Deep South

Today I made it all the way to Baton Rouge, LA. This put me over 9000 miles for the trip and more than 2 thousand since Friday. Yesterday I made it from San Antonio up to Texarkana. The drive was relatively short and pretty easy. I was surprised that the cities of Austin, Waco, Dallas, and Texarkana popped up spaced an hour and a half to 2 hours apart. It kind of felt like driving from Buffalo back toward NYC where you hit Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany on the way spaced pretty close together. The drive was pretty short and there wasnt much traffic. The traffic that was on the road apparently had an aversion to driving at a decent speed, so most of the time was spent either avoiding cars at 40mph or getting out of the way of cars going 90. Texarkana was a pretty strange experience. I stayed in the Texas part only about 100 yards from the state line. I went to a gas station in the texas part to buy some beer and found that it was a dry county and I would have to go to Arkansas to get beer. I had to deal and travel all 50 feet across the road to the other gas station, only to find out that apparently they dont sell Lotto tickets so people have to go over to Texas to buy lotto. It was a pretty strange experience. After one of the worst nights in a hotel I have ever had where the bathroom was dirty, the TV color was off, and the maid barged into my room at 9am even though checkout time wasnt until noon. I normally dont complain, and if it had only been one or 2 problems I wouldnt have said anything, but I complained at the front desk and they wound up taking the charges off my account so I got to sleep for free. To celebrate I went to breakfast at a Waffle House just down the street. I didnt have lofty expectations for the Waffle House, but they did ok and the breakfast was decent. The one thing I didnt like was how harsh the accents were of the people of Texarkana (Texarkans?). I am used to the mellower accents of Georgia and Virginia, but these people had voices that sounded like nails on the chalkboard. All in all I would have to rate the Texarkana experience as strange. Im glad I went (not just for the burrito), but im in no rush to go back.

Fueled by a Waffle House breakfast I headed through some back roads to Shreveport, LA and down to Baton Rouge. The first part took me on roads that reminded me of taking route 30 or route 9 up through the Southern Adirondacks. IT was pretty empty, with a lot of green grass and lakes/bayous, plus a decent smattering of trailers and run down houses. Along the highway I got to see more of the same open areas. Over the past week I have had a chance to see the extreme amount of agricultural production that can be done in America. From the Artichoke fields of the California Coast to the Sugar Cane plantations of Louisiana it is pretty awesome to think of the amount of food that we can grow.

I made it into Baton Rouge safely and was able to grab a Burrito at this place called Izzos Illegal Burrito. The place had 3 sizes of burrito, regular, Super Felony (about the size of a Bombers Burrito), and Illegal which was giant. I opted out of the Illegal burrito so that I can enjoy the culinary delights of New Orleans over the next few days. I plan on heading into the city tomorrow and exploring over the course of a few days, it should be a pretty cool experience and I am looking forward to it.
-O