Day 3 should be “Texas, in three acts.”
First, Santa Fe through west Texas. The Brazos River and country that my ancestors traveled through to get west in covered wagons and Model Ts, including Muleshoe, Texas, where my grandfather’s family lived through much of the 1930s - my dad still has his father’s yearbook from Muleshoe High School.
Somewhere around the 100th meridian we were suddenly in the South. The landscape and demographics changed. Shotgun shacks and Confederate flags.
Chapter 3 started outside of Houston, where we hurtled through an intense lightning storm to the Dahlbergs’ house, who met us with a swimming pool and chilled wine, a strange but wonderful kind of whiplash after everything we’d just driven through.
Day 4 was a bit more leisurely, from Houston to New Orleans. Had a fantastic BBQ lunch in Port Arthur, and traditional Creole for dinner (étouffée, jambalaya, shrimp creole, and blackened rockfish). A few drinks in the French Quarter, then off to bed.
