Today we got up around 6 AM and had breakfast. We’re staying at La Quinta, since they are cheap and decent. We were a little less than happy with the room in Little Rock (it was showing its age), but they did have a nice breakfast–you could make your own waffles, which I thought was neat. Anyhow, we packed everything into the car and were on the road by 7 AM.

The ride (on I-30 toward Texarkana) was really pretty. I’d like to take some time in the future to explore it more. There are a lot of state parks, and several archaeological sites, which I’m sure my brother Mike would be interested in. (On the way back to Chicago, we’ll be staying in the Ozark region with our friend Debbie, so maybe that will be our chance to explore.) Anyhow, from what I’ve seen so far, I would recommend checking out the western region of Arkansas. It’s quite nice looking, at least from what we saw.

We got into Texas around 10 AM, though Texarkana, which is a small city that strattles Texas and Arkansas. It’s got all the usual city stuff (bunches of big box stores) and had some nice houses.

We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center, which was really excellent. A beautiful new building with tons of maps, fliers, things-to-do, etc. Really top-notch and the best Visitor Center we’ve seen so far. We walked out with a bunch of things-to-do ideas. (It was especially nice, because they well organized everything by region. We are going to Hill Country, so grabbed fliers for just that area.)

Shortly after, my breakfast was wearing out, and I was getting grumpy and tired due to hunger, so we stopped at a little BBQ place at around 11:30. It was really nice. We had some beef brisket and pork shoulder that was very tasty. Leaving, I knew we were in Texas: Mine was the only car parked in a line of Ford and Chevy pickups. The only thing missing were the gunracks.

Driving though Dallas, was, as always, a pain. A good deal of traffic and too much road construction. I’m not a big fan of Dallas, mainly because it has that big city vibe, and is hotter than Chicago in the summer. Anyhow, we got though, and then headed south though the infamous Waco (boring, kinda dumpy, at least from the highway) and then on to Austin.

By this time it was around 3:30 and the traffic had picked up. It was pretty slow getting into Austin, and parts were confusing (I-35 splits in two and recombines–kinda like Local and Express lanes, but not marked that way). In the end, we finally found the hotel and checked in at around 4 PM.

The Austin stretch took longer than the day before, since there was road construction pretty much from east of Dallas all the way down to Waco. So, even though the distance was a bit shorter (around 500 miles) it was just as tiring.

We were pleased to find that our hotel room is a good deal nicer than the one in Little Rock (bigger, cleaner, newer). Plus, as you can probably guess, the free wireless works in this hotel.

(Which reminds me: I was a bit disappointed earlier today. I wanted to do a Very Special Post titled “I-35 Mile 232.2 Rest Stop”. You see, the rest stops in Texas are WiFi HotSpots. I was able to connect, but I couldn’t get through to my site for some reason. Too bad.)