Day 8: Vernon, TX to Baton Rouge, LA

Rural Texas towns are set in a vast landscape of sand and sky. Big trucks are outfitted with massive Grille Guards and Bull Bars with light mounts. Bumper stickers and window decals shout slogans like “Don’t mess with Texas” and images of cowboys, horses and the confederate flag. I even saw battle flag fuzzy dice!

The people of Texas are very polite. The gentlemen insist on holding the door for women. Chivalry certainly isn’t dead here. Drivers are also quite considerate and stay to the right only using the left lane for passing, no speeding here.

Texans don’t seem to enjoy coffee as much as we do in the Bay Area where Starbucks and Peet’s are often across the street from each other. After being served a brown colored liquid that someone thought could be called coffee we googled “coffee near me” and the closest acceptable result was a Starbucks a mere 2 hours away.

When we got to the Dallas area it felt very much like San Jose with strip malls and fast-food on every corner. Familiar stores were everywhere, Walmart, Pet mart, Kohl’s, Ross, and (finally) Starbucks. One big difference was the weather. While charging, it was bright and sunny when we walked into a nearby mall, but when we tried to leave it was raining so hard people were lined up at the sliding glass doors just watching an impromptu river stream by. Good thing we had an umbrella.

The skies were mostly cloudy with patches of bright blue, puffy white and thunderous black. There was an hour where a rainbow grew from the west and eventually blazed across the sky and touched down in the east. Without mountains the rainbow seemed to stretch hundreds miles across the curve of the earth.

Our driving goal for the day was 500 miles to Alexandria, LA. We realized if we drove 112 miles more to Baton Rouge we would be just 81 miles from New Orleans, LA (NOLA). This felt like we were getting a extra half day in NOLA, so we pushed on. 

This was the longest driving day so far. We left Vernon at 9:15am and arrived in Baton Rouge at 11:45pm traveling 636 miles in 14.5 hours door-to-door. 

We are both surprised how quickly and comfortably the time passes while driving. Before the trip Gina was worried about motion sickness, but using the magic wrist bands has enabled her to read, write, text and blog while enjoying music, podcasts and company of her witty, intelligent, handsome husband.

Trip Stats:

Today: 636 mi  203.3 kWh  319 Wh/mi

TOTAL:  2456 mi  782.0 kWh  318 Wh/mi