Texas Road Trip, Day 1: Alabama to Texas

Summer shutdown is here which means it’s vacation time for Karl and I. This year we decided to do something new, a road trip to Texas. Karl lived in San Antonio when he was young so I’ve heard countless stories about it, especially regarding the infamous Riverwalk. But instead of just visiting San Antonio we’re doing a tour around Texas. Our trip will start with Houston, then we’ll move on to San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, plus a brief stop in Waco to visit the Dr. Pepper museum.

Day 1

The first day of our trip was a really long driving day. Driving from Anniston, AL to Houston, TX takes 11 hours if you don’t stop. We broke the drive up by stopping in Tuscaloosa, AL for breakfast, and then stopping in Baton Rouge, LA to tour a historic site and eat lunch. Neither of us had ever been to Baton Rouge before so we had no expectations. We were really impressed with what we saw, and I think the city merits its own visit one weekend. The city has a lot of character. There are lots of old buildings, public murals and art, a waterfront area along the river, and some really nice public spaces.

I always do a ton of internet research before traveling. Tripadvisor and Yelp are two of the sites I use most often. Tripadvisor has a great ‘Top Things To Do’ ratings list you can browse per location that I used to find out about touring The Old State Capital. It was absolutely amazing and well worth stopping for. The gorgeous castle is free to tour. However, I highly recommend spending $3 to see the ‘Ghost of the Castle’ show. This special movie experience was designed by one of the groups that do work for Disney. The show tells the history of the castle with awesome special effects. If we’d had more time I may have paid to see it again. It was that cool.

• Breakfast at Rama Jama’s in Tuscaloosa, AL
• Stopped in Baton Rouge, LA and toured the Old State Capital
• Drove around downtown and had lunch at Mellow Mushroom
• Arrived in Houston and checked into our hotel around 11 pm

Breakfast at Rama Jama’s in Tuscaloosa, AL

We timed leaving the house perfectly so that we’d end up in Tuscaloosa for breakfast, and arrive in Baton Rouge around the time we like to eat lunch. Rama Jama’s is right beside the University of Alabama’s stadium, and it is the ultimate place for fans to gather and eat. As you can see in the photos below the walls are absolutely covered in fan memorabilia, and there are photos and banners hanging all over the ceiling. I don’t think my taste buds were working right because everything tasted bland to me, but Karl enjoyed the food which also happened to be super inexpensive. Our only complaint was the condiments which were old and poor quality. As Karl wrote in his Yelp review ‘good food deserves good condiments.’

Baton Rouge, Lousiana

We stopped in Baton Rouge to break up our trip. It was the first time either of us had visited it. There was quite a bit of public art and some cool public spaces, including a nice riverfront area. 

Lousiana’s Old State Capital

We were especially impressed with the Old State Capital which is free to tour and absolutely gorgeous.  There’s a $3 movie experience called Ghosts of the Castle that I highly recommend. You go into a room where a holographic-like ghost tells the story of the castle with the help of some cool special effects. I’d say Baton Rouge is worth visiting just to visit the Old State Capital.

Mellow Mushroom

Karl was super excited when he noticed this location serves the Old School Jerk Chicken sandwich. To top things off it was made perfectly. We were both really happy.

Houston, Texas 

Driving into Texas, specifically the Houston area was really interesting. There were miles and miles of oil refineries. During the day they made me think of some sort of steampunk city. As the daylight disappeared and the towers lit up it looked like we were driving into the grid from Tron. There were both ugly but also interesting. The Houston skyline is lit up with predominately blue lights. It was interesting but not what I’m used to. I think we arrived at our hotel around 11 pm and crashed soon afterward. All in all it was a good travel day and we managed to pack quite a few fun things into it.