Day 2.5: San Antonio, TX to New Orleans, LA

We woke up at 7am and made ourselves miserable by heading straight to the fitness center for 30 minutes on the treadmill. We ate breakfast, the highlight of which were the somewhat spicy potatoes for Abe and the Lucky Charms for Arielle.

We hit the road to cover the rest of Texas, armed with leftovers from the night before for lunch. This very long drive, which included some sleet at 34 degrees towards the beginning, finally took us into Louisiana, where we continued to enjoy low gas prices and even stopped at two very sketchy gas stations to fill up and then to microwave the nachos for Arielle.

We mastered the art of not running out of gas (famous last words) with a careful plan of three different gas station options, fifteen miles apart each, and sweated much less than the two days before. After bathroom and gas stops, we encountered some traffic getting into the greater New Orleans area. We arrived at the home of Rabbi Deborah Silver in Metairie, LA in time to enjoy Shabbat dinner, and Abe made a quick connection to several of the other guests, whose son he knew from years earlier. Dinner was delicious, complete with challah, hummus, babaganoosh, eggplant, barbecue chicken, rice, and broccoli and cauliflower, with babka, pareve ice cream and fruit for dessert. We chatted with Rabbi Silver for a bit after dinner and played Jewish geography, realizing that we knew many people in common. It was nice to be hosted and get a chance to fall asleep relatively early after a long drive and a wonderful home-cooked meal.

Approximate numbers of miles covered: 544

Day 2.4: El Paso, TX to San Antonio, TX

We woke up at 7am to get an early start, beginning with thirty minutes on the treadmill in the hotel’s fitness center. We went to the hotel breakfast and proactively made lunch to take with us so that we wouldn’t have to stop on our drive - a lackluster peanut butter and banana sandwich for Abe and a blueberry bagel with cream cheese for Arielle. As we drove, we once again made the mistake of letting our gas tank run to empty, panicking for about 33 miles to reach the next station. Miraculously, we made it and our odometer even hit 400 miles exactly, a sight we thought we would never see (and did not capture in the below photo, taken a few tense minutes later).

While we hope to see it again, we would like it to come with less anxiety. Puzzlingly, after filling up the tank, our light came on much sooner on the next drive, and we only made it to about 300 miles even though we were driving on cruise control the same speed the whole time.

We made it to San Antonio around 6:15pm and made a stop at CVS before heading to Green’s Vegetarian Cuisine, which also happens to be certified kosher. We had dinner with Miguel, a member of the local Conservative synagogue, Agudas Achim, who is an ethicist, and his wife Roble. He and Arielle had plenty to talk about, and the spouses enjoyed themselves too. Arielle ordered a combination of appetizers: the fried pickles, which were delicious, fried cauliflower with barbecue sauce (which only Abe ate), and nachos, which were awesome. Abe ordered the eggplant parmesan, which was quite tasty.

After a lovely conversation, we said goodbye and then went over to Baskin Robbins, where Arielle got three different flavors in a single scoop - Winter White Chocolate, Love Potion #31, and Mint Chocolate Chip. Abe got a single scoop of just one flavor, the World Class Chocolate.

We drove about fifteen minutes to our hotel, and marveled at the number of turnarounds and loops that exist on the roads of this city. We pulled in to the Drury Inn and Suites San Antonio - North Oak, adjacent to the Drury Plaza Abe had stayed at on his previous visit to the city back in November 2016. We had missed the free dinner offered earlier but still got to visit the hot tub before it closed, which was very hot and nice. We went to sleep with plans for yet another early start the next morning.

Approximate number of miles covered: 562