800 miles is a long way to drive when pulling a trailer. It’s a long way to drive anytime, but when you’re pulling a trailer, if you’re relatively sane, you’ll keep it a little slower, around 65, maybe 70 if it’s completely calm and the roads are good (maybe even 75). If the wind picks up, especially if it’s a cross-wind hitting your trailer from the side, you might end up doing 55 or evening pulling over if it’s too bad.
Last night the wind was gusting near 30 mph as I made my way along the gulf coast, with intermittent rain and multiple construction zones. People here are insane drivers, treating other vehicles as though they’re obstacles to weave through. I’d like to point out that I’m not an orange cone, and were I an orange cone during a driver’s-ed test, many people here would have failed the exam last evening. One person passed me and cut over just inches from my front bumper. I slammed on the brakes, which is also not cool with a trailer. Then I honked, which I never do but it felt like the most appropriate, legal response. The driver threw up her arms as though somehow it were my fault for being there, maintaining a steady speed.
It strikes me that it is probably not a coincidence that all along I-10 near the Gulf of Mexico there are billboards advertising lawyers, with dollar signs and text like, “Car cut you off or an 18-wheeler crash into you? Call Jim Adler!” 400 miles into my trip it was already 10 p.m. and traffic suddenly slowed to a standstill. A car lay upside down in the ditch, an 18-wheeler on its side, dozens of police and fire trucks on the scene. They even had a forklift, as though they were prepared for exactly this kind of thing. Maybe the people driving the reckless vehicles are the personal-injury lawyers, out speeding around, drumming up business.
Coming into Lake Charles, LA, I saw what looked like the bright lights and smoke of a big-city skyline ahead. But approaching it, the buildings became rounded, the smoke thicker. I realized I was in the middle of a huge oil refinery. The Lake Charles Refinery sits on more than 2,000 acres and is the fifth-largest refinery in America. Operated by CITGO, it refines 425,000 barrels of crude per day.
Lake Charles is also home to the most insane bridge I’ve ever driven across, the Calcasieu River Bridge, apparently the steepest bridge in Louisiana, which climbs at such an angle that it’s hard to see over the hood of your vehicle. At its highest point, it’s 135 feet above the river, rising above a nearby 9 story hotel.
After 500 miles I finally pulled into a Love’s gas station where you can spend the night in any one of dozens of spots for semi-trucks, RV’s, and cars. They even have showers, but I was beat. I woke up to down-pouring rain several times during the night, but otherwise slept like a log. Night driving is stressful.
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