Day 15- Houston to Lafayette

In Which Daisy Finally Makes It Out Of Texas And Realizes She Is A Long Way From Home

Louisiana is really nowhere near California. This should not be news, especially to me, since I've been doing the driving, but I think this is the first time since I left that I've experienced any kind of culture shock. After all, the southwest isn't that different from home, west Texas is a lot like southern CA, inasmuch as it is dry and largely populated by Mexicans and Austin came off as basically Berkeley with cowboy hats. But Louisiana is different. For one thing, it is really, really green. I probably saw more chlorophyll in one day of driving than I do all summer at home. Also, I have a funny accent. A lady asked me what I was having at dinner, and I told her 'catfish', and then she looked and had to ask me again, because she couldn't find codfish on the menu. (The catfish was very good, even though it wasn't codfish and I ate at the bar because the restaurant was so crowded. Score another one for Roadfood.) Another person at dinner asked me what I was doing in 'south LA", which confused me for a minute. I mean, I didn't even go through LA; I cut across at Bakersfield.
There are some constants though: the motels here are still run by Pakistanis.
New Orleans is next, which is a part of the trip I have been looking forward to the most (I am suspicious of the grammar in this sentence.) I am writing this in a coffeeshop on the outskirts of the city, waiting for my mom's flight to get in so I can pick her up and we can figure out what hotel we made our reservations in.