It was a long grueling drive to NOLA. The driving itself wasn’t difficult since we didn’t really have bad weather except for thick fog between Amarillo and Fort Worth Texas. The tough part was staying awake and alert after driving over 39 hours straight. We could have taken a hotel break but that would have meant less time to spend with Baby J! I’m not sure we are going to take the same aggressive schedule on the way back. It will depend on the weather and the wifey 🙂

I have to say taking the wifey’s BMW 330ci has been a great experience in traveling. It has the luxuries you need all in a car that can handle well and has a lot of power. There have been several cases where I had to jump on the acceleration to avoid slowing down traffic or being rear ended. The luggage space is not the biggest but plenty enough for two, even more if you use the rear seats.

I’ve only driven twice through Dallas on my way to New Orleans and both times I was put through a maze due to my GPS not being able to navigate through road construction in process. I guess this piece of the highway interchange has been going through a long renovation because it looked the same as did a few years ago. In any case I burnt at least 30 minutes trying to figure my way out of there.

We made a gas stop in Wichita Fall, Texas. We normally try to use Chevron as our primary fuel source but sometimes you’re not able to find one. I can’t even remember the last time I had seen gas prices below $2 bucks per gallon. It’s almost as if this area stayed in a stand still with the latest technology and events.

After stopping at Barstow, California and wolfing down a set of Burger King whoppers and fries we headed back down the road. We popped the top off and decided we give it a try since the iPhone weather app I was using indicated clear skies in the direction we were heading. We figured if it started to rain we would have enough time to pull over and use the rag top.

I think the toughest part of driving to New Orleans is the trek through Texas. It seems like Texas is endless and the landscape is all the same. After riding Highway 287 for a while me and the wifey swapped drivers. I saw this beat up motel (if you could call it that) a rocks throw from where we parked.

I’ve driven and ridden across a lot of highways in my life and this is one you don’t want to have car troubles in the middle of the night. I’m just saying…

Wifey rightfully pulled off into a rest stop located in Cuervo, New Mexico. The temperatures were around 19-21F degrees. That’s below freezing temperatures and the original plan was to sleep and rest there for awhile.

We stopped for gas at Albuquerque, NM. This was one of the coldest stops so far. The ride on I-40 late night was freezing cold, I mean literally below 32F. We experienced areas on I-40 where the temperature dipped down to 19F degrees. That’s freaking cold weather especially from a couple of California natives.

We found out later that the prices of gas gets cheaper as the distance between the oil refineries deceases.

Made a pitstop in the town Gallup, New Mexico. Check out the price for regular gas.

Top down on the Beemer and wifey is knocked out Zzzzzzing..