2015 Road Trip, Day 14: Rolling Down the Bayou

This morning we left Houston behind and continued our trek eastward.  Because of the holiday, we decided to just make today a travel day -- the few places we would have been able to visit in time were closed. Today the ride itself was our adventure...and you can tell by our photos, we're not from around here.

Leaving Houston

Lots of refineries to pass by.

We stopped at Buc-ee's again before we left Texas.  This one was as big as a Walmart! A T-shirt, a couple of stuffed rodents, some snacks, and a tank of gas later, we were on the road for real.

Then we started on the road in earnest.    We headed east on I-10 into a whole lot of nothing.  Then, like an oasis, this appeared.

And then nothing again for several miles. We were scratching our heads.  Who decided to just plop an arena down in the middle of nowhere?

As it turns out, we were only a few miles from Beaumont, Texas...but the arena is still in the middle of nowhere.

Some signs from along the highway that made us laugh...

So does this mean the Denny's is open 24 hours, or you can play Bingo at 3 am?

I admit to being a bit afraid to look up boudin.  It actually looks kind of tasty.  

Now that we've established boudin isn't so scary, I'm left wondering about a travel plaza with a casino.  Of course, that might answer the Bingo question.

No, thank you.

BBQ Gator...well, maybe.  (Fried gator is pretty good.)

I thought this looked fun.  The others didn't think it was such a hot idea.

As we have traveled around, we've mostly had the radio on.  We started the trip with pop, and worked our way into classic country as we approached Nashville.  We were all-Elvis, all-the-time in Memphis, and back to country and then Tejano as we went south.  For this leg, instead of music, we went with video.

We didn't see any frogs or lighting bugs in the bayous... but we did find this sign.

We got a good giggle.  As we drove and the movie played, we got to the part where lightning bug Ray tells the others about "ma belle Evangeline."  As he was singing, we saw this road sign:

Once we got to Beaumont, we started feeling like we were making progress.  Next thing we knew, we were in Louisiana.

But then the rains came.

We thought about stopping for a bit when we got into the Atchafalaya region. 

Unfortunately, we were were concerned about lightning and the radar map that showed some nasty-looking orange cells coming behind us, so we kept on.

The kids couldn't figure how there were trees growing in the middle of the water!

Of course, this sign triggered six voices reciting the Slinky Dog's famous line from Toy Story 2:  "Buzz, my back end's going to Baton Rouge!"

There are a lot of bridges along I-10 in Louisiana.  I'm not a big fan of bridges.  Here's one over Lake Charles.

 And then one that doesn't go over the bayou, but through it.

We crossed back over to the "east" with this bridge over the Mississippi River.

This bridge went over the Whiskey Bay.  If only.

Finally, we had to drive around Lake Pontchartrain.  Ok, sort of around yet through.  Instead of driving along the shoreline, we drove along the waterline.  At least we had outrun the rain.

We reached our hotel in time for dinner, and just had some down time. Tomorrow is another big day -- we're going to the World War II memorial/museum in New Orleans.  Luke is really looking forward to it.

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