WHY NOT JUST SEND 'EM A CHECK? Roadside casinos, like this one catering to truckers and suckers, dot I-10 in Louisiana. LONE STAR LATE
DESPITE MY BEST INTENTIONS, ROAD construction, traffic detours and a couple of necessary errands put me squarely behind the 8-ball on the journey west to San Antonio.
After leaving St. Joe’s Peninsula Park, I traveled west along the coast of the Florida Panhandle and encountered numerous snafus, which forced me northeast up to the I-10 highway. This cost me about 60 miles of progress west and about four hours of time. I could only make as far as Mobile, Alabama, about a third of the distance I was hoping to cover.
The next day, I calculated, would be a fast forced march across the upper rim of the Gulf of Mexico - through the rest of Alabama, then Mississippi and Louisiana - and then finally dipping down into the eastern half of south Texas. And the evaluation was on the money.
After leaving St. Joe’s Peninsula Park, I traveled west along the coast of the Florida Panhandle and encountered numerous snafus, which forced me northeast up to the I-10 highway. This cost me about 60 miles of progress west and about four hours of time. I could only make as far as Mobile, Alabama, about a third of the distance I was hoping to cover.
The next day, I calculated, would be a fast forced march across the upper rim of the Gulf of Mexico - through the rest of Alabama, then Mississippi and Louisiana - and then finally dipping down into the eastern half of south Texas. And the evaluation was on the money.
I drove just a hair under 700 miles (which Rand McNally tells me is roughly the road distance between Boston and Raleigh, N.C.). I was determined to make it to San Antonio that day to visit a couple of days with my niece, the Captain, before she left town Easter morning to fly to Hawaii on Air Force business (these flyboys and flygirls also know how to live!).
The short distances traveled along the Stephen F. Ambrose highway across Alabama and Mississippi were pretty , if uneventful, but Louisiana possessed a profusion of peculiarities.
Along the bayou, churches are constantly advertising on the radio, cattle graze in the small yards of smaller homes right next to the road, tiny casinos dot the highway (see above) ready to rip-off truckers and travelers alike, and I passed several lone wolf oil rigs situated right next to their owner’s homes. It’s crawfish this and Cajun that - everywhere. At the junction of I-10 and Route 91, you'll find the town of Iota, La. (last census, a total population of 1,376). That’s right. Just like in “I couldn’t care one _ _ _ _!”
This area contains weird small towns at their best and roads at their worst! Interstate-10 in parts of southern La. stinks (much stronger language would describe it better, but this is a PG blog). Potholes, ridiculously bumpy stretches, badly marked lanes, short exit ramps and poor signage hold sway here.
(The State of Louisiana should be ashamed of itself on this matter. I know, I know. You’ll say the state had its share of trouble in the last year, but this is not the result of one recent storm, but the accumulation of years and years of neglect. Allow me a question: where do all the funds from state tax receipts and federal grants go in this state? We now know they don’t go into levee building in New Orleans, and they certainly don’t go into servicing the roads, so, Where?, or, better yet, Into which corrupt politicos' pocket?).
As I crossed the bridge over the Sabine River into Texas, passing the small oil refineries along the side of the interstate, I was glad to put Louisiana in the rearview mirror. I thought the bad road was behind me, but that was just until I reached Houston.
Drowning in oil cash, Houston is a fast-growing city. The country’s fourth largest in terms of population, "H-Town" has just over two million citizens. So riddle me this: why were all two million of them driving around the city alone late on a Thursday afternoon? Two hours of a bumper-car traffic jam had me in a lather, but still I staggered onward.
I had been experiencing some trouble with the trailer’s running lights, but plunged on the last 200 miles-or-so after sunset, with the flashers blinking. I arrived in San Antonio just after 10 p.m., navigated that city without any traffic problems and was glad to settle in at the Captain’s after an almost 14-hour journey.
The short distances traveled along the Stephen F. Ambrose highway across Alabama and Mississippi were pretty , if uneventful, but Louisiana possessed a profusion of peculiarities.
Along the bayou, churches are constantly advertising on the radio, cattle graze in the small yards of smaller homes right next to the road, tiny casinos dot the highway (see above) ready to rip-off truckers and travelers alike, and I passed several lone wolf oil rigs situated right next to their owner’s homes. It’s crawfish this and Cajun that - everywhere. At the junction of I-10 and Route 91, you'll find the town of Iota, La. (last census, a total population of 1,376). That’s right. Just like in “I couldn’t care one _ _ _ _!”
This area contains weird small towns at their best and roads at their worst! Interstate-10 in parts of southern La. stinks (much stronger language would describe it better, but this is a PG blog). Potholes, ridiculously bumpy stretches, badly marked lanes, short exit ramps and poor signage hold sway here.
(The State of Louisiana should be ashamed of itself on this matter. I know, I know. You’ll say the state had its share of trouble in the last year, but this is not the result of one recent storm, but the accumulation of years and years of neglect. Allow me a question: where do all the funds from state tax receipts and federal grants go in this state? We now know they don’t go into levee building in New Orleans, and they certainly don’t go into servicing the roads, so, Where?, or, better yet, Into which corrupt politicos' pocket?).
As I crossed the bridge over the Sabine River into Texas, passing the small oil refineries along the side of the interstate, I was glad to put Louisiana in the rearview mirror. I thought the bad road was behind me, but that was just until I reached Houston.
Drowning in oil cash, Houston is a fast-growing city. The country’s fourth largest in terms of population, "H-Town" has just over two million citizens. So riddle me this: why were all two million of them driving around the city alone late on a Thursday afternoon? Two hours of a bumper-car traffic jam had me in a lather, but still I staggered onward.
I had been experiencing some trouble with the trailer’s running lights, but plunged on the last 200 miles-or-so after sunset, with the flashers blinking. I arrived in San Antonio just after 10 p.m., navigated that city without any traffic problems and was glad to settle in at the Captain’s after an almost 14-hour journey.
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I passed by several great signs during this leg of the trip: One was a pairing advertising Mobile Greyhound Park right next to one informing you that you are crossing the bridge over Rabbit Creek; another, just after the Texas border was motel sign for the Czech Inn. Both of these pale in comparison to one the Poet and I saw last week in Florida: across from what looked like a nasty junkyard was a badly hand-lettered sign inviting passers-by to stop for a "Divorce Sale." Just kept on driving........
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Generally, I am not a fan of Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaunessy , but he hit the nail right on the head, when he coined the term “Red Sox Nation.” Sox fans have been legion so far. I have come across many wearing Red Sox caps (but only one Yankees cap). One such meeting took place at the Home Depot in Destin, Fla. when I stopped to get a propane refill for the trailer. The fellow wearing the cap, a Home Depot employee, was helping me out when I asked about the hat. He said that he was a transplanted New Yorker who switched allegiance to the Sox a long time ago " 'Cause (George) Steinbrenner’s nuts.” He also said he thought that A-Rod should be on the Sox and that Johnny Damon should never had left Fenway, adding that only the Sox could have once had Pokey Reese and now Coco Crisp, although he was looking forward to watching the new centerfielder play. Later, as I was picking up a few required items inside, another Home Depot worker approached me out of the blue to relate the fact that in some Asian countries, they make packing peanuts out of some kind of edible fiber, not Styrofoam like the packing peanut he was currently brandishing. He told me he was a transplanted New Englander and had worked at Dartmouth College, adding that he once had a buddy in the Navy who after swigging down his beer, would take a bite out of the glass, concluding his tale with “So, I guess you can eat just about anything.” Fighting a strong impulse, I decided it was best not to ask him if he had been sampling these Styrofoam peanuts.
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