My parents finally showed up at our apartment and we set off. We made it about a mile up the road when I realized I forgot my phone. So my dad, who was worried about making it to and through Dallas before rush hour, speeds back complaining about losing time. Uh-oh, not a good start. I was so angry with myself that I had caused a problem ALREADY. (I'm very absent minded, and I get so upset with myself!) Lo and behold, we still made it out of town and through Dallas before rush hour traffic. We stopped at an IHOP for breakfast, and all was well. (Also, that Dramamine did not work the way I thought it would. I took some on a flight from New York City to Minneapolis a few months ago, and I barely remember three hours on the plane because it knocked me out. But this time it didn't work, and I ended up sleeping a non-consecutive hour and a half the entire trip there after not sleeping at all the night before. Yikes.)
I thought this first day of the trip would be a long and rather boring car ride, but I actually ended up seeing many things I had never seen before. First of all, I had never been through the east Texas piney woods. Now if you're not familiar with Texas, this might seem weird since I am a Texan. So let me just say, Texas is BIG. Anyone who lives here knows that the longest part of a road trip is getting out of our own state. (Unless of course you are vacationing in Texas, which is a definite possibility.) One of our mottoes is that Texas is like a whole other country. Have you been to every part of the United States? (Or whatever country you are from.) So I had never been to this particular area of the state. I have been to Dallas more times than I can remember, but I never drove east from there. So the Texas forest was new to me. I felt like I was driving through Colorado rather than my own state.
I also had never been to Louisiana, and on this first day we drove though a large portion of it. We had one planned stop along the way, thanks to my sister, and that was Natchitoches, Louisiana (pronounced Nack-uh-tish). Tiffany (that's my sister's name) discovered that the famous Southern film "Steel Magnolias" was filmed there. Now I have to be honest, I've only watched Steel Magnolias one time ever. It was very sad, so I just didn't want to watch it again. It is an enjoyable and well known movie though, and Dolly Parton is in it so that gives it extra bonus points. Tiffany found out the location of the house from the movie (now a B&B named for the movie, here's a picture of the exterior) and the salon where many scenes were filmed (now someone's home with no way of knowing it was in the movie if it hadn't been researched beforehand).