Bitchslapping junebugs and other tales from the road 07/02

After running a few errands around town, I made it on the road about 230ish (or maybe 330ish?). Either way, I was on the road. Oh, there was also a quick stop outside of town at a shitty Taco Bell that didn't even have a working Mountain Dew fountain station!?! So I had to drink some bogus Pepsi instead.

About halfway to my first destination (Millwood State Park), my a/c decided to stop working. It does that sometimes just to see how I'll respond. Sometimes I do so in anger and curse the bastard who made my Volvo so shittily, but this time I just smiled and rolled down the window. After about an hour of cruising in the 108 degree heat of Louisiana, I stuck my hand out of the window to get a little breeze going across my burning forearm from the setting sun.

Low and behold (not sure if that's the actual phrase), a junebug come dashing towards me at its comfortable cruising speed of about 3 miles an hour (I'm guessing). If that had been the only velocity involved in this equation, it would have merely glanced off of my hand in confused stupor, and then continue flying on its merry way. But, since I was going at 60 miles an hour, this junebug pretended my hand was the USS Arizona and it was a Japanese plane and kamikazed right into my hand. Only this time, the USS Arizona didn't go down.

After getting over the initial shock, I brought my hand back inside the car and wiped off the juicy guts of the splattered insect with a cheap Taco Bell napkin. Then, thinking it was only a one in a million chance that would happen again, I stuck my hand back out the window to get that breeze I so desperately desired. (So far, it hasn't happened again).

Next up I needed to make a quick stop at Wal-Mart to get a battery charger and some water. I stopped at the closest one (according to my GPS lady) in Bossier City. Now, I'm not sure if this was the only Wal-Mart in Bossier City (which I'm fairly certain it isn't), but this was by far the BUSIEST Wal-Mart I have ever seen.

I'm sure we're all aware of the large percentage of, I don't know, less cultured people that shop at Wal-Mart. There is a definate 30 percent unsavory population of shoppers at any given time at any Wal-Mart. The one in Bossier City, however, had a much higher rate. Everywhere I looked there were either hardcore rednecks, stereotypically country folk, or ridiculous wiggers. I'd say this particular Wal-Mart had a 98 percent population of "holy shit I can't believe people like that exist" people. Anyway, I got my battery charger and my water and got the heck out of dodge.

My nice GPS lady took me a back way to Millwood State Park that at first brought me to possibly the creepiest cemetary in all of Arkansas. I had to go down a mile of gravel/dirt road that had that whole tree canopy thing going. It was 11:15 at night, both my headlights were out (but my brights worked), and I hadn't seen any sign of civilization in about 2.5 miles. At the end of this road was supposed to be the entrance to the state park. What was there instead were 3 rickety stick-crosses, kept together with twine marking three unseen graves.

I was half expecting Michael Myers to be staring at me when I turned around to back up. If he was there, I never saw him. Anyway, Shelby was nice enough to help me find my way by giving me the number of the State Park. Apparently my GPS had a "rough" approximation for the entrance to the state park, which was only another .1 miles down from the crazy dirt/gravel road it directed me down previously.

I pulled into my reserved spot around 11:45, and all my time and effort into building my camper was justified when I DIDN'T have to set up a tent in the tree-shaded darkness after a long day of driving. I plugged in my a/c, hopped in the back, and fell asleep comfortably once the a/c temp gauge said 70. Ahhh, sweet respite from the harsh day in the ever-loving world of dreams.