A Quick Review of the Gulf Coast

After 2000 miles on I-10:

Louisiana-  Louisiana has a lot of character and will suck you in immediately.  Swamps!  Zydeco! The Mississippi River!  Geaux Tigers!  THE FOOD!  I will overlook miles of crummy highway for a boudin ball, although until I get to Louisiana I forget that being born and raised and still living in Southeast Texas*, this is the food I eat all the time and a lot of the culture as well.  I hear zydeco music and it just reminds me of being at something fun outside, in Texas.  I can literally be eating a bowl of gumbo that I made for my daughter's first birthday and sit there thinking, wouldn't it be fun to take a trip to New Orleans?  Then all of a sudden I've driven seven hours to pay $13 for a bowl of red beans and rice.  At this very moment I just finished eating a bowl of red beans and rice in my own kitchen, and I'm thinking, maybe we'll go to Baton Rouge sometime.  Well played, Louisiana.  Well played.

Texas- If you live in another state and watch the news, you might get the idea that people in Texas are crazy.  Some are, some people everywhere are crazy.  Texas is too big to describe.  NASA.  Cheese enchiladas.  Cowboys.  I wouldn't live here if it wasn't awesome.

Florida-  I love Florida.  It's tropical and full of beaches, it has Disney World, and in the spring the whole state smells like orange groves.  I don't even have to be on a beach; just standing in a hot Florida parking lot and feeling the sun is enough.

Mississippi-  If an interstate runs through your state, at the very minimum you should be able to provide a place to get gas, something to eat, and a decent motel at a reasonable price.  In Mississippi, I find myself throwing chicken mcnuggets into Happy Meal boxes and hurrying people to the car so we can move on as quickly as possible.  It's never for a vague reason but because the person cooking just didn't wash her hands after going to the bathroom or because what looked like a playground was actually just generic ipads stuck to walls.  It's every trip.  Mississippi is the worst.  I try to fine one redeeming thing about it, but I think even their tourism slogan might be something like, "Racism!"  I would cut it out of the U.S. and send it floating out into the gulf, but that would make it difficult to go east and there are a lot of places to the east where I want to go.  I recommend that Tennessee absorbs Mississippi and we just start calling it South Tennessee.  Maybe they can fix it.

Alabama-  It is possible to stop in Alabama and get a clean, reasonably priced hotel with very friendly people working in the lobby.  Mississippi, please take note.