Days 18 - 21. Houston to El Reno, OK: 453.4 miles; 6:57.

Day 17 continued: Lake City, LA to Houston.

There is no nice way to say this:  Louisiana roads are horrible.  We have renamed I-10 through Louisiana the "washboard highway." It has been thump, thump, thump all through the state.  It is pretty much the side roads as well.  Thump, thump, thump.

We started out at 7:57 and turned south off the Interstate onto the Creole Nature Trail.  We quickly got into rural countryside and passed a Family Dollar Store, followed by a Dollar General.  So competition is alive and well in rural LA.   All of a sudden, Jim turned off the road.  We had come to a very interesting old graveyard.  I'm not quite sure what the tools on the cross represent, but it was a wonderful old church and graveyard.

We passed through picturesque swampland and Bayous.  There was a drawbridge over the intra-costal waterway that looked similar to the I-5 bridge over the Columbia in Portland.   We passed some oil pumps busily pumping and a group of storage tanks.

Then the land turned to marshes similar to the wetlands along Willapa Bay, but much more massive.  We passed another drawbridge, then a Marina and very rustic Motel.

We entered the Sabine Wildlife Refuge -- Jim thought I said "wild rice" and was looking for rice paddies until I corrected him.  (I wish he would get a hearing aid!)  All of the trails, points of interest, and information center were closed thanks to the government shut-down.

 The area had many canals (called bayous) running through the area and many areas for fishing.  We hit something in the road and Jim said, "I think we just ran over an alligator head."  Confirming his conclusion, we almost immediately passed an "alligator crossing" sign.  I guess alligators here are like deer on other parts of the country.  Don't know why it was just the head though.  That was the only alligator that we ran into, which is fine with me.

The Bayous were numbered and we finally crossed over the First Bayou.  Soon we got to a "T" in the road and there was the Gulf of Mexico.  We turned right and headed towards Texas.  The road was right along the beach so we stopped and discovered that this was not nearly as nice a beach as Pensacola.  Sand was brown and lots of kelp, but still an impressive landscape and they had tons of shells.  In the far distance we could see some off-shore oil rigs and fishing boats.

It didn't look like a good beach for resorts, but when we got to Johnson's Bayou we ran into a group of beach houses (all on stilts).  Some places, we just saw stilts -- all that was left after hurricane Ike.  We passed a small community all on stilts.  The houses that had been rebuilt appeared to be on higher stilts than the older structures.  It was very strange to see manufactured homes on stilts, Victorian homes on stilts, industrial buildings on stilts, a parking lot on stilts, and even a church on stilts.  Then we passed a construction area with a massive number of stilts -- they were building a new High School -- on stilts.  Jim said that these buildings were definitely not Parkinson friendly.  My guess is that hurricanes trump accessibility here.

I didn't think we would see a "Welcome to Texas" sign on this backroad, but I was wrong.  There it was telling us to, "Drive friendly the Texas way."  We determined later that that meant to drive fast and aggressively.  Speed limit:  75mph.

Once we were in Texas there was oil stuff everywhere and on a massive scale.  Port Author has a massive area of industrial sprawl.  It is surreal.  We got back on the freeway and headed to Houston on I-10.

Texas has an interesting concept of a frontage road.  It is usually a parallel freeway that periodically allows you to enter or exit to the actual freeway.   They call them "feeders" which is a pretty accurate description.  Because they usually parallel the entire length of the freeway, it makes access relatively easy.  If you get on a feeder, you can be assured you can eventually get onto the freeway.  On/Off ramps are relatively short and everybody is going 75mph.   So to survive, you really have to "Drive the Texas Way."

Ok, so we got into Houston and turned onto the beltway.  Soon we encountered signs that said that to continue on the beltway, we had to have an EZ-pass.  I had my billfold out ready to pay any tolls, but the signs said, "No Cash, EZ-pass only."  We didn't have an EZ-pass, so we exited onto the "feeder."  Miss Direction was having fits and trying her best to get us back up onto the beltway, but the signs kept saying "EZ-pass only."  Finally, the feeder split two ways: one going into Houston, the other away from Houston.  Given that choice, I would always choose "away" from Houston, so off we went.  Fortunately, Miss Direction had us make a U turn on the feeders and got us back and onto the beltway -- which for some reason was free now.  But not for long.  Soon we had to get off at the "last free exit" again crossing over two lanes of incoming traffic... Anyway, it was a nightmare.

We stopped off and had lunch and a glass of Texas wine to de-stress, and made it to G and K's house early afternoon.

