Our daughter and her life partner recently moved into their new home in Pearland, Texas. We had visited her once before when they lived in an apartment in Houston but we flew down that time. This trip we decided to drive. Yep, we are talking road trip. I guess we baby boomers never get that out of our systems. We loaded up our 2010 version of a hippy van - a Honda CR-V - dog and all, and hit the road. The 8 track tape deck has been replaced by XM radio, the highs come from caffeine and sugar, and the devil may care attitude has been overtaken by Map Quest, GPS, and reservations at the La Quinta (dog friendly).
The romanticism of the road trip is not gone, but a healthy dose of reality tempers it for me now. Spending three days in a car driving close to 500 miles a day becomes an endurance test in which my knees and back complain and my legs swell. Thank goodness my husband and I can always find something interesting to talk about.
I saw a lot of notables on this trip. The many swamps abundant with life and dusty, lifeless crop fields. Single oil well pumps and huge oil refineries. Up scale Texas living and state after state of houses where cardboard and plastic were used as roofing. The sudden emergence of Lookout Mt. in TN and the utter flatness of TX. Too many crosses on the side of the road signifying a life lost.
I had never driven through MS or LA and I'm glad I did. LA really is America's wetland and MS is prettier than I expected. Looking at the world through the windshield at 70 mph - it is amazing what you can see.
Please visit my husband's blog for some nice bird photos. http://birdsnsky.blogspot.com/
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