Take A Trip to the Lock and Dam on Red River

It was just about a perfect day in SIGIS-land.  Glorious spring weather, pollen everywhere, clear blue skies, and a balmy 78 degrees, so we took the top off the Jeep and hit the road.

Our first stop was to visit our friend Nancy who moved from across the street a while back.  We haven't seen her since she left the neighborhood and have really missed her.  Yesterday, when visiting Milly, I picked up these cool sterling combs for Nancy; she has l-o-n-g red hair and she's half Cherokee so these combs just reminded me of her. 

We had a nice visit and then kept on heading south down Highway 71 to Lock and Dam #5 on Red River.  It's south of Taylortown.

We turned the radio up and drove along admiring the scenery and all the outdoor smells along the way: burning wood fires, cow pastures, fresh air, and the occasional dead animal!  Steve keeps a cap in the Jeep to help keep the sun off his face and I tried to pull my hair back but it was pretty futile:

The Lock & Dam area is pretty neat; there are picnic tables and grills, restrooms, and plenty of fishing.  The roar of the water coming through is impressive and powerful:

The water is calm and tranquil on the other side of the locks but on this side it's quite turbulent.  It circles around like a whirlpool catching debris, sticks, logs, and vegetation in a continuous circle until it can break free.

There were people lined up all along the rocks fishing:

We never saw that guy catch anything but sticks but we did enjoy watching this fellow work a net:

He would cast it out and drag it back repeatedly.  I'm not sure if he caught anything or not.  The guy he was with sure did: we saw him pull at least two huge catfish out of the water:

After a while we climbed back in the Jeep...

...and headed back to town. 

We stopped at Ming Garden for some Pad Thai and some Tsingtao before coming home. 

Properly sunburned and windblown, we're settled in for the night.  We broke 100 miles on the Jeep now and have a respectable amount of mud on the fenders and bug guts on the grill so all is well.

It was about as perfect a day as they come.