Pictures from Texas, Part 1

Here they are finally: photos from the trip to Texas that I made earlier this month. Took awhile to get around to posting these 'cuz there were so many (over 380) across a six-day period, and I've been extremely busy since getting back. Obviously this isn't all of the pics, but they'll give you a gist of what went down there (except for during Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9 itself because cameras weren't allowed in there). And because there are so many (and also 'cuz it's a bit late) I'm going to break these down into two parts. The second installment of pics, I'm gonna try to have up later on Saturday night. Anyhoo, here's the first batch of photos from my odyssey to Texas!

I flew out of Raleigh-Durham on the morning of December 5th, en route to Orlando and then the plane would go on to Houston. On the south-bound flight I got to see Charleston, South Carolina from the air...

And after leaving Orlando, it wasn't long before I got my first-ever look at the Gulf of Mexico...

Here's something I didn't expect to see: New Orleans. The pilot didn't announce it, but I immediately recognized the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. Even from the air, I couldn't help but think that New Orleans looked... a bit messy. Is that still damage from Katrina? I'd never seen New Orleans before, so I don't know. But compared to other cities that I've seen from the air, New Orleans seemed dingy...

Here's an un-resized (read as: very very big) image of New Orleans, if you want to see some more detail...

And here's a pic I took of what I call "Voodoo Country"...

Around the time that New Orleans came into view, I saw something else that I'd never seen before in my life: offshore oil rigs. And there were a lot more than I ever thought were out there. Not only that but they were also fairly close to shore and spaced relatively close by to each other: I saw one cluster of them that I'm pretty sure I could swim from one to the other, they were in such a small area. Here's one of the better pics that I was able to get...

As we were approaching Houston, I spotted this fighter jet off the starboard side of the plane. It was flying at a speed and trajectory that put it almost synchronous with our airliner, so I was able to snap this cool pic...

Here's the Johnson Space Center as we were approaching the airport...

And here's downtown Houston, along with the Astrodome...

As we were landing in Houston, the dude sitting behind me told me "Welcome to Texas!" His name was Terry, and I thought that was worth mentioning here too 'cuz that was the first time ever that someone welcomed me to Texas...

I got to Houston, waited at the airport for an hour and a half and then took off for Austin (I flew Southwest Airlines by the way, an outfit that really impressed me with a lot of things, including their innovative way of how they board the planes). When I got to Austin and retrieved my luggage, I went to rent a vehicle. The nice girl at the desk recognized me from my appearance on The Soup on E! several weeks ago. The car rental folks said they didn't have too much at the moment. "Give me the most Texas-ish thing you got," I told them. "The Jeep," one girl said: "You want the big white Jeep." Here's what I wound up tearing across the Texas landscape in for my trip: a 2008 Jeep...

I took off and got to Deborah's house about a half-hour later. It wasn't long afterward that Deborah's dad got home from work, and we went to a real honest-to-goodness Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner (a place that had the spiciest salsa that I've ever had in a restaurant). Then we went back home and I turned in for the night.

And that's a great stopping-point for this edition of "Pictures from Texas". Will have the next bunch up real soon :-)