After spending 2 weekends away from Houston in Austin and Chicago, I was hoping to spend the last weekend in town relaxing. Thursday evening, I got a call from a friend asking me if I would like to join him on a road-trip from Florida to Houston, and I immediately jumped at the idea. 24 hrs later, courtesy one of our co-travelers, who works for an airline company, we were flying standby to Orlando. I was disappointed at not being able to rake up miles for this trip, but then again, its not too often that you book tickets 24 hrs in advance and pay only $100 for them. The plan for the trip was to pick up my friends car in Gainseville, FL and drive back 854 miles to Houston within a weekend.
Having never visited Florida, I was excited to land in Orlando. However, it was night time, and the only thing I noticed on my 2 hr ride back to Gainseville was the annoying number of toll booths in Orlando. We spent the better part of the next morning negotiating a car deal with my friend's friend. As we had no other option than buying the car and driving back, we had the bottom hand in the negotiations and were unable to reduce the price down to our satisfaction. However, this dissatisfaction was quickly downed by a feast cooked by our host and his fellow friends which included pepper chicken, egg masala, fried rice, aloo mattar and even a brownie for desert.
Its never a good idea to set out on a long drive after a sumptuous desi meal. After gulping some coffee, we handed the reins to our novice driver who also happened to be the owner of the car. The western part of Florida is lush green and the cattle filled pastures made the drive scenic. Although the terrain was devoid of any hills there were gentle slopes in the roads. More importantly thanks to big trees, unlike Texas, one's visibility did not extend forever. I had thought of Florida as a small state, but it took us almost 5 hours to reach from the centre of the state to its western corner. Key West to Pensacola, Florida actually runs 830 miles - same as driving Texas east to west on I-10!
After Florida, we finally reached the much awaited state of Alabama. The probability of 3 brown men driving through Alabama and Mississippi is pretty rare and I joked with my friends that I am glad we have tinted glasses, lest the KKK spot us. But jokes apart, I was little disappointed that we whizzed through AL and MS in dark and hence didn't get much chance to see both states. Courtesy, Corporate America, the interstate in AL seemed no different than most other states and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mobile, AL was relatively big and the downtown even had the interstate going through a tunnel. Mississippi had some extremely long bridges over the bay and I wish to go back some day and drive the scenic byway US 90 which goes along the ocean for a long time.
The night was spent in the outskirts of New Orleans (Slidell, LA) where we got a well earned hard night's sleep. After gorging the complimentary breakfast, we braved the cold gusts and made our way to New Orleans. Just before entering the city of New Orleans, we got a chance to ride the Pontchartrain Causeway, which is definitely an engineering marvel. The cold weather caught us unawares and my friends were forced to go shopping for sweat-shirts in the French Quarters. After some good gumbo, cafe au lait, beignets and an entertaining street show, we were ready to head out of New Orleans. Louisiana is know as America's wet land, and this is very evident when you drive on interstate 10 which has multiple 10-15 mile long bridges on these swamps.
Once past Lafayette, LA, the landscape turned to the typical flat TX terrain. At this point, we were tired and just hoping to reach Houston in reasonable time for dinner. After reaching Houston, a few dosas later, I returned to my friend's garage only to find that my car had a flat tire. Luckily, this was only a slow leak and after getting a quick fix at a gas station, I was home by 10 pm on Sunday. 900 miles later, I was definitely exhausted and a quick shower later, I slept like a baby!
Having never visited Florida, I was excited to land in Orlando. However, it was night time, and the only thing I noticed on my 2 hr ride back to Gainseville was the annoying number of toll booths in Orlando. We spent the better part of the next morning negotiating a car deal with my friend's friend. As we had no other option than buying the car and driving back, we had the bottom hand in the negotiations and were unable to reduce the price down to our satisfaction. However, this dissatisfaction was quickly downed by a feast cooked by our host and his fellow friends which included pepper chicken, egg masala, fried rice, aloo mattar and even a brownie for desert.
Its never a good idea to set out on a long drive after a sumptuous desi meal. After gulping some coffee, we handed the reins to our novice driver who also happened to be the owner of the car. The western part of Florida is lush green and the cattle filled pastures made the drive scenic. Although the terrain was devoid of any hills there were gentle slopes in the roads. More importantly thanks to big trees, unlike Texas, one's visibility did not extend forever. I had thought of Florida as a small state, but it took us almost 5 hours to reach from the centre of the state to its western corner. Key West to Pensacola, Florida actually runs 830 miles - same as driving Texas east to west on I-10!
After Florida, we finally reached the much awaited state of Alabama. The probability of 3 brown men driving through Alabama and Mississippi is pretty rare and I joked with my friends that I am glad we have tinted glasses, lest the KKK spot us. But jokes apart, I was little disappointed that we whizzed through AL and MS in dark and hence didn't get much chance to see both states. Courtesy, Corporate America, the interstate in AL seemed no different than most other states and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mobile, AL was relatively big and the downtown even had the interstate going through a tunnel. Mississippi had some extremely long bridges over the bay and I wish to go back some day and drive the scenic byway US 90 which goes along the ocean for a long time.
The night was spent in the outskirts of New Orleans (Slidell, LA) where we got a well earned hard night's sleep. After gorging the complimentary breakfast, we braved the cold gusts and made our way to New Orleans. Just before entering the city of New Orleans, we got a chance to ride the Pontchartrain Causeway, which is definitely an engineering marvel. The cold weather caught us unawares and my friends were forced to go shopping for sweat-shirts in the French Quarters. After some good gumbo, cafe au lait, beignets and an entertaining street show, we were ready to head out of New Orleans. Louisiana is know as America's wet land, and this is very evident when you drive on interstate 10 which has multiple 10-15 mile long bridges on these swamps.
Once past Lafayette, LA, the landscape turned to the typical flat TX terrain. At this point, we were tired and just hoping to reach Houston in reasonable time for dinner. After reaching Houston, a few dosas later, I returned to my friend's garage only to find that my car had a flat tire. Luckily, this was only a slow leak and after getting a quick fix at a gas station, I was home by 10 pm on Sunday. 900 miles later, I was definitely exhausted and a quick shower later, I slept like a baby!
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