Days 8-9 Texas to Georgia

Day 8: Texas to Mississippi

So I left from Texas. It was hot.
And the storms? Because I was driving again, they also started back up. -_-;


The land started morphing, it got kind of awesome. Texas has such a wide variety of geography - I saw only just a little bit of it, I tried to capture all that I thought was gorgeous:



I'd like to make a color scheme based around this: Texan Travels or something lame like that I'd probably call it. The first color schemes I created were in 1995; I used to use crayons to blend gradients and I distinctly remember "Jedi Forest Green" lol laaaame!! but yeah - Texan travels = pretty colors!


Right before entering into Lousiana, you could tell you were about to:


It was in heavy traffic, when I first turned on Steve Martin's autobiography: bumper to bumper construction traffic right before Shreveport (but still in TX). At this moment, as shown here, I saw this occur about 12 times (am not exaggerating) and then it was hilarious. This is why they have pickup trucks Alllll over texas. Stupid trucks.


Some more puffy clouds, almost like the ones from Galesburg:


In Shreveport (after crossing into Louisiana) I didn't have time to look for (and was too hungry to find) gumbo, so I just followed the signs to the catfish restaurant. It was a good idea, and quite possibly the best catfish I ever had. If you're ever in Shreveport... get that catfish. Also, the cheapest gas is by the Walmart, I paid 2.46/gal.


Aaaand the storms followed me through Louisiana - and were the reason I saw almost none of the state... :(


I find it important to note one thing that I couldn't possibly take a picture of - two things, come to think of it.

1) Upon the last third of Louisiana, I definitely saw the moon rise: it was large and orange, and was the perfect "Bayou Moon" - you know, when that picturesque way of clouds parading across the moon's face as it rises through the night sky? You see it in Creature of the Black Lagoon type stories - or Scooby Doo? Yeah. It looked EXACTLY like that. I couldn't really get a picture because I didn't want to stop on the side of the road in a bayou. Talk about dangerous. :(

2) You remember that old lady slug monster from Monsters, Inc.? Yes. I had the human version of her as the night shift at the Super 8 in Vicksburg, MS. She didn't take kindly to me being a respectable young lady, manners and all. I think maybe it's because I'm a Yankee. She even looked like she had one of those painted-on birthmarks, you know, like the French people used to do in the 1700s? Sadly she had no name tag, but I'll remember her as Dolores.



Day 9: Mississippi to Georgia

In the morning, I was kinda tired, and lazily packing while talking to Lago online. I snapped this shot of my car to show you the colors of MS - I found strangely, that it was backwards of how I thought it would be. I thought Louisiana would be the prettiest state of the "Deep South" states, getting uglier the farther east I went - until GA, which I know is pretty. I was wrong, LA was ugly - and Mississippi and Alabama were pretty :D
I must have been one of the last people to leave. In retrospect, I should have left earlier, but I felt weird last night and couldn't sleep well. (kind of like tonight-I feel really jumpy and can't sleep :( I think I miss people from back home)


Hey Ari, remember my rap? This restaurant has the Fish & Fries, too, lawl


So a lot of Mississippi had this type of ivy-growth on the plants that lined Interstate 20. Later, if I have time, I would like to look up the type of plant it is: it seems like a weed/parasitic plant.


Got turned around by mislabeling on the GPS - but it turned me around well. Took a picture of the Jackson I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't accidentally made a wrong exit :)


I stopped in Chunky, MS to get gas. Best town name ever. Well, next to Hideaway, Texas, that is.

This next one is a horrible picture, but I didn't reshoot it: only for the story. This was the most gorgeous Rest stop I'd ever seen - and the man inside of it spoke exactly like Farmer Fran (or whatever his name was) from The Waterboy. I told the guy to have a nice day, and he grumbled something completely unintelligible back to me. I looked strangely at him for a moment and laughed and sort of agreed, and quickly escaped to my car. Hilarity had ensued.


Alabama's hills are so pretty, and look like mountains in the distance :)




I traveled through the National Talladega Forest... cool? Woulda liked to walk in there...


This next one was awful hard to get; sadly Atlanta has had the worst drivers yet in all of the states I've driven through. -_-; oh well. Neat ridge, though.


And so then I got to Bethany's place. It's in a warehouse. It's pretty sweet, there are 11 rooms here. No AC though, I am trying to get tired - it's just not happening (I think I'm scared to fall asleep in a warehouse. I'm such a pansy!!!)


***To the "mommas" out there: It's entirely safe, we're in a gated circuit. The doors are shut and locked. I am safe until tomorrow...when I will venture back out to drive to Athens...***


I might go and sleep in my car, just because it smells like me and I'm pretty durned used to it anyway. I mean, there is full shower action which I will be using tomorrow morning, hopefully not bothering them :o And then in the morning (well, it will be in like 5 hours) I will call Uncle Ed/Aunt Karen and Jonathan - see if either one of them have any time to have lunch or dinner or something. Hugs, pictures - that sort of thing. Uncle Ed is my Dad's brother. (family from both sides!) Hopefully calling on them that day won't be too much of an imposition and/or nuisance. It's been difficult enough to roughly plot out where I'm going since Dad and I aren't going together - it's like, a bunch of things are kinda just thrown in and I've done a right terrible job of getting in touch with the people I was supposed to. -_-;

If you are one of them and reading this, I apologize profusely.

Lesson learned:

Not all Southerners like to give Southern Hospitality.

By the by... videos:



and of course



These are kind of unnecessary, but at the time, they seemed like a good idea.

Until next time...