, and I do mean flew, by. Larry said, “I’m going in.” Sounded like he was headed into a coal mine. So we eased up to the bridge and headed down the middle straddling the yellow line, dodging the supports that were angled at the sides. We were praying that another semi didn’t come flying up on the other side, like we had just seen. We eased under the first girder and heard nothing. HALLELEUJAH. So we began picking up speed, still in the middle. That tenth of a mile was a good five miles long.  Just before we reached the end a van skidded up to the other end of the bridge. Of course, he didn’t back up an inch, so we were forced to really go carefully at the end. But we got off with all the roof and its attachments. WHEW

The bridge is pictured on Google satellite. It is the bridge that separates Louisiana and Texas on Nolan Trace Parkway. If I were really, really smart, I would have been able to put a picture of it here, but I’m just smart, not really, really. : )   But you can look at it there. If you bother to look and I probably wouldn't, you will notice that there is a good-sized body of water there. If you had held a gun to my head after we crossed, I would not have known that.

And by the way, when we got in Texas we learned why that truck was flying by off the bridge. Here we are on a two-lane country road and the speed limit was 70, yes 70, mph. A road like that in NC would never be more than 45. We quickly learned that people in Texas drive really, really fast EVERYWHERE.