15

Yes, bzookaj, you are right. Things are slowly improving--discovery green is quite nice and now they are building a big park in midtown. Given how many young professionals now choose to live close to where they work, I can only hope that midtown and downtown will one day be habitable.

16

Mhm, I have been there once before but it was by plane and it was only a day, so I have an idea of what the place I am going to physically looks like.

trekker502 it looks like you are recommending I skip Alabama all together? This isn't an issue, but is there a particular reason?

17

I drove along Interstate-10, from Florida to New Orleans, then straight north to Memphis and Interstate-40. That was October 2009, so it was autumn. I could not see the coastline from the Interstate and I did not make detours until after I reached New Orleans. I don't remember crossing Mobile Bay. I spent the night in Biloxi, Mississippi, and do remember that area somewhat. I arrived in New Orleans on a Sunday morning and everything was deserted -- I did drive around the French Quarter before heading north through Jackson, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, where I spent the night. There is a lot of farmland that had been harvested and winterized. I was towing a travel trailer and was not able to enter New Orleans through the tunnel on Interstate-10, so that may be why I did not see much of downtown New Orleans. I did drive around the perimeter of New Orleans, sort of along the dike. I liked Knoxville and Memphis and Little Rock, Arkansas, where the computer technician at their public library repaired my laptop computer for free -- adjusted it to pick up better Wi-Fi reception. I turned east through Atlanta, Georgia, from Knoxville, to drive south to Florida for a few days, so I missed seeing Nashville.

There are many Texans who frequently travel between Dallas/Fort Worth or the piney woods area and Santa Fe, New Mexico, or to the Colorado Rockies. It is an easy route to drive -- almost put it into autopilot. Houston is only about 1.5 hours' flight from Albuquerque, and also the jumping off point for flights to South America.

18

I have driven both routes and can't say one is superior to the other. I prefer to take I-40, because I like passing through Tennessee. That route will taking you through a boring part of Arkansas (there are good parts, just not near the freeway), then into DFW. After that, it's a straight, ugly stretch to Houston. I usually stop in Centerville (midway between DFW and Houston) to get jerky at http://www.woodys-smokehouse.com/.

The upside of the I-10 route is the option to stop in New Orleans (plus cajun food near the LA border) and the avoidance of long stretches of ugly I-45.

Edited by: tilos

19

So the extended stay Hotel I wanted to stay in doesn't have check in on sundays... So I'm going to spend sunday in New Orleans. Any suggestions on a cheap but safe place to stay, say under 100 a night. Also what is driving like in that city? Am I better off leaving my car somewhere near some pub tran and taking that in to town? What should I know about how their pub tran works?
Thank you