Boxing day raod tripping

---

On boxing day we set out pretty early to head to Louisiana and Jeff’s family. It was the perfect sort of a journey for me because we got to see another big chunk of Arkansas a little bit of Mississippi and then drive through Louisiana as well. On the way out of Little Rock I was trying to take photos of the Capitol as I hadn’t seen it yet and so Daters pulled off the road and did a detour so that I was able to see it up close. We stopped to take some pictures and then headed on our way again. It was amazing to watch the scenery change, something I was going to have to get used to with all of the intensive travelling I was about to do. Arkansas has lots of marshes with beautiful trees which grow out of them. It was a pretty miserable day, weather wise, with a mixture of drizzle and pure rain, but seeing as we were in the car it didn’t really matter. Driving through some parts of both Arkansas and Louisiana was very sad because you could see where thriving towns had been but were deserted. Some of them didn’t seem to have anything there at all and yet there were still a few scattered people who would be living on the outskirts. Even more sad was the fact that some of the surrounding towns were showing all of the signs that they would be heading in the same direction very soon afterwards. I assumed that people were generally moving into the cities and when I was talking to Jeff and Daters about it they said that it was also just because the economy has been so bad that these places cannot survive anymore. It is horrible to see all of the towns that clearly had a lot of character falling apart and being abandoned and barely any distance away there are two shopping malls within less than half an hour of each other. All of the interesting parts of life are being scratched away to make way for convenience and familiarity. We went past one very amusing house on the road which was made into the shape of a woman who was the mascot for a brand of syrup. Terrifying as the head was sticking out of the top and her skirt was the main part of the house. So strange when you are just driving along the road and see this bizarre ‘lady’. we grabbed lunch and snacks at various gas stations that we had stopped at and thus began my re-addiction to wotsits (not so named in the US sadly). We went straight to Jeff’s sister’s house which was on the outskirts of Baton Rouge because it was in the opposite direction of his father’s house so it made sense. We spent a couple of hours there playing with the kids and talking to Jeff’s sister and brother-in-law which was great. They were really lovely, and as with everyone else, very welcoming. Afterwards we checked into a hotel for the night and then went to get something to eat. We had a lovely meal and then Daters and I crashed at the hotel while Jeff went to see his dad and then hang out with some of his friends.

---