Blythesville AR to Lafayette LA

Day Two of our travels is complete and we are resting tonight in Lafayette, Louisiana. I'm going to try to share some pictures of the journey with you and hope that I have better success at it than I did last night. I'm adjusting to the laptop quite slowly it seems and have a certain level of frustration with it; however, I'm going to make a good effort tonight and see what happens.

We left Blythesville this morning at 8:00 and were soon crossing the Mississippi River (again!) at Memphis, Tennessee. We drove a total of 12 miles through Tennessee, and then were welcomed to the State of Mississippi!

I love these bridges that cross the Mississippi!
They are so massive!
This was the nicest welcome center!
It was beautifully decorated like an old southern mansion,
dixie-style!

"You thrill me, O LORD, with all you have done for me!
I sing for joy because of what You have done." PSALM 92:4

Isn't this a beautiful butterfly?
Hasn't the LORD made such beautiful things?
I was so thankful to get this picture!

MYSTERY PHOTO
We were traveling along I-55, just a few minutes north of
Jackson and saw this monument!
It reminded us a lot of the Washington Monument in DC --
I googled a bunch of stuff tonight
to try to find out what this is, but I had no success!

Due to some train yard distractions, we missed our turn onto 55 in Jackson and had to turn around and catch it from a different angle. This could be construed to be a "misadventure", but I won't accuse Mr. Jones of that yet!

One of the thousands of tracks
Grandpa Jones loudly and jubilently pointed out
to me along the way ...

We drove the entire length of Mississippi. The scenery reminded me a lot of northern lower Michigan. It looked like they had just cut the highway right in the middle of a forest, and there were trees for mile after mile after mile -- fir trees, pine trees, willows -- beautiful, really. I thought there would be more cotton fields, but we really left those behind in Missouri and Arkansas. We crossed over many rivers, one of which was the Tallahatchie River, and I was reminded of the song "Ode to Billy Jo", that sad balad I used to enjoy so many years ago.

Before we knew it (practically), we were crossing over into Louisiana. We drove through Baton Rouge and AGAIN crossed the Mississippi River!

Crossing the Mississippi River AGAIN!

Downtown Baton Rouge

Between Baton Rouge and Lafayette (where we are now)
we drove on a 16 mile bridge across swamp and bayou...

We ended up driving just over eight hours today. We really weren't in any hurry and made several stops along the way. We finished reading through chapter six of Tom Sawyer! We have checked into our Microtel here in Lafayette, we have eaten a yummy dinner, and are now ready to read and retire -- oh! speaking of retirement ... listen to this! For the past two days of driving, I have stayed awake the entire time -- with the exception of one 20 minute snooze before dinner yesterday! That is totally unheard of for me! Do you think it is possible that three days of retirement has cured me of sleeping in a moving car? It's unlikely, but it sure has been nice to be awake!

"...Your unfailing love is higher than the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens.
May Your glory shine over all the earth."

PSALM 108:4