Craig's big road trip

Day 20 - Amarillo to Tyler
Home
The starting point
Day 1 - Seattle to Yakima
Day 2 - Yakima to Bend
Day 3 - Bend to Mt. Shasta
Day 4 - Mt. Shasta to Oakdale
Day 5 - Oakdale to Tehachapi
Yosemite National Park
Day 6 - Tehachapi to Las Vegas
Day 7-10 in Las Vegas
Day 11 - Las Vegas to Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon N.P.
Day 12 - Grand Canyon to Kayenta
Day 13 - Monument Valley
Day 14 - Kayenta to Telluride
Day 15 - Telluride
Day 16 - Telluride to Glenwood Springs
Day 17 - Glenwood Springs to Idaho Springs
Day 18 - Idaho Springs to Golden
Day 19 - Golden to Amarillo
Day 20 - Amarillo to Tyler
Day 21 - Tyler to Lake Charles
Day 22 - Lake Charles to Waveland
Day 24 - Waveland to Pensacola
Day 25 - Pensacola to Gainesville
Day 26 - Gainesville to Titusville
Day 27 - Kennedy Space Center
Day 28 - Titusville to Clearwater
The finishing point

Sunday April 20, 2003.
 
Highway 287 took me very linearly south east to Fort Worth, all the way under a cloudless horizon-to-horizon blue sky.  The roadside scenery itself was rather flat and uninteresting, with the exception of the occasional object such as those pictured below.
 
Fort Worth is a small city that only took a few minutes to pass through until I turned east on Interstate 30 towards Dallas.   That 30 mile drive from Fort Worth to Dallas revealed an unexpectedly green and leafy environment, not unlike the east coast of Australia.  I gained a favourable impression of the Dallas / Fort Worth area as a very livable place.
 
I reached Dallas in time to photograph the city skyline before the sun set, and preferring to stay the night in the countryside, I continued east past the city on highway 30 then turned south on 635 and finally east again on Interstate 20.
 
I find the drive along almost every interstate freeway in the U.S. to be relatively stressful.  Every other vehicle on the road travels significantly faster than the speed limit, including trucks and even school buses.  I yearned to get off the interstate freeway so I could drive on back roads at a more leisurely pace.  Relief came when I saw an exit to a town called "Canton".  I thought that must be a good omen, feeling a little homesick for Hong Kong as I do, and was rewarded with the perfect drive along Texas highway 64 east from Canton to Tyler.  It was dark by now, and except for the road in my headlights and the silhouette of trees on the roadside, I could see no scenery, but instead was enthralled by the rural smells of farmlands filling the car through the open sunroof.  Fresh grass and hay smells mixed with just enough manure smells brought back a flood of memories from my youth.   That smell of the countryside on a cool night rekindled a thousand pleasure moments from my days of car rallying in Australia twenty five years ago.  I arrived in Tyler, "rose capital of the world", in a much better mood after the leisurely drive along highway 64.  I'll try to avoid the interstate highways as much as possible for the remainder of this trip.
 
I refilled the car with petrol and asked the gas station attendant for directions to the motel area.  His accent declared that I was well and truly in Texas now.  He said, slowly in a real Texas drawl,  "Y'all just make a left outa here and go straight down this road for a mile.  You'll be seein' the hotels soon enough.  Y'all take care now."

All images on this page copyright Craig Norris.  All rights reserved.