This trip orignally booked while I was in my, at the time unknown, last few days of employment. After the company layoff I started looking at all my planned-over-the-next-four-years trips. Combined some, move parts from one to another. Split some, added to some. This trip was to be just eastern Texas and Louisiana. Was going to spend more time with family and friends. Instead, added some northern Texas plus Pensacola and Alabama and Mississippi. Total of 3,800 miles of driving. That cut the visit time to lunches with family and friends. But once done with this trip, I likely have no reasons to return. Two exceptions. One, visit brother again. Two, move to northern Florida next year.

TEXAS: Many schools and national parks to visit in the eastern half and northern part of the state. It was quite a bit out of my main route to get to Wichita Falls and Lubbock, so I did them first. Finally made it to McAllen, one of the top 100 largest cities in the US (which I am visiting), and to Brownsville, the extreme southern tip of Texas. And I met afriend, former co-worker in the small town of Cleveland TX.
LOUISIANA: This was the third time I havedriven west-to-east on I-10 through southern Louisiana. Really dislike the part of the drive that goes through the swampy area. It all looks the same -- boring -- and has heavy traffic. But had several colleges to visit along with one national park in New orleans. The highlight was getting to visit with some cousins that has been decades since we were last together. We all grew up in Tennessee then scattered as adults. I have a niece that is attending LSU but she is not one much for family so she ignored my attempt to contact her to get together.
The northern part of the state was again visited (was there a year or two ago) but that was during the last leg of my trip after being in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi/
FLORIDA: The ONLY reason I came here was to once again try to visit the campus of West Florida University. The last time I tried a couple years ago it was a disaster. I was almost to the campus but between road construction detours and my GPS telling me too late to turn left during rush hour, by the time I could turn around it was half an hour later so I skipped town and went on with the rest of that long day of travel. This time I approached from the west instead of the east.
ALABAMA: Several new places to visit this time in the state -- some schools and a national park. And, I wanted to revisit the University of Alabama to try to find the proper campus sign. Last time I was here a couple of years ago it was well after dark and I could only find one minor sign on campus.
MISSISSIPPI: Just one college campus to visit while passing between Alabama and Louisiana. The town of Bena was a couple of hours out of the way to get to.

MISSED VISITING>:
More time visiting with family and friends
Galveston -- not enough time plus it was raining hard the entire day
Padre Island -- just raining too hard to get out of the car -- and still would like to revisit Big Bend National Park
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley -- for some reason I had it that University of Texas Rio Grande Valley was in Brownsville but that is Texas Southmost College. UTRGV is in several locations including Edinburg/Brownsville and McAllen and Harlingen, among others. I photographed the sign at Texas Southmost College so uncertain what should have "counted" for UTRGV!
Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee AL -- replacing the cracked windshield caused this place to be missed
Horseshoe Bend National Battlefield near Daviston AL -- replacing the cracked windshield caused this place to be missed

