The Road

Today was a travel day. A BIG travel day. Nearly 700 miles from Birmingham to Dallas, taking us through the widths of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Before leaving Birmingham we had to make two quick stops. The first was to Quizno’s for lunch where we got a call from Brad confirming that Vanderbilt had secured the #1 overall seed in the impending NCAA Baseball Tournament. (Yes!) The second was to Dick’s Sporting Goods to get a plastic case for Cristy’s newly minted Vandy 2007 team-signed baseball. This Dick’s was huge – like the size of a supermarket but with a second story. The fishing and hunting section was massive…

We finally cleared Birmingham around noon. My idea for a way to pass the time was to identify the silliest city name between B’ham and Dallas. Second place: Toomsuba, Alabama. First place: Chunky, Mississippi. Which was, of course, accompanied by the Chunky River.

Mississippi wasn’t terribly interesting – like any other Southern interstate but with a few more magnolia trees. We stopped in Vicksburg for gas and were able to take a quick 20 minute tour of the Vicksburg Civil War battleground. It was interesting – Vicksburg was the last meaningful Confederate defense on the Mississippi River and once the Union took it, they severed the Eastern Confederates from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas with all the supply chains that went with them. Pretty neat – with a little extra poignancy on Memorial Day.

After passing the mighty Mississippi River, we cruised through Louisiana. We went right through Shreveport which had (1) some glittering casinos, (2) a giant football stadium in the Independence Bowl, which I can’t imagine gets used for much more than the annual bowl game, (3) a rain storm to made the Floridian in the car blush, and (4) an awful catfish place where we stopped for dinner. Wasn’t much impressed with Louisiana.

We drove through East Texas after dark and arrive at Matt and Victoria’s house around 11:00 to crash. It’s amazing – we drove for 650 miles and never left the Central Time Zone. We’ll spend tomorrow in Dallas – probably check out the JFK Museum and maybe see a movie before having dinner with the Malony’s. Then Wednesday it’s on the road again to finish crossing the Lonestar Republic.