Road Trip To Beaumont Texas, then to San Antonio, Texas

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Road Trip To Beaumont Texas, then to San Antonio, Texas

Our trip from Abita Springs, LA. to Texas started out with rain.

Before we left, we did our usual checks. The right brake light on Nest 2 didn't seem to want to work. Joe change the light bulb, but it still didn't work. After an hour of messing with it, we found that the connection had loosen up and they needed to be tighten up again.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi as it enter the Gulf in Baton Rouge, LA.

We took Interstate 10 all the way to our destination.

This bridge was 18.2 miles long and called the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge or Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway. It is located between Baton Rouge, LA. and Lafayette, LA.

The bridge crosses the Atchafalaya River and its accompanying swamp. It is the fourteenth longest bridge in the world. 18 wheelers must travel at 55 mph and stay in the right lane while crossing the bridge.

Some of the roads on I-10 in LA. were not real good. We were glad we had Nest 2. Nest 1 would have been a rougher ride.

This is the Lake Charles Bridge which is a cantilever bridge.

It has a 135 feet vertical clearance and the bridge has been rated structurally deficient by the Department of Transportation but was declared safe by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. There are plans to replace the bridge and improve the Westlake exit.

Note the decorating crossing guns on the rail. This bridge was built in 1952.

On the other side of the bridge, there are oil refineries.

Joe does not enjoy driving a coach in tight spots like this!

This is the first time Joe and I have been in Texas on our three 1/2 year adventure. We both have been in Houston before, but have not driven threw the state in our motor home. During our drive that day, we saw a car in the ditch while CPR was given to a man by rescue workers. A semi carrying a load of huge metal pipes jack knifed into a ditch, and another couple of semi's on the side of the road with flashing emergency vehicles. At the end of the day as we entered Texas, the rain stopped.

After a 6 hour drive and 395 miles we arrive at the Beaumont, Texas Wal-Mart Supercenter for the night. It was a very long drive, especially for Joe. We give God all the Praise and Glory for our safe travels!

When we came in the day before we had to enter into the Wal-Mart parking lot under a clearance bar. The clearance bar said the clearance was 12' 8" and we are 12' 5". As we headed out the next day, Joe drove to a different exit. I said we should just go out the same way we came in. Joe said he had check the height of the exit he was heading for but the numbers were worn off. He figured the height would be the same as the one we came in. As we drove up to it, it looked so low. I got out to see if we were going to clear. It didn't look good to me, so I told Joe we should just unhook the car and back up to go to the other one. It just was not worth damaging anything. So once again we held up oncoming traffic so we could back up and go to a different exit. We have not been do too good lately. I don't know what it is with Wal-Marts and Nest 2!

This is a picture of the clearance bar as we exited Wal-Mart that day. It looked really close too, but it has it's height on it, so we knew we could make it without any damage.

We had a few people tell us to stay away from Houston, but our destination is on the other side, so we head straight threw the fourth largest city in the United States.

Joe and I had been in Houston once to take a cruise out of Galveston, TX., so we remember the crazy driving from the view from a taxi cab.

Interstate 10 takes you right by downtown Houston.

When I think of Houston, I think of "Highways in the Sky".

We were traveling on a Saturday. I was wishing we were going threw Houston on a Sunday.

But all in all, the traffic could have been much worse.

We did have one crazy driver that went flying past us, and then flying past a semi. The semi-truck pull into the lane that the crazy driver was in, just about hitting him. That got the "OMG", statement out of my mouth, as the crazy driver swerved into the next right lane and speed up passed the semi. The semi was right in front of us.