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San Antonio to Lafayette, Louisiana
This morning the kids played outside in the campground after breakfast. Genevieve spent time balancing both sides of the seesaw by piling rocks, sticks and water bottles on each end.
The campground rented pedal-carts, so Genevieve and Sebastian zipped around here and there (working up a sweat in the thick, hot air).
Our next destination was New Orleans, which was 8 ½ hours away from San Antonio. We planned to drive 4 ½ hours today, stop at a campground with a pool for the children, and then finish driving to New Orleans tomorrow. As we left San Antonio, we rolled along on gentle hills that gradually flattened out completely.
I was surprised to see a herd of bison at the Silver Wolf Ranch.
The miles ahead:
The speed limit was now 70 mph for everyone (no longer 80!), with a limit of 65 mph at night. The large trucks do not have to drive slower than cars, as they must in California.
We passed a number of ranches and farms.
The smart cows were all congregating under trees to escape the intense heat.
We stopped in the town of Columbus to have a roadside lunch. We looked for a park with a playground, finally spying some climbers and swings in front of Columbus elementary school. The marquee message looking promising.
As we were preparing to park, we saw a giant colorful playground set behind the school; however, all of the gates leading to the modern set were padlocked shut—this was the first time we had encountered locked playgrounds. After lunch, Genevieve and Sebastian went to play on the metal climbers in front of the school; however, the steel was too hot for the children to touch for more than 10-30 seconds.
I snapped these photos of houses in Columbus as we left town:
Back on the freeway, all of the houses along the road were shrouded in trees, so they were hard to photograph.
This massive "Rooms to Go" distribution center was under construction:
Right across the street was another huge distribution center belonging to Igloo.
We were not used to seeing so many billboards that promoted Christianity.
We didn't see any billboards promoting other religions.
On the outskirts of Houston, we were driving through the town of Katy and saw a welcome sight: “Starbucks”!
We all got an icy refreshment—Ben and I shared a giant coffee frappucino, Genevieve had a strawberries and cream drink, and Sebastian tried the vanilla bean drink (tasted almost like a milkshake—yum!).
Entering Houston, the signs for “Katy Tollroad HOV” were very confusing to us.
We initially got on the tollroad but then got off almost immediately because we weren’t sure where it led and why the sign said “HOV free” and “EZ tag only” at the same time. If the EZ tags were similar to the FastPasses in the San Francisco Bay Area—which electronically bill you for tolls—then why do “free” carpools need a billing tag? We were perplexed and decided to just ignore the tollroad.
The Houston highway had an array of overhead roads that criss-crossed the sky in artistic patterns of steel and concrete.
Under construction was a building that looked like it was topped with a fancy crown:
Downtown Houston:
Leaving Houston, we passed by a gigantic Budweiser facility. Something smelled very familiar—suddenly I knew what it was: “I smell goldfish crackers!”
Ben sniffed and said, “So do I!” We realized that it must have been the grains used to make the beer.
The Houston traffic was fast, with lots of freeways feeding into, and out of, the city. Kudos to Ben for getting us through safely!
The San Jacinto River:
The Lost River/Old River:
The Trinity River:
After the past weeks of traveling through vast deserts, I was appreciating all of the waterways we crossed—“Wow, another river so soon . . . look at all that water!”
Some homes that we passed:
The trees were now tall and surrounded by thick vegetation.
We also drove through miles and miles and miles of large stores, strip malls, hotels/motels, chain restaurants, and other businesses in boxy cement buildings. The energy of all of this hustle and bustle was a bit overwhelming. Over the past two weeks, I had become accustomed to large open spaces, with small towns and scattered rural houses.
This small plane was landing in an airfield next to the freeway.
A Goodyear factory:
Many businesses had banners that proudly proclaimed, “We Support Our Troops.”
A large rice mill:
We drove along the outskirts of Beaumont.
(Notice all of the electrical/telephone lines in the above photo.)
Some scenes around the Beaumont area:
This sign let us know that we had entered Hurricane Territory.
After driving 4 ½ hours, we decided to press ahead for another 2 hours. We looked in our KOA directory and found an RV park on a small lake, with two pools and miniature golf, in Lafayette, Louisiana. A quick call reserved a spot for us.
The clouds ahead looked stormy, and we passed through two intense stretches of rain.
Welcome to Louisiana!
Up ahead were some oil refineries.
We drove over this tall bridge near the city of Lake Charles.
There were a multitude of billboard signs advertising casinos. Each sign had a phone number on the bottom for those who had gambling addictions.
Fields of rice spread out on both sides of the highway for miles.
Some passing scenes:
We arrived at the campground, and the kids immediately got their swimsuits on and headed for the largest pool. Ben joined them, perfecting his “flipping” technique, while I prepared our dinner fixings for the grill.
After dinner, Genevieve noticed that the setting sun was a brilliant red circle through the trees. It was absolutely gorgeous, but my camera just wouldn’t capture the color.
We played Clue as a family tonight; Sebastian was very pleased because he played for the first time without any help whatsoever!
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