Okay… you’re going to get off the T’pike @ I-4. Head west.
You get off I-4 at State Road 192 (Irlo Bronson H’way).
You’re probably going to be on 192 for 8 miles or so; that’s an educated guess, so don’t measure it out or anything. You’re turning off 192 @ “Queen Sand” (It might also be signposted “Lindfields Blvd.”). It will be the first left after “Captain Kidds Boulevard” (I’m not making this up, I swear).
Your mother can probably direct you from there.
Turnpike is Exit 328 on I-75. As mentioned, it is 25 miles south of Ocala. I drive by it every Friday. What day do you think you’ll be hitting that road? on the 28th? The 29th?
I think I will try to have a huge Welcome to Florida sign placed there on the side of the road for you two. Dont want to put it out too early cause they’ll take it.
(They’ll = THE MAN…)
Poonther - thanks for the heads-up - especially re: the speed trap. Last thing I need’s another ticket on a road trip.
Jeff - We don’t mind the bridges! We actually want to go across the really long one over the Ponchartrain, just to take pictures in the middle where you can’t see anything but water, and bring them home to freak out his mom (who had a bad experience on that bridge as a young girl).
dutchboy - Thanks! Mom gave me directions to the door, but she thought I’d be coming from the other direction - apparently I’ll have to double back a little, going west on I-4 despite the fact that I just came from the west. She didn’t realize that.
Bear_Nenno - we’ll be hitting that part on Sunday the 28th in the late afternoon.
chikki Hey…how’s it going…damn fine weather in East Texas today wasn’t it? Longview to Alabama that’s a pretty long drive. Oh you’ll miss the BIG bridge at Sabine Pass. When I was striping I-10 several years ago one of the guys put the reflective marker at the very top on backwards. So that it reflected red instead of white. I had to get someone to drive me to the top after midnight w/ a hammer chisel and glue to remove and replace that damned marker. Even that late traffic is a bitch and the wind blows constantly and there I wauted for the truck to cross over and down turn around and back across the other side and down and around and back up to get me. You wouldn’t believe how much them damned bridges sway. esp. that damned Huey P. Long bridge with the train track that runs through it. Damn that Ponchartrain bridge…half an hour of cha-chunk…cha-chunk…cha-chunk…over and over.
Sorry, kinda got carried away there didn’t I? On the way back, I wouldn’t try to do too much. You don’t really have that much time. Three days in which half of it’ll be on the road. I’d get me a place in N’orleans and stay there as long as I could then come home. You can go to Shreveport/Bossier City anytime. There ain’t jacksh… in Lafayette IMHO.
The Tobasco plant is your thing…it’s allright I guess. If you’d rather see the sights there’s some impressive bird and wildlife sanctuaries on the coast.
I think I’d rather stay in N’orleans and enjoy the city for a couple of days. It’s a far cry from Longview. (BTW I don’t like cities…but a few days I could do) Make the most of the couple of days you’ve got in a heck of partyin place. The food is outstanding, the entertainment is the best, the people are passionate to say the least. If ya need a guide just holler. I lived there for a few years and still have folks there. Mom’s family is a bunch o’ coonasses. 
Wait a minute… when’s Mardi Gras?
Oh, hell yeah…lets go, I’ll meet ya at Pat O’s and the first ten rounds are on me.
I used to live on the Gulf Coast. I went to New Orleans all the time. Next time I go, I want it to be when I have enough time to really relax and see stuff. It’ll probably be next year; some of my friends from New York will be coming down, and we’ll all go in together on a hotel.
We actually have more time on the way back than on the way there (only have Saturday and Sunday to get there, but we’re getting kicked out of hte condo on a Saturday and don’t have to be back at work until Tuesday), so we’re looking at mostly just driving past the sights on the way down, and stopping somewhere on the way back.
And as far as Longview -> Mobile being a long drive… dude, I drove from upstate New York to northern Alabama in one day and only stopped because there wasn’t going to be another hotel for almost a hundred miles. This will be a SHORT trip for me - only ten hours a day or less, most likely, where I usually do between fourteen and eighteen hours on the road.