Phil thought a week driving to southern Texas would be good for me. After all I had been sick since Thanksgiving. My job was to deliver a Born Free to a woman who planned on using it to take her Pomeranians to dog shows.
It wasn't what I expected. I took Angie so we could "bond" and I headed down 35, a wonderful road that took me all the way to Dallas without having to turn off.
I was out of Iowa in the blink of an eye, well three hours to be exact, and through Missour in no time, in fact I was almost to Kansas City when I decided to pull over for the night. I stay in Hampton Inn's and only Hampton Inn's. They offer the best room for the money, usually around $89.00 which gives you a great room, movies, HBO, swimming, exercise room and a really nice breakfast to boot.
The next day I headed into Oklahoma, a state I had never visited before. I don't know what I expected, but I can't say it impressed me. It was there that I started seeing the oil wells. One interesting thing, the first rest stop I came to had picnic tables under what looked to be Teepee's, very nice. Then on to Texas and the huge city of Dallas. Now, that was impressive, bigger than I expected, and more "east coast" looking than anticipated. Once through Dallas I headed for Houston. The roads were intricately woven around and through both cities. They seem to love their raised highways in Texas because there were many. It was a harrowing experience to drive that 27 foot RV through those two cities since every road I was on was being worked on and cattle shoots were the norm. I have to say that when I passed the Texas state line the land wasn't very pretty, but between Dallas and Huston there were fields of live oak and grass that looked like landscaped parks, but it wasn't, it was just the way the land looked. Very beautiful. Also, I saw lots of housing developments being built. They build massive entryways to these developments, usually including stone walls, metal sculptures and lots of landscaping.
I got to about an hour north of Lake Jackson, my destination, and took the exit showing a Hampton Inn location, at the end of the exit a sign told me the Hampton Inn was actually four miles down the road. I didn't like that, felt tricked. But I was tired so I drove it, arriving tired and edgy, only to be told there was no room at the Inn. They sent me north a few miles and I ended up at a Hamptong Inn at the airport. Cops in the reception area, lots of men gathered in the cafe. I got settled but didn't feel safe, an unusual feeling for me during my travels. Sure enough, the next day when I left cops were everywhere, checking out what looked to be smashed windows on many of the cars in the lot. The smashers left the Born Free alone----I guess it was fancy stereos that was the draw.
I dropped off the RV, rented a car, a nice little red Vibe, and was scheduled to head to Galveston. But decided not to. I had many people tell me not so good things about the Texas Gulf Coast. The woman I delivered the RV to lived 10 minutes from the beach, but told me she never went. Said her dogs got sandy and the chemical plants made the view not so nice. Others told me I would get oil on my bathing suit, still others told me the water wasn't a pretty blue like in Florida. Adding this information up equaled me heading north that very same day. I took a different route out of Texas, an off road with more country less city, it took me through little towns a few people shy of being ghost towns. I went through one pretty little town with many craftsman style homes in shabby shape. What a shame!
I hit snow in Kansas. Never saw so many trucks and cars rolled over on the side of the road. I guess it was really bad the night before. I had stopped at around six that evening and I waited until ten that morning before I left.
I forgot my music. Radio in the Mid-west and South-west is not so great. Lots of country, lots of latin, lots of hard rock. I scanned and scanned constantly. Awierd thing I noticed on other trips and this trip too, the playing of the same songs on different stations. I believe these stations are owned by the same company with the same play list. Not so good when you are traveling.
I did get to see some good movies though. I saw the one with Viggo Mortensen where he lives a normal life until he stops a robbery in his cafe. Very violent and sexual. But a good story. Another one was the Johnny Cash movie, very very good. Enjoyed the music, enjoyed the actor who played Johnny.
Angie was fun to have along. She stayed in her little traveling kennel during the drive but once she got into the hotel room she had the run of the place. I have trained her on those dog pads and she did pretty well after the first two days. I had to sneak her into the hotel---didn't want to take the chance of having them not allow her in. She was funny and sweet and great to have along. She would sleep when we started out, but after a few hours her little head would poke out the top of her kennel and I could tell she needed to run a bit.
So, now I've been to Oklahoma and I've been to Texas, I know I only drove through, I can't make a final judgement on the states, all I can say is I saw a lot of road.
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