Road Trip

My wife and l last month completed an 1,800-mile road trip to Texas to visit my brother and his wife in Corpus Christi. We drove down through eastern Oklahoma and central Texas, and returned via eastern Texas, northwestern Louisiana and Arkansas.

We stayed off the beaten paths going down, hitting places such as Hugo, Okla., and Paris, Palestine and Victoria, Texas. While the back roads are a great way to see the country, they aren’t conducive to eating well. Every little town had doughnut shops and fast-food joints, but no place to find a nutritious meal. On the return trip we hit larger cities, but you still could tell a lot about the economics of a place by its restaurants. Lufkin, Texas, had a good proportion of nice chain sit-down restaurants. Up the road in Nacogdoches, it’s nothing but burgers and chicken.

My wife drove the entire trip, including through Houston, Shreveport and Little Rock on the 16½-hour trip home in one day. Mile after mile in Louisiana we were struck by mansions only yards from shacks.

Another observation: Texas and Arkansas do a poor job of letting drivers know the speed limit and give little warning to highway junctions that are approaching. Most disturbing was the drivers we saw in every state texting, some of them while going 70 mph.

Despite all the driving, we did enjoy several days on the beach in Corpus Christi, hearing the crashing waves, watching the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and escaping the frigid winter weather.