An Ode to Air Conditioning

I have a love-hate relationship with air conditioning.  Not growing up with it in my parents house nor having to use it in Seattle, I'm still getting myself familiar with air conditioning outside of a work setting.  My relationship with AC has changed since staying in states that are either hot and dry or hot and humid.  I have become so dependent on AC that when I'm not in an environment that has it, AC is always on my mind (i.e. "We need to get out of this heat!").

The lake/swamp of Lake Bistineau

Our Aliner camper has AC and we have had it cranking on high as soon as we stop and set up camp.  The camper has become a respite for tolerating the intolerable weather.  I also know that intolerable weather (i.e. hot) is relative since the locals deal with it every day.  I'm also pretty sure that if I didn't have AC, I would be tolerating the hot weather and not be thinking about it as much.  AC has made me spoiled and soft a bit.  I know the kids are good about complaining about the heat as soon as they set foot outside of a nice air conditioned environment.
This is way I have a love-hate relationship with AC.  I love it when I have it, but I am hating it too much when I don't have it.  I have become AC-dependent!

July 4th (Day 13) took us across Texas to NW Louisiana in Lake Bistineau State Park just outside of Shreveport, LA.  Compared to the day before, we had an easy 6 hour drive, though I was still running on 2 hours of sleep after our 14 hour marathon.  Only one mistake on this trip as I set the GPS to arrive at Lake Bistineau instead of Lake Bistineau State Park.  The problem with setting the wrong destination on the cell phone  GPS (other than arriving at the wrong place) is that you can strand yourself in the middle of no where if you don't have cell service.  I'm pretty sure the way GPS works on the phone is that you need cell service (i.e. access to a cell tower) to set up a connection to a satellite for the mapping purpose.  As long as you don't disrupt the satellite connection, you can operate the GPS without cell service.  Of course, this also makes it tricky when you arrive at your destination and have to reprogram your next stop, but don't have cell service.

BBQ chicken for the 4th of July

The countryside outside of Shreveport, Lousiana has limited services, but the one thing that is not lacking are churches.  It felt like traveling around every bend there was another church.  Most of the times the churches were in much better shape than the surrounding houses (which tended to be double-wides in a lot of the areas).  There were also lots of dead armadillos on the side of the road which has nothing to do with churches or double-wides, but they seem to be the 'rodent of the south' so far.  The kids have yet to see one, because every time that I point out a dead armadillo, they have their head buried in a screen or simply not paying attention to the outside.  Their loss.

We finally arrived at Lake Bistinuea State Park about 6pm.  As soon as we got out of the car, nature had turned up the the humidity and the cicada noise up to 11 on the dial.  Holy cow was it sloppy hot and loud! I knew we were in the south when I glanced over at one of our neighbors who had about 15 small American flags lining the driveway to their camp site leading up to a huge confederate flag next to their camper.  'Murica! 

All pride, no apologies!

It slipped, sue me.

The state park is right next to the "lake" (more like a swamp), but it was still beautiful with long strands of Spanish moss hanging from the trees and the cicadas chirping loudly.  Oddly enough, the mosquitoes were pretty much non-existent!  The kids and I celebrated the 4th of July hanging out in the camper enjoying the AC and me teaching them how to play Black Jack.  Olivia loved to deal and Drew loves to gamble (I'm going to have to keep an eye on the latter).
The next morning, Drew and I got out our frisbee golf discs and played about 9 "baskets" before having to call it quits due to the heat and the time.