When we stopped at the Texas Welcome Station, the mile marker read "880," and I thought "This is one of God's cruelest jokes – you must choose between eternal hell-fire and damnation or 880 miles across Texas!" We haven't made it yet, nearly a week later . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself.
First it was Louisiana. Already being depressed enough by the Mississippi coastline, we opted for the freeway route across Louisiana, save for one very enjoyable stop in Baton Rouge. By asking the right question at the gas station, we were directed to Ralph 'n' Kacoo's – one of the finest Cajun seafood establishments in all of Louisiana. As you can see, Clara is enjoying fried catfish covered with crawfish etoufee´ (which in French means "smothered"), together with corn fritters and fried okra. As Justin Wilson (remember to pronounce it Cajun style as "Hoostan") used to say "Ooooh, dot's good -- yaaaah!" I was forced to settle for shrimp stuffed with crab, salad and fried okra. All too soon, it was over and we had to get back on the road to Texas.
You can see from the Houston skyline that it's much more polluted than Atlanta was. We were as much surprised at the clear skies in Atlanta as we were depressed by the dirty air hanging over Houston.
Under those circumstances we settled for the "Texas Freeway Lunch" shown in the pictures here (by setting the camera on the picnic table, aiming, setting the remote, and running like hell, we got the picture.) The rest area was between the travel lanes so we had traffic roaring by perhaps thirty yards away on both sides.
This "TFL" was sandwiched in between nights at RV parks in Orange and San Antonio, and the days were just "Let's cover some miles today!"
The delights of Texas came at Seminole Canyon State Park and Big Bend National Park – but those are the next installments!
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