It takes eleven and a half hours to drive to the beautiful state of Louisiana and sometimes it takes longer due to high traffic or accidents. With Hurricane Irma that troubled Florida for a week and a half, it caused for a eleven and a half hour trip to turn into a 20-hour trip because of traffic.
This is coming from Orlando Florida, so all trips to Louisiana are not going to be the exact same. If you are bitten with that wanderlust bug and do not have the money for a plane ticket, then these are some of the faces that you will make while driving to the cultural state of Louisiana.
1. Excitement
You have that excitement that is equivalent to Christmas day or your birthday. It feels like a new part of your life is about to begin. You may not have driven longer than four hours to get to a place, so this is a whole new adventure to you. This new adventure marks you as more of an adult than you already were or becoming.
2. Boredom
You are driving down I-75 north to get to I-10 west as fast as you can. What stops you? Hurricane traffic because everyone wants to go north when a "natural disaster" is coming your way. The car ride becomes boring when your driving partner is focusing on getting to I-10.
3. Exhaustion
You've made it to I-10 heading west and your driving partner has decided that it is your turn to take the wheel. If you do this trip like I did, we left around 7:30pm and did not make it to I-10 until 2:30am because of Hurricane Irma traffic. My driving partner collapsed in the passenger seat and fell asleep. It is going to be a long drive because Florida is longer than it is wide.
4. Annoyance
You have been driving all night and you finally make it out of Florida at 7:30 am. You are desperate to get to Louisiana, so you start getting annoyed on why you chose to come to this state ELEVEN AND A HALF hours away. You just have to keep telling yourself that it will be worth it because Cajun Food and their way of life is SO worth the calories and time. Also remember, when you get out of Florida that is the half way point of your trip, so congratulations, you survived escaping Florida.
5.Intrigue
When you get out of Florida, you see different things that are not normal to a Floridian. When you drive through Mobile, Alabama, you have to drive underwater in a tunnel as part of your journey. Floridians prefer to stay on land and not use a car to drive underwater since Hurricane Irma already tried that combination.
You also see the start of the Bayou country as you enter Mississippi. Yes, a bayou is a swamp, and Florida has swamps, but the word bayou sounds more mysterious and not just the mosquito infested muddy water of a Floridian swamp.
The Atchafalaya basin in Louisiana is a sight to see because you are driving on top of the bayou on a bridge for eighteen and a quarter miles. The basin itself is not a singular sight because there are different parts of the basin.
6. Happiness
The last part of the journey is the destination. This can provide a mix of emotions because you partly want to keep driving to see more scenery, but you have arrived to where you wanted to go. You are completely relieved that you can put your feet on the ground and smell fresh air and not stale air from the car air conditioning.
Your body starts to shake in excitement and exhaustion because two people being cooped up in a car for over twenty hours when it should have taken eleven and a half can be interesting. It is a relief to finally complete your first big journey to a new place or just revisiting an old place but driving it for the very first time.
Not everyone's journey is going to be the same because one could go at a time when there will be no high traffic or the time of year will be different. This can hold true going anywhere especially when it is the first time a person is driving over four hours, or even an hour, to get to a place. One can make a big journey, if you have enough nerve and curiosity to go.
