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We're comfortably in our room at the luxurious Rodeway Inn in Shreveport, after a ten-and-one-half hour drive from Kansas City. Let me tell you a bit about the drive, in case you might in future years consider a road-trip to Shreveport from Brookings: it isn't that bad at all.

On the maps, it looks like a journey into the backroads, with minimal Interstate-level roads. It's basically U.S. 71 all the way from Kansas City to Shreveport. From Kansas City down all the way to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, there isn't more than a few miles of two-lane road. Most of it is near-Interstate-grade divided highway, with some intersections at grade, but with normal controlled-access Interstate type highways in most of the built-up areas. US 71 turns into I-540 in northwest Arkansas, going through Wal-Mart home Bentonville and Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas. The 30 miles or so from Bentonville to Fayetteville are basically one big city now. The metropolitan area contains nearly half a million people now, and is the sixth fastest growing metro area in the country.

(more . . . click the "Read More" link.)

(Quick lesson in highway engineering terminology: "controlled access highway" is what most of us know as Interstates--you can get on and off the highway only at interchanges. When I say "near-Interstate-grade" I'm talking about a highway that looks to be basically engineered to Interstate standards, but allows direct connections of other roads to the highway--"at grade" in highway-engineering-speak. That BS in civil engineering from SDSU comes up at the oddest times.)

As a further diversion from this highway engineering-oriented travelogue, we stopped in the town of Mena, Arkansas. Those of you who are unreconstructed conspiracy theorists from the Bill Clinton years will recognize the town of Mena. It was at the center of the black-helicopter level conspiracy theories of Bill and his cronies being hip-deep in all manner of untoward activities. Ah, good times! Anyway, we had lunch in Mena at the Skyline Cafe, which billed itself as being open since 1921. Snookums reported that the roast beef was good meat, but very very salty. I had the Reuben, which wasn't bad, but watch out--they'll try to sell you french fries or onion rings instead of the potato chips, and won't tell you that there's an upcharge. It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

Back on the road again--once you get south of Ft. Smith (coming into Mena from the north, and heading out of Mena from the south), you're on a good 2-lane road, driving through terrain which is somewhat reminiscent of the Black Hills, until you get close to Texarkana. Then, you have a mix of near-Interstate-grade divided highway, five-lane highway (with center turning/traffic separation lane) and some 2-lane highway for US 71 just north of Shreveport. That segment of highway has signs on it saying "future I-49" so it must be on somebody's plan to upgrade.

Anyway, we're here, and after the usual follies getting an acceptable room (i.e. our first room didn't have any light bulbs, but did have dirt on the easy chair and at least one of the bedside tables) we're here, and Snookums is doing an Internet search for Shreveport sports bars so we can find one that will show the Tennessee-Old Dominion women's basketball game that started a half-hour ago.

And there's a Centenary-SDSU preview being teased for the 10 o'clock Channel 3 newscast.

Ah, there's a Buffalo Wild Wings nearby . . . that'll do.