The first morning

Did I say connect with nature? Okay, maybe that's the plan. And as I type this post this morning, I am looking over the beautiful Red River. It's just that I'm looking over that gorgeous river from the 25th floor of the Horseshoe Casino Hotel in Shreveport.

We got here last night around 11 p.m. We checked in and took our junk to the room. The first thing I wanted to do was to get my camera out and take some pix (I'll try and post a few later today). They have a great fountain out front that is a really cool shot at night. Of course, there's also a bunch of neon lights from the other casinos along the river. After the photos, we hit the CMT bar for a couple of $6 drinks (is the vodka here in Louisiana have less alcohol content or are the bartenders a little sting?), we went hit the casino. It was a Thursdays and the casino wasn't too busy, but it was fun to watch those who were there (everything from flaming rednecks to Blue-Hairs to the upper crust Shreveport - and probably Dallas - crowd. We dropped some coin on the slot machines. Why do think trick those things out so much? I just want a couple of simple lines. I want to hit the "max bet" button, watch the wheel spin, hear the tokens drop as I collect a couple a hundred bucks. That's all. But I digress. It was a lot of fun. Glad we stopped here first. We joined the rewards club also and now we have a couple of free buffet coupons. Oh, yeah, we're gonna hit that.

We are planning on getting out of here early this afternoon (after a trip to the Bass Pro Shop ... see, I'm in touch with nature) and head on to Arkansas. We want to get to our campsite early enough to set up our new tent in the daylight. It's supposed to get down into the 50s tonight, so we're going to make sure we have warm sleeping bags.

Try to post some more this evening.

We're going camping

For a couple of weeks now, Michelle and I have been planning a trip. "Planning" may not be the correct word. It's more like "we know we're going, but we don't want to acutally plan anything. We just want to point the car east and go - no plan, no itenary, no place to be. We just want to be.

So we're heading out this Friday. We're going to camp instead of staying in a hotel somewhere. We're going to connect with nature and each other.

Today we started looking at camping gear. There are more choices in camping gear than toothpaste, but we're resilient and I think we've found our tent.

We're going to go with either the Field and Stream or the Columbia. Still haven't decided. Also picked up a really handy camping checklist from Academy (the right store the right price ... Academy).

We're pulling the trigger on Thursday and may be taking off Thursday evening. Tune in for our adventures on this trip to wherever.