Day 5
Ft Worth, TX to Baton Rouge, LA
450 miles / approx. 9 hours

We didn’t make it to Mobile, but we made it farther than we thought we would when we left this morning. When we woke up, it was snowing in Ft Worth, with about an inch on the ground. After watching the local news and fretting for a while, we got on the road around 9:30am. It was snowy and slushy through Dallas, and we ate up an hour going about 20 miles, but the roads started to clear up once we got out of the big cities. By 30 miles from Dallas, it was mostly just wet pavement with a little bit of slush, and by 50 or so miles from Dallas it was just wet pavement and sleet/rain.

We were delighted to hit Louisiana — there’s just too damn much Texas. The scenery got a bit more swampy (between Lafayette and Baton Rouge there’s a 20-mile long bridge that crosses: a swamp, a river, a lake, a bay, a channel, and a bayou) and they certainly do their own thing down here — instead of counties, they have parishes; instead of city limits, they have corp. limits. And at one point, this line was uttered: “Huh! Smells like … wax lips.”

We’re in the home stretch, guys! We’re going to give it one big push tomorrow and get as close to Orlando as we can, so we can start looking for an apartment first thing Friday.

Tomorrow’s goal: Orlando, FL (695 miles / 11 hours)