After being awakened at 5:00 a.m. with torrential rain accompanied with thunder and lightening, by the time we were ready to leave to the Houston area, the skies had started to clear. We pulled out about 9:00 and were surprised that the traffic was light driving through downtown New Orleans, headed for Causeway Drive. Soon, we arrived at the start of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a 23.85 mile bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain, the longest bridge in the U.S. While the drive was pretty cool, skimming at 60 mph about 6-8 feet above the water, the drive was also pretty monotonous. Soon, I lost sight of land in my rear view mirrors and could not see any land ahead of us. They say there is about 8 miles of the causeway where you cannot see either side of the lake. Well, I believe it! So about Mile 15, we saw on the horizon some bumps which turned out to be the tops of trees on the other side.


Once we crossed Lake Pontchartrain, we picked up I-12W and headed towards Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. We soon arrived at Baton Rouge and turned towards town to see the state capitol building. We're looking for a domed building with a statute on top, however, what we found was a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building instead. This is the new state capitol building. Near by was the old state capitol building looking very much like a castle!

Upon leaving Baton Rouge, we crossed the Horace Wilkinson Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi River. This is quite a bridge! Once we were across the bridge we soon were on the Atchafalya Causeway Bridge, which is the second longest bridge in the U.S. This bridge lies between Baton Rouge to Lafayette, LA and is some 20 miles long.

Soon, we were crossing the Sabine River into Texas! The bridge came upon us suddenly, so Sharon was barely able to snap a picture of the sign. We stopped at the Visitors Center to gather a map and information about the Houston area. It seems that now we were in Texas, we didn't have to worry about alligators, it was SNAKES! To quote Indiana Jones, "I hate snakes!"



As we were proceeding down the highway towards Houston, another truck pulled up beside us and told me that one of our trailer tires was smoking. I stopped and the back tire on the passenger side was down to the belt on the side of the tire. Walmart was the nearest tire shop to us and was open after 5:30 pm. I thought to myself, "With my luck, they don't have the tire!" Well, I'm certainly thankful that God didn't give me my "wish", they had two in stock. After an hour stop for changing the tire and grabbing "Whataburger" for dinner, we were back on the road. Actually, everything worked out perfect! We drove right through Houston past rush hour and it was a breeze. We pulled into our campground around 8:00 ~ Sharon missed about 30 minutes of "Dancing with the Stars" ~ fortunately, they had Direct TV cable at every site! I love roughing it!