After exactly a month in Texas, it was time to start working our way back north and east. Our flight reservation from New York back to Sweden for the summer was just over a month away and we wanted some time with family and friends in Pennsylvania before we left the country again.
It was sad to leave our friends in Dallas, but thankfully we had another visit with friends to look forward to in northwest Louisiana. We hadn’t seen Tara and Jeff since our days on Young Life staff together in Europe, before any of us had kids, but when they saw our travel route on Facebook they invited us to stop by. I’m so glad they did! It was so much fun to catch up! Emelie was thrilled to have a girl her age to play with and all the kids got along great. We grilled marshmallows and sat around the backyard fire pit until we couldn’t put off bedtime any longer. We really do have some amazing people in our life!
Tara and Jeff live in Bossier City (Bo-sure – add that to my growing list of mispronounced place names!) Our trailer was too long to park in their driveway, so we were looking for someplace nearby to camp for the night. We considered a state park, but it was a bit of a drive and we anticipated (correctly!) that it would be a late night. Our best option was to try something new – casino camping.
Even when we “camped” on the Las Vegas strip the campground, though basically in a casino parking lot, was still run by KOA. Casinos running their own campgrounds as well as hotels was new to us. I don’t know how common it is nationwide, but in Bossier City we had plenty of options. We settled on Diamond Jacks based on price and online reviews. They even had a Good Sam discount!
The campground at Diamond Jacks was small but adequate. The bathroom and shower options are limited but available. It wasn’t full, but seemed like a pretty popular place. We didn’t exactly meet any other families there but that wasn’t what we were looking for. It was a clean, safe place leave our camper while visiting, sleep, then wake up and get back on the road. In that regard it met all of our expectations.
I admit I wasn’t crazy about the idea of camping at a casino. Casinos aren’t generally considered family-friendly places and we were in town on a Friday night. But really there was nothing to worry about and in similar circumstances I’d choose it again. Since the campground isn’t where the casino is aiming to make its profits, the prices were reasonable. I guess you could say that in many ways, casino camping was a gamble that paid off!