Day 18:  Houston

We had a relaxing day at G and K's house.  They just moved in to a beautiful house in Spring, TX. They had a major leak last week and are having work done to the house, but we were very comfortable and enjoyed our visit.  On Sat. we went out to look at G's office and then they treated us to dinner at Papa-citos (Tex-Mex).  We had margaritas (I did not know then that margaritas were invented in nearby Galveston).  Dinner was delicious. We ended the day by watching the season finale of "Hell on Wheels."

Day 19:  Spring, TX to Spring, TX.  199 miles.

G and T took us for a tour of the area.  We went through Houston (with a restroom stop downtown that Jim thought they ought to pay him to use).  Then on to Galveston where we drove by thebeach and boardwalk.

We passed the historical spot where the Balinese Room once stood many hurricanes ago.   The legend has it that this is the place where the margarita was invented in 1948 by head bartender Santos Cruz for singer Peggy (Margaret) Lee He supposedly named it after the Spanish version of her name.

Then we took the car ferry to Port Bolivar.The ferry was free (no EZ-pass required - although parking on the beach seemed to require one).

We saw a lot of dolphins and pelicans from the ferry.  The bay seemed to be teeming with sea life.

Once we got to Port Bolivar, we drove around and stopped at the hurricane-damaged jetty where a lot of folks were "fishing"  (it seemed strange to see a fishing hook baited with a chicken drumstick) for blue crab.  We walked the jetty until it started to rain then drove around and looked at the old fort and lighthouse before taking the ferry back to Galveston.

Back in Galveston, we went to a local restaurant called Shrimp 'n Stuff.  We had fried catfish, sweet potato fries, and hush puppies.  Delicious.  Then we went downtown to the historic "Strand" for ice cream.  Yum.

On our way back to Houston, we stopped by the memorial for Texas Independence.  It looks like the Washington Monument complete with it's own reflecting pond (except for the lone star on top of the monument.).  You can take an elevator to the top for an expansive view of Houston.

We ended the day by enjoying a pumpkin pie from Sam's Club.

Day: 21  Spring, TX to El Reno, OK.

We departed at 8:19.  K made sure that we were well provisioned for the trip  We passed Huntsville (pop. 38,548, elev. 400 feet).  Once known as the "Athens of Texas" for its cultural attractions, Huntsville was originally founded  as an Indian trading post in 1836 (the year of Texas Independence.)  Sam Houston lived here and it is the headquarters of the Texas prison system.  K had warned us not to pick up any hitchhikers in the area -- we didn't.  We stopped at the Huntsville rest area which interestingly did not have armed security.

We were getting back into the plains.  As Jim noted, "the trees are slowly sinking into the ground." We passed through Corsicana (pop. 23,770; elev. 328 feet.) Ironically, officials in this city were disappointed in 1894 when they struck oil -- they were looking for water. Turns out they found plenty of both and Corsicana became one of the first commercial oil-well and refinery sites west of the Mississippi.  the rotary droll bit used in commercial wells was invented here.

Soon we hit Dallas.  Miss Direction earned her keep and we got through the city.  The skyline is very distinctive and Dallas is known for it's layered, elevated freeways.

We got out of Texas at 1:19 -- a new record.  We immediately saw signs for casinos and passed a larger than huge casino complex that was modeled after the Greek Colosseum, British Parliament and other famous buildings all lined up.  We stopped at the Oklahoma information center rest stop and had our lunch.  We noticed that the humidity had dropped significantly.  It was 70's and very pleasant.

Back on the road, I looked on the map and told Jim that we were getting into the "Arbuckle Mountains."  He said,  "Where?"  We looked around and laughed.  All we saw was the flat horizon all around.  We did start to get into some hills -- not mountains by any stretch of the imagination.  They reminded me of the Flint Hills in Kansas -- note they are not called Flint Mountains.  We passed a "view point" sign and I made Jim get off.  There was no view, just a grassy field.  We passed a few more hills, than another "view point" sign.  Jim said no way would he get off.  Something about, "Fool me once, same on you."

Just before we got to Oklahoma City, we passed Norman (pop. 110,925; elev. 1168).  Norman was established in 1869.  At that time it had 500 people, 4 churches, 2 newspapers, and 29 businesses.  A year later the University of Oklahoma was built.  The rest is history.

We passed through Oklahoma City with the help of Miss Direction.  We stopped in El Reno for the night.  El Reno was established in June of 1889 when the Rock Island Railroad picked the South bank of the North Canadian River for a depot.  The angry citizens of nearby Reno City did not want to be left out of the fortunes that the railways brought, so they packed their belongings and loaded houses, stores, and even a hotel onto log rollers, forded the river and re-settled in the new town of El Reno.  Sounds like an episode from "Hell on Wheels."

We are headed west tomorrow.