California or bust!

We left New Orleans around 4pm on a Friday. Travel tip: just because you're on vacation doesn't mean the rest of the world is! Interstate 10 runs across the entire southern portion of the country, and when we returned to it to head West in rush hour traffic we realized the rest of humanity were still going about their business though we were taking a break from reality. Once moving though we had got the chance to see some pretty awesome sights, and had learned a key lesson. First outside of New Orleans we drove over Lake Ponchartrain which is so large the causeway that goes over spans about 27 miles long. While looking out the window you find it difficult to grasp that A.this is a lake, and B.you've been on a bridge doing 65mph for almost 20 minutes already.

Did I mention Louisianna has not only some of the nicest humans I've ever come in contact with but amazing

food? Well dinner time rolled around and yet again an amazing place popped up... It was time to try good ole crawfish, or as the locals referred to them as craw daddys.

And just in case my NY Yankees shirt wasn't a dead give away that I was in fact a "yankee" they pinned me as soon as I opened my mouth to speak. This place was awesome and a middle aged woman from the neighboring table picked a crawfish from my plate and showed me the proper way to eat one when she saw me staring at my food clueless as to how to eat it.

Next stop was Texas...

By far the largest most monotonous state, not to mention boring, and unwelcoming! Granted that is just my opinion, and hopefully one day I'll return there to have a better experience. We arrived in San Antonio around 1am and decided we'd see the Alamo in the morning. San Antonio was hands down the cleanest city I've ever seen, not a stitch of gum, a wrapper, cigarette butt was to be seen, but boring!The Alamo took about 10 minutes to walk to from the hotel in the sweltering heat, then some awesome Mexican food on the river walk, and that was the jist of that town. We decided to get back on the road and head to Del Rio which is a small town that borders Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, connected by a small bridge over the Rio Grande. We were told this was a fairly safe place to cross over the border in spite of the drug cartel and human trafficing that plagues the border currently. 

Del Rio... I dubbed hell on earth! It's hot and it's a miserable place! The Days Inn we stayed in was one of the grossest hotels of many on this trip, you walked outside and started to sweat from breathing, had the worst meal, and not to mention the locals were not a fan of "yankess". Our mission of going to Mexico in spite of all the warnings was accomplished though. The border taxi we took cost 15 dollars and we walked back to the U.S over the bridge which was pretty cool though. By 1pm we were back on the road and decided we'd drive straight through to Tuscon, Arizona where we'd sleep then figure out where we wanted to go next....

-Lauren