A passenger's life

It’s a mild day. Clouds are flimsy. The sky is blue with a positive spirited.

I’ve just had a glorious swim and sun in the impeccable Country Inn by Carlson here at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. We’ve packed the car with our mountain of road trip luggage. We have the packing thing down to a fine art now. Dovetailed teamwork.

We’re happy and relaxed.

Until we get out on the highway.

Oh madness. Trucks rule the road, jockeying in and out in devil-may-care manoeuvres to get ahead of each other. There’s a manic mood out here. American commerce on the roads is overwhelming.

And there are overpasses and overpasses. It’s hard driving. Thank dog it is not a long drive to New Orleans.

Bruce keeps a steady speed. He’s been driving the olive green Rogue for 10,000 miles now. He loves it to bits. And he loves the driving, so long as it is not for more than about 3-4 hours a day. That is how he has plotted the route; short hops and lots of discovery time.

I am happy being a passenger. I drove the car a bit in north Georgia, just to get a feel for the it in case there is ever need of backup. But I have never been comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road, let alone in the aggressive furies of these trucks and ratbags on the great Interstate routes. So I sit and look at the world, try not to get nervous, take my notes, try to grab fleeting impossible photographs through windows, hand out snacks when required… And I marvel at things.

Today, passing the tall pine-scrub and the swampy Biloxi River, I become fascinated by the growth of the roadside billboards. I swear they have been getting taller and taller. There’s a big M for McDonalds out there on top of a long, long pole and it looms as high as a phone tower. Yep, we can see it. It would take the record were it not for the Shell sign which also has a huge pole. Bigger? Yes. It is silly. It is out of proportion. That huge, high pole and that tiny shell logo perched on top. What were they thinking?

Such are the profundities contemplated by the epic road trip passenger.

There are many mysteries and oddities which will forever remain unexplained out there on the roadsides.

We’re humming along at 70 mph on Interstate 10 along the Gulf coast.

Tall, scruffy trees and lowlands scrub line the road. We pass a massive outlet mall out there in the middle of nowhere. Shopping as a destination, I suppose. Signs point to Long Beach and Christian.

Good grief, that is an outsized petrol station, bright yellow and decorated with red hearts, splayed in massive arms of petrol pump drive throughs. Maybe 20 or 30 of them. Why is it here? Like the outlet mall, it seems to be stranded extravagantly in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a Godot flood of thirsty traffic.

More billboards on steroids. Even bigger and taller than the last lot. They are advertising resorts, brewery tours, casinos, bayou buggies, fast foods…

Some of them, nearer to the towns, are fatties, not just pillars but major productions with platforms enabling workers to be up there changing the message.

Signs point to Diamondhead and Picayune.

It’s swampy out there now, ginger brown grasses, curves of water.

Shacks and homes are out there and pontoons and boats sit on the water.

Alligator country, says Bruce.

More of those lovely skinny roadside trees, then more low scrub, then more swamp. More leggy pines, more low pine scrub. We’re passing through broad swampy lowlands abundant with a lush mixture of trees. It is really quite gorgeous.

Wow. There’s a NASA sign out here amid the swamps. Stennis Space Centre. HQ of Naval Oceanography Control. Astounding. It’s the largest rocket testing facility in the country, actually, says Bruce.

We hum over the swamp on a long high bridge and, hey presto, here’s the Louisiana border. Exits lead to Hattiesburg and Baton Rouge.

More flatlands, oh so grassy flat. And a burst of commerce. Good grief. That must be the longest stretch of car yards I’ve ever seen. Bayou Country announces a sign.

Oh, that’s what these beautiful swamps are. Of course.

Here comes Lake Ponchartrain and a magnificent bridge.

This is the small bridge. The massive 24-mile concrete bridge is over there in the distance crossing the widest part of the lake. And there’s another bridge just for trains.

America’s fantastic infrastructure, says Bruce; at least it used to be.

We’re going south on 510 now past Chalmette and Little Woods. There’s a NASA Chalmette sign and a sign to Chalmette Battlefield. War of 1812, says Bruce; the Poms got skinned.

The traffic is a bit of a war, too. Oh, my, they are fearless speeders.

We drive under great rusted overpasses and find the rushing cement road now adorned with a median strip planting of palmettos and crepe myrtles. We are coming in through the outer burbs of New Orleans. Big, sedate houses.

The speed limit is signposted at 60mph. Can’t the drivers read? Cars are zapping past and weaving from lane to lane at absurd speed.

The road crosses canals, many green with algae. We pass through what look like comfortable suburbs. Manic drivers pass us.

Are these America’s worst drivers?

Over an industrial bridge, canals, the sea… There’s mimosa blooming…and here’s the city on the skyline. In we go.

Hello New Orleans.