On the Road Again

Once again, we didn't get the early start that we'd hoped for, but hey... who cares we're on vacation.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the river running under this bridge is the color of chocolate milk. All the water in Louisiana is this color. Weird.

This bridge is close to the Louisiana - Texas border. Its height and the steel framework makes this bridge pretty impressive.

Apparently gambling is pretty commonplace in states other than Florida. The further we get from FL the more casinos that seem to pop-up. In Louisiana casinos started appearing at gas stations and truck stops. This is a Shell we stopped at to fuel up. On the back side of the Shell is the Grand Bayou Casino.

Towards the end of Louisiana, we came about our first Bayou. The bridge we're on in this photo runs for nearly twenty miles across swampy marshes and several of the muddy Louisiana rivers.

Vermilionville

Vermilionville was nothing too spectacular. The whole site was basically a bunch of dressed up little old ladies and 5 or 6 old Cajun style houses that had been relocated to this grouped setting. The highlight of the Vermilionville was sitting in on the French cooking school.

This is a picture of Gertie, a little old Cajun woman running the French cooking school. We were a little disappointed that the meal for the day was French toast (we were hoping for something a little more exotic). It was still fun to listen to her talk in her thick Cajun accent, even though we couldn't understand anything she said.

This is an old Cajun style house.

This is an oven from the 1800's. I think I'll hold on to my microwave.

After leaving Vermilionville, we continued our trek toward Texas. Finally, during the late afternoon hours of the day we broke out of the southeastern US and into the lone star state.

Right after crossing the Texas border we came upon the visitor center and this giant Texas star.

Apparently Texans have daytime and nighttime speed limits.

It seems that everywhere we go now there are large industrial complexes. I'm not used to seeing factories and plants of this size in FL.

This is a picture of the hotel we are staying at right now. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't give a very real impression of this place. It was definitely a bargain at under $30 for the night, you just have to get past the broken toiletries, dirty walls, and the hallway that smells like urine.