I spent my long Thanksgiving weekend in the Houston-Galveston area, which means I spent a lot of time riding around in various SUVs. Let’s have a look at some of the transportation highlights (the last two photos are of the click-to-enlarge variety).

First, one of my many peeves — streetlights ablaze in the middle of a sunny day:

Oil-soaked Houston, of course, has energy to burn:

(That would be my back-seat attempt to photograph the price of gas at $1.55 a gallon. You’ll have to take my word for it.)

The vast areas that were hit by Hurricane Ike have had other things to worry about besides the cost of fuel. All the beached boats have been removed from Interstate 45, but …

… lots of signage  took a beating.

To the untrained visitor, however, even undamaged signs can be confusing:

No, the N does not stand for north — the street is actually “N and a half Avenue.” (”M and a half” was nearby.) And you thought our 25 1/2 Street was odd.

The hurricane also was not to blame for this bit of yellow road paint gone awry:

The blob turned out to be something of a Rorscharch test for my touring companions. (One decided it looked like a crawfish; another saw a Klansman.)

Also seen in my travels was this reminder that no HOV lane goes on forever:

When they say “this lane ends,” they’re not kidding.

Traffic was lighter down at the beach, where vehicles of all types are welcome:

This guy was zipping around thanks to his sail. Wind power may have a future in land transportation, but this vehicle wouldn’t have worked on the Crosstown, or anywhere with trees.

Finally, what better way to relax on a Texas evening than to hang out in a gazebo made of broken mirrors and …

… license plates?

That’s quite a reuse — maybe I don’t give Texans enough environmental credit.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.