Our loose plans for the month of November were to go south, stopping in Ohio, Kentucky, and Louisiana on the way to Alamo, Texas. Richard did a great job of trip routing down here to (outside) New Orleans. But we were both kind of stumped on the best way to get from New Orleans to Alamo.
The big elephant in the route between New Orleans and Alamo is Houston. Nothing against the city of Houston, but to be perfectly honest, their interstate and freeway systems are kind of scary. Richard had never driven there before, but I have, and I vividly remember the traffic and confusing roads. I lived in Los Angeles for 13 years, and even I didn’t wanted to drive the interstates around Houston again, most specifically in an RV.
Every route we looked into seemed to take us either through, north, or south of Houston, and all way too close for comfort. We’d heard from other RVers that the best time to take on the city would be early, early Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we plan to visit the French Quarter this Sunday and leave on Monday. And there was no way we were going to brave Houston traffic on a Monday morning.
So we called our fellow (and far more experienced) full-time RV friends who traveled from Illinois to Alamo every year. We’re going to be staying in the same park this winter on their recommendation, so we thought that they would have a good route. And boy, were we right!
Richard spent a good part of an hour on the phone with our friend getting the scoop on the route. The route will take us through Louisiana and then straight down to the coast. From there we’ll hug the coast, going down Galveston Island and from there on to Port Lavaca, where it turns inland. It involved several bridges, but best of all, a free ferry! Did I mention the ferry is free?! I think I did, but let me get it out of my system. Free ferry!
He also gave us several park recommendations. Our plan is to take it in three to four legs. The first leg will take us almost out of Louisiana. The next to a county park we found across right on the beach south of Galveston Island. There we want to spend a couple of days getting ready for and enjoying Thanksgiving. We both also need to get some work done for a couple of clients as well. Juggling travel and work sometimes means that you’ve got to just hunker down somewhere for longer than you planned to get the work done.
From the county park we’re looking for someplace between there and Alamo. The last leg will be on to Alamo! It’s exciting to know that we’re almost there, but at the same time, I do enjoy the traveling. Chloe doesn’t like travel days very much, because our routine gets changed. She does like sitting on my lap while we travel though.
Tomorrow we visit the French Quarter. I’m so excited to share with Richard all the places I’ve been, and to get some good Creole or Cajun cooking (including a beignet from Café du Monde).