After 3 days on the road from Texas I’d like to share a little more road trivia.  The nice thing about having a spouse who loves trivia as much as me is that when I wonder about something we see on the road, she is already looking it up when I ask.  Some interesting facts we learned on this trip.

• There are two Colorado rivers in the United States. The one in Texas is the 18th longest and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
• The Zebra mussel is an invasive species plaguing America’s fresh waters – they are originally from the Caspian Sea in Russia. They came over in the bilge water in ships. Another Russian conspiracy.
• Calaveras means skulls in Spanish, so the very celebrated story book by Mark Twain is actually (in English) “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Skulls County”.  Not as nice or quaint, actually quite scary.
• RM and FM roads in Texas are Ranch to Market and Farm to Market. RM roads are much wider than FM roads. FM roads are also very dark and in poor shape. You can thank the traffic app, Waze for that bit of trivia.
• Its just as far from Knoxville, Tennessee to Texarkana, Texas as it is from Texarkana to San Antonio.  Texas is stupid big.
• Arkansas and Kansas come from entirely different root languages, so they shouldn’t be pronounced the same.
• Texas doesn’t believe in lighted streets outside of big cities.
• There are a lot of deer in Texas judging by the number of dead deer beside the roads.
• Louisiana needs more commercials about littering the highways. Reminded me of the 70s.
• The two longest bridges in the United States are in Louisiana.
• Mississippi was surprisingly clean.
• If you are in Biloxi, Mississippi stop and get some hot tamales at Doris’ Hot Tamales. The best I’ve ever had.
• Doris’ Hot Tamales is part of a Mississippi Delta hot tamale trail.  Who knew?
• The largest underground lake in the United States is just off I75 near Sweetwater, Tennessee.
• The meaning of the Tennessee was lost to history – it has an Indian meaning, they just don’t know what.

Last but not least – when playing the license plate game the hardest ones to find (didn’t see one coming or going) are Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, and South Dakota.