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

• In northern Texas, including the Panhandle area, I noticed several places that were quite stinky. They smelled heavily of either piug farms or strong burning diesel.
• Except for a small section about 60 miles east of Lubbock and 60 miles south of Lubbock, the entire northern Texas area is quite flat.
• Northern Texas must be desolate because for many miles between Wichita Falls and Lubbock I had the highway to myself. Very few vehicles.
• Along the highway going from Lubbock to Roscoe TX, there was a continuous line of windmills. The stretch probably went 40 miles thus thousands of windmills. As usual, some were spinning while others stood motionless.
• Texas puts an occasional passing lane onto their two-lane highways. However, they tend to favor one direction over the other for the total count of how many passing lanes they add. It seems I picked the "road less traveled" going from Wichita Falls to Lubbock to Smithville because the other way had about twice as many passing lane sections as did the direction I was headed.
• Either Texas does not have the spring blooms colors like the southeast had earlier this month and KC will havw in April, or, the spring colors simply have not gotten into full swing yet. All I saw as a hint of spring here is green grass and colorful clover and wild flowers. Orange was the main color but some sprinking of yellow, white and pink too.
• Texas has many highways signs saying "Historical marker one mile ahead" but no indication of what historical event it tells of. Guess one must go see the sign to know. I often wonder how often such signs gets visited.
• Along the multi-lane highwways, Texas frequently has signs that say "Left lane for passing only" (or something like that). However, a large percentage of Texas drivers believe it says the opposite. They think it says "Left lane is the driving lane. ALways stay in it unless a stopped vehicle or construction barricade blocks using the left lane".
• This was my first time in southern Texas, south of San Antonio. I never thought about Texas having palm trees like the southern parts of Florida, Arizona and California have. Upon seeing palm trees (although they were alwatys being rain-drenched) I kept having to remind myself "I am in Texas, not Florida".
• Presumably I have noted this before but Texas always has two sets of "End of work zone" signs. They are about 100 yards apart. As far as I know, no other state does that.
• Good lesson about elevation. WHile driving north from Corpus Christi towards Houston, the highway was basically one long continuous slope upwards.
• Along the Texas highways that are almost like interstates but have more places for drivers to come in, get off, and, go across the traffic to get to a side road. They always have their own turnoff lane and median place while waiting for traffic to clear. These places each have a sign saying "Crossover". After seeing a number of them, I was teasing in my head saying "Wow, the town of Crossover Texas must be huge to have so many exits". Then sometime later I saw an exit for the town of Crosstown Texas. So, almost!
• Texas is pretty good about having green highways signs to point out where all the cemeteries are located.
• The first time I saw a church called "Cowboy Church" I just thought "Well, that is cute". Then a couple days later I saw another one in a different town. A chain?
• Being from Kansas and living a half hour from the campus of Kansas University I had to laugh when, in Texas, I saw a highway sign with the name of a waterway called "Jayhawker Cree".
• Something that occurred to me for the first time as I traveled across a bridge in southern Mississippi that arcs up to let ships pass under it -- if global warming really does raise the ocean levels by ten feet or more by the end of the century, then all of those bridges become "ten feet or more lower". At that point either some ships can no longer go under the bridges or they must somehow raise the bridges or make ships shorter. Interesting problem that could occur someday.
• I probably have mentioned this before but in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama there are numerous billboard ads of law firms saying they take care of those who have been in traffic accidents. Unknown why so prevalent in this part of the country. But more important to me: Never go to a law firm that must advertize. If the firm is really good, it gets enough business by word of mouth that advertizing is unnecessary!
• I often mention in these notes how many, or how few, of the PT Cruisers and its near-twin, the Chevy HHR, there are in a given area. WHY? Because, if making a list of the top ten UGLIEST vehicles ever made, the PT would take the first five slots, HHR would take the next four, and the Gremlin would get #10. They are THAT UGLY that they get more than one slot in the top ten list. Anyway, eastern and northern Texas had very few. Saw zero in Louisiana and only one in southern Mississippi.
• Whereas Texas is pretty good about occasionally adding a passing lane on the two-lane highways, Louisiana does not seem to add them. Once you are stuck behind a slow mover, you are stuck unless you encounter a flat straight stretch with no vehicles coming the other way.
• I can understand why hurricanes love the southern Louisiana area -- flat with lots of open water areas to "play" with. There was a stretch of I-55 running from I-10 north towards Hammond LA that went across much swampy-mostly-water areas. That meant that the highway builders had to sink hundreds and hundreds of footings for all of the pillars that hold up the highway. What a task that must have been. Impressive, actually.
• My bes friend had reminded me how slow Southerns are at doing things. Driving is certainly one of them. When leaving a red traffic light and they can continue at 65 MPH, it takes them three seconds to even move. Then it takes them thirty seconds to get up to 65 MPH.
• I love, and miss, the numerous huge flowering bushes of the south
• I am so surprised how incredibly difficult it is to find Hershey's Dark Chocolate candy bars ANYWHERE in any of the southeast states. Out of over two dozens different stores, and different types of stores, in ten states across several trips, only one place had them. I bought two!
• Very few Southern drivers use turn signals to change lanes.
• Since most of my recent trips have me traveling between cities that have colleges, I often am on highways with little to no traffic.