We've driven about 1200 miles mostly at 80 mph. from Sun City to Houston, Texas. We weren't even speeding; 80 mph is the speed limit on western Interstate 10 AKA 'the southern route'. We are on our way to Austin for a Texas Christmas, and this is a familiar trip. (No, we didn't 'overshoot'; we came to Houston to visit a couple of friends.)
On this journey you see the pretty desert and the ugly desert. Part of the drive between Phoenix and Globe is an Arizona Scenic Highway Drive; that's the pretty desert part. It lasts for about 30 minutes. The other zillion desert driving hours have a landscape of sparse cactus, mainly prickly pear and jumping cholla growing out of dead brown dirt, littered with small rocks. It's heaven for rattlesnakes, scorpions and termites. This landscape is punctuated by dried up, paint peeling, boarded up, dilapidated small towns. The most interesting topographical event is driving up onto the Edwards Plateau.
We learned even if you are driving 80 mph, 522 miles is just too many car hours for us. That's the distance from Las Cruces, New Mexico (home of Andele!, my second favorite Mexican restaurant) to Fredericksburg, Texas (arguably the cutest tourist town in Texas). The next day the additional four hours into Houston flashed by, but the population density just kept building making actual driving more problematic. It's been roughly 30 years since we lived in Houston. This town was mega exciting, constantly changing, and roaring forward when we were Houstonians. We lived here in the era of, "Will the last person leaving Michigan for Houston please turn out the lights?" Really. It was a popular bumper sticker. Now, Houston, is in the big time. Coming here is like coming to New York, L.A., or Chicago - the three cities in front of it in the population count. And, of course, due to backward Texas politics, there is no mass transit to speak of. There are free/toll/ways.
There are no freeways like the Houston freeways. Everyone driving insanely whipping around one another in narrowed lanes at least 10 mph over the speed limit. Houston freeways are ALWAYS in a constant state of rebuilding. Being a roadway worker in Houston is to have permanent job security. The prevailing rebuilding strategy is not to take a lane away, but rather to make all the lanes more narrow so as to give the highway workers their space. The only times lanes are closed for construction are in the dead of night which effectively means you can have a traffic jam at 3am, no problem. I've always maintained if you can drive in Houston, you can drive anywhere. Believe me, California is no harder, nor is I-95 on the East Coast. One good thing about the Houston freeways, at least they are intelligibly marked, unlike California freeway markings which epitomize whimsy.
We've been shedding bottles of wine on this trip....now we are down to 13. Oh, dear, I guess we should drink one to bring back our luck. Of course, I believe that any road day is a lucky day even if one is driving across a zillion miles of ugly desert.
