Wednesday April 22, 2015 West Monroe, Louisiana

We were up early enough to say goodbye to Curtis and the kids before they left for school. We said goodbye to Dana and were on the road at 8:15.

We planned to meet my cousin, Lawana Tom, in Canton, Texas for lunch.  I set the destination into my iPhone because the navigation unit in the car didn't accept the numbers. Our route was initially north on I-35 then the guidance took us on to the new toll road, I-45.  We avoided all the rush hour traffic and the accidents we had heard about on I-35 on the news through Austin.  This is the toll road that initially had a 100 mph speed limit.  It is now 80 because of so many deer strikes.

Gerri, Lawana and me

North of Austin we re-merged with I-35 and then went to I-35 East to I-20.  At noon we arrived at the Whataburger in Canton, TX where we planned lunch with my cousin Lawana Tom.  This is one of three Whataburgers owned by another cousin of mine that we haven't seen since he was very young.  He is Lawana's sister Kari's, son.   We visited with Lawana until 2:30.  We hadn't seen her since the fall of 2013.   We had a lot to catch up on.  Her husband died since then and she seems to be adjusting well.

We brought Lawana this painting done by her mother in 1990

Interestingly, when I checked in on Facebook that we were in Canton, I got a comment from Mike and Gloria Bunker that he had just passed through on their way to Dubach, LA.  Dubach is just north of Ruston off I-20 east of where we are spending the night in West Monroe.  This is the second time we have traveled near them, the other time was a couple of years ago on Maui.

B-52 Stratofortress

Shortly after we headed east after our visit with Lawana her father, my uncle Curtis called.  We talked to him until we got to Shreveport.  As we were driving through Shreveport we saw a black airplane fly across the highway, it was a B-52.  It turned and came back across.  I didn't get my iPad to the camera app in time for a picture.  Gerri's father flew the B-52 and said it was his favorite airplane.  I found a picture online of a B-52 lying in about the same attitude that we saw today.  The B-52's have been flying for over 60 years.  Over 700 were built and the SALT treaty now limit the number of operational strategic bombers to 75. The other surviving bombers have been moth balled.

We arrived in West Monroe and were checked in to the hotel by 6 PM.

Since we had a large lunch we decided not to go out for dinner.  After some reading and computer time we went to bed after watching the news, weather and the start of David Letterman.