1-10 American Road Trip: Louisiana and Texas

We pulled over at the Texas state line, where Ashley and I got to enjoy a long boardwalk that had been built out and over the swamp. We knew that the longest stretch of drive would be getting across Texas. And we still planned to drive through Houston and then into San Antonio to spend the night.

I was feeling slightly melancholy because of my hot and cold, on and off again relationship with the alleged 'love of my life' who had been very distant with me since I embarked on my trip. I wasn't sure if it was because a few days prior to leaving my old high school friend Tyler had invited me to join him and his girlfriend in Thailand after I submitted my PhD. I told this to my lover, who I will leave unnamed for her anonymity and because it adds to her mystic. She was pretty angry about my potentially going to Thailand, to say the least. I had responded by asking her if we were 'officially an item' to which she, as expected, panicked and said no--she needs time and space and all these things that have been going on for months and years. Part of me felt like with every mile I added between me and my lover, who I'll call "P", was a manifestation of my attempt to move on. It is lame but I have always felt like "P" and I were spiritually connected, but when we have such large gulfs of physical distance between us I feel like the connection wavers and becomes faint. And yet, after all this time, we have historically continued to find each other again and again. Is it healthy? Time will tell. Should I go to Thailand in April? Hell, yes!

Anyway...so these were things playing out in my mind as I drove along I-10 and as the landscape again began to change from swampy to flat, dessert and rock. Miles and miles of sweeping, hilly, rocky dry lands that carried on in all directions as far as the eye could see--all the way to Mexico.

After Houston we approached a little town just off of I-10 called Flatonia, where Ashley had spent a large portion of her formative years with her mother, but she had not been back in over 20 years, so we pulled off the interstate to take a look at it. It was dark and the streets were on a little grid of flat, wooden and quaint houses but nothing came back to Ashley. All she could remember for sure was that she had lived near a gas station, and we left reluctantly and a bit disappointed.

Then Ashley googled steak houses near San Antonio and we drove nearly an hour out of the way to be able to go to one called Gruene River Grill, which had phenomenal steak...(yes, I know I should be vegan again!)

The interior was classic Texas: BIG. Despite it being very late and dark, so that we could not see the river that the restaurant was built alongside of, we were grateful for our massive salads and steaks. That night we checked into a Holiday Inn in San Antonio (no more playing with random, shady hotels from lists) and it was actually so much cheaper than the crap room we had had in New Orleans, and cleaner, and safer, and we even had a balcony, a full breakfast and an indoor pool to swim in if we had been inclined!