With yet another tornado, severe thunderstorm and flash flood warning over, we awake to find that Houston, Texas was badly flooded over night.
Thanking the stars we made the decision not to head there that very night for the NBA, they weren’t even letting the fans out of the stadium it was so bad.
We leave our quaint little B&B and say farewell to the lovely Scottish couple that owned it. Before leaving Hot Springs we head back into town, park the car, pull on our hiking shoes and delve into the Hot Springs National Park trails for a long peaceful walk.
On our travels we see a lot of run off from where it had been pouring down the night before, from the winds we witnessed from out the window the our restaurant during dinner, we were very surprised there weren’t more trees and branches down, just a few twigs and a lot of leaves.
We take on the mountain pass trail which guides us on a loop around the park, somewhere in the middle we find an observatory tower and go up to have a look.
From the tower you can see all of Hot Springs, a small town with only one Main Street, but it has a lot of character and history.
We soak it all in, finish our walk and then before leaving we duck into Jimmy Johns for lunch, some snacks and then we are on our way to Shreveport, Louisiana.
Checking the weather forecast time and time again on the drive down, we make the decision to keep our plans of camping and don’t upgrade to the cabin. We have our tent set up in no time and drive off looking back at our lonesome tent the in the rear view not knowing if we made the right decision…
Before venturing too far into the city we stop at Starbucks for a quick coffee and ice chocolate, the weather here was warm and muggy. Next door was a grocery shop so we stock up on giant pink lady apples, mini carrots, yogurt for tomorrow’s breakfast and strawberries.
With the weather being hotter than usual we make the purchase of a cooler bag and it worked a treat.
Then we head to the city and walk along the boulevard, we find a Nike outlet and purchase another bargain of the century. With time getting on we stop for dinner at Hooters and meet Caroline, the nicest waitress ever.
We watch the NBA game with one eye on the black clouds rolling in.. Ah oh.. We finish up our nachos and bam, It BUCKETS down, yet again, we are caught in a huge thunder storm.
Heading back to the campsite we expect the worst, the rain held steady for about an hour, fortunately there were only a few puddles here and there and opening our tent everything inside was dry, phew, our little tent was serving to be a warrior in all sorts of extreme weather.
We tuck in for the night hoping that no more rain would come… Until.. 3am CRACK, one of the loudest strikes of thunder we had ever heard belted across the sky and shook the ground underneath us. rain pelted down yet again and every time the lightening lit the sky it was like a warning light for yet another huge crack of thunder.
Rain pelted down yet again and every time the lightning lit the sky it was like a warning light for yet another huge crack of thunder.
This went on for about an hour, huddled together we eventually fall back to sleep not knowing if we would survive the night.
More Photos from Shreveport
