May 12, 2014 on the Sunset Limited

So here I am on the Sunset Limited bound for Los Angeles.  The Superliner sleeper cars are exactly the same as on the Southwest Chief and the California Zaphyr, which Jonathan and I took way back when!  I am in the upper level which is great for viewing.  The domed lounge is wonderful for viewing, but not so great for photography...too many reflections...so my bedroom is better for photos.  We wended our way out of NOLA over the Huey B. Long (and Narrow") bridge.  Devastation from Katrina is still evident...and some rebuilding.  Early lunch.  My table companions were a couple from California and a delightul young woman from Houston who is a costume designer.  She had been in NO for the tribute show to Erikah Badu, which is bound for NYC.  The couple could have been great fun, but dour, dour, dour.  we had a lot in common....they have done every Blount cruise there is or ever was....and, of course, they have been to Warren!  But just not friendly and never oncd interacted with the Houston woman....because she was African American?  Who knows?  They never  acknowledged me in the corridors and, strangely enough, they occupied the handicapped  bedroom and yet they were not handicapped.  We were soon into sugar plantation country.  Bayou country.  Cajun country.  Zydeco country.  New Iberia, Houma, Thibodaux,  Morgan City, Lafayette, Lake Charles.  The landscaping is flat and west!  At Morgan City, the Intracoastal Waterway meets the Atchafalaya River and several bayous in one big muddy sweep.  This port is a major base for offshore oil and gas exploration.  Apparently, if the Mississippi were ever to make a major change of course, this is where it would find its way to the Gulf.  Anything is possible!  After endless sugar cane fields, we found ourself in rice country....Crowley, home of Louisiana Rice Company.  Soon, we were in Beaumont, Texas, fourth largest US port, home of Gulf oil.  Then on to Houston at dusk.  Misty and rainy.  I could see that Houston had really grown sice I was last here at the very beginning of the skyscraper explosion in the mid seventies!  My lone dinner companion was a gentleman from everywhere with a very complex life of many wives and girlfriends.  I was dizzy.  But he was going to Illinois to see his grown daughter whom he had seen since she was born.  Well, I wished him well and ate as fast as I could!  Read some and fell asleep at 10.  Woke in San Antonio around midnight where we had a 40 minute layover in order to add several cars from the Texas Eagle out of Chicago.  It was pouring and some intrepid people had actually gone off to explore River Walk and even the Alamo!  I went back to sleep until 7:30!