Summertime Travelling

Photo taken of the south face of Picacho Peak, Arizona, United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

         Will you be doing any travelling this summer?  Some of us in the northern hemisphere might be hitting the road.   A few with greater financial wherewithal might even be flying to far off places or hitting the seas in cruise ships.  Travel options are many.

        High gas prices and tough economic situations for some of us might curtail travel and cause more than a few to opt for staying at home if any vacation time is to be had.  Or maybe some of you work through the summer.  Since my wife is a teacher and I'm essentially retired we have a couple of free months in the summer.   Travel is on the current agenda.  If everything goes as planned we'll be packing up our Chrysler Town and Country van and visiting family scattered about the U.S. far from where we live.  If we don't go to visit them, odds are we are unlikely to see any of them during the year.  I'm not fond of scattered families, but life sometimes takes those turns as we all pursue the dreams that the economy sometimes dictates.

         In weeks to come you might find me in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and New Jersey and many points in between.  The trek from Los Angeles to all of those places means a lot of time and many miles on the highways.  No telling where you might find me in the weeks ahead.   I'll be pre-scheduling my posts before I depart so I'll be writing about generalities.  A bit of the past and some guesstimates of where I might be in general at the time when the post goes up.

           If you aren't travelling yourself you can join me in my travels.  In a sense that is.   I'll try to give you a feel for things that we might encounter.  We've made this trip a number of times so even with my bad memory I'm sure I'll pull up a few highlights that we've experienced on past trips that most likely we'll experience again.

           Hope you don't mind if I take the easy blogging route and reminisce about the road.   Maybe we share some memories between us and maybe I'll share some that are new to you.   I hope we all have a happy safe summer.

           See you next Saturday on the first leg of the journey.

            What are your plans for the summer?    Do you hit the roads during the summer months?   What is your favorite travel destinations and activities?

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teXas

Texas state welcome sign, along Interstate 30, entering from Arkansas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        There are a number of places in Mexico and China that begin with the letter X, but I can't write about them not having been there.  And I can't say for sure if I've ever been to Xenia, Ohio so it would be hardly fair to write about that town.   So I'm pressed to come up with a place in the United States where I've been that begins with an X.

          Often the letter X is used to represent a center of things--"you are here" or "X marks the spot".  Then I think about that massive state of Texas.   The X is in the middle of the name, but in a way Texas seems like the center of the United States.  Oh, it's not the geographical center of the U.S. or even North America.  And it's not the population center, although oddly enough in 2010 and 2011 that distinction went to Texas county in Missouri.

          No, it just seems like Texas is smack dab in the middle of it all and when you're traveling the U.S., for much of the time you are there somewhere in Texas.  A good many travelers going from one region of the United States to another will at some time pass through at least part of Texas.  If you're traveling via I-10 or I-20 you'll spend a lot of time in Texas.  If you cross the country on I-40 you'll still pass through Texas, but not as long.

          I've heard some say that they found driving through Texas boring.  Not me.  To me there is something fascinating about the vastness of the state.   Miles of empty space punctuated by quiet little towns in the middle of nowhere that conjure images of lone cowboys and The Last Picture Show.   If you've seen that movie then that's what a lot of those towns look like.

           That's not to say there isn't some major urban life in Texas.  Of the ten biggest cities in the United States three of them are in Texas.  The only state that matches that is California and that may change since, according to statistics, a lot of people from California have been leaving that state with many of them going to, yeah you guessed it, Texas.

          Texas has just about everything.  There are beaches and mountains, deserts and swamp lands, and city sprawl and farm land.  It's a diverse state geographically as well as culturally.  The weather tends to be temperate most of the time, but it can get cold and snowy in the winter and blistering hot in the summer.

           The largest state border with Mexico is that of Texas.  Much of that border is fairly desolate though there are some large urban areas on the Mexican side.  Texas also borders long stretches of four different U.S. states.    The Texas highway system has enough roads to circle the Earth more than three times.  Some people who have traversed Texas may have felt like they had circled the Earth.

           In my days of touring with the Ken Griffin Magic Show and the World of Fantasy Players we spent a lot of time in Texas.  There were a lot of towns to play and some good money to be made.  We had some good times in that state.  I always looked forward to going there.

          If someone were to tell me that I was going to have to settle down and live in Texas for the rest of my life, I guess I wouldn't be terribly upset.  Some places in Texas might be more disconcerting than others, but as long as I  had all the necessities of modern life I guess I could deal with it.

         I would prefer to just be able to pass through Texas now and then on my way from one place to another.  Or maybe just drive around Texas for a long time.   Texas is a good place to drive around.  When God made Texas, I think he probably made it for roads, cars, and driving.  Driving a long, long way.

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Natchitoches, Louisiana

Carriage, Natchitoches, Louisiana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

       
         When I married my present wife I wanted to show her the United States.  Betty had come to the U.S. from Ecuador about ten years prior to when we met and had not yet seen much of the country that I love and that she had grown to love.  What better way to see the country than with road trips?

         By 2007 we had crisscrossed the country a few times.  Most typically we would travel during the Christmas holidays so we could go visit my family in Tennessee or Arizona with a few side trips thrown in the schedule.  Then in 2007 after Betty had recently purchased a new Nissan Maxima we decided to take a truly epic road trip for the holiday.

        We took five days to drive to Washington, D.C., making a few stops along the way to visit sites and a couple of my family members.  We then went to Maryville, Tennessee to stay a few days with my mother and visit with my kids and siblings.

         On the return trip back to Los Angeles we planned to stop in Houston to meet up with Betty's daughter and her fiance.   Since my daughters wanted to get back to New Jersey for New Years and they had left a couple days before hand, I decided to leave as well and take a couple of leisurely days to make it to Houston for New Year's Day.

          I made the decision to spend New Year's Eve in Natchitoches, Louisiana.   I think I'd been there many  years before, but I didn't remember much about it.  One thing I did know was that they were supposed to have a pretty amazing Christmas light display there.

         We weren't disappointed.  The town has a quaint look not unlike New Orleans except without the sleaze factor and the big city busyness.  We got into town early and spent time in the afternoon strolling about and looking through the shops.  Then as evening neared we went to  have dinner at a restaurant along the river.

          After dinner, darkness had set in and the main street had taken a more festive atmosphere.  The crowds--at least crowded in a small town sense--had begun hitting the main street and the walk along the river.  The decorative lights along the street were shining Christmas cheer as horse-drawn carriages ambled up and down the brick street carrying tourists.

           The real attraction however was the river walk that paralleled the main street.  Vendors were selling kettle corn, Louisiana link sandwiches, hot cider and other goodies from stands that created a carnival-like effect.  Christmas music played over loudspeakers to set the Yuletide mood.

           Across the river and on the bridges were colorful displays of lights as boats likewise decorated with lights cruised up and down the river.  There was a chill in the air that suggested winter, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable to us since we were wearing coats.  This was a happy place.  Not big city gaudy, but simple small town Christmas charm.  We could have imagined ourselves to have been in a Thomas Kinkade painting.

           Perhaps there may have been fireworks at midnight to usher in the New Year, but we didn't stay to find out.  It had been a busy day driving down the Natchez Trace and visiting the historic Natchez, Mississippi river district.  We were planning an early start the next morning.   We went back to our motel room to watch the ball drop in Times Square.  We were asleep before midnight arrived in Natchitoches.

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