Last week, somewhere around Mobile, Ala., I hit the wall.

At that point on the SEC tour, Shawn Arnell and I had driven from Little Rock to Lexington, Ky., to Columbia, S. C., to Gainesville, Fla., and to Auburn, Ala. To finish Day 4 we were on a 370-mile drive to New Orleans.

From there we had just a short drive to LSU, but the 48 hours of highways, columns, diaries and radio shows on the Arkansas Radio Network had me feeling every minute of my more than 58 years.

So much so that by the time we had interviewed Les Miles, the defending national champion head coach, and finished the radio show the only energy left was to go eat.

Shawn, more than two decades younger, was also feeling the effects of the almost nonstop motion and noise. He, too, took refuge in his room.

New Orleans still has some of the greatest food in the world, and thank goodness one of the best restaurants was two blocks from our hotel.

Deanie’s originated in the city’s Bucktown district and was so successful a place was opened in the French Quarter and became a favorite for locals.

We ate there three days in a row.

Anyway, after stops in Starkville, Miss., and Oxford, Miss., we arrived home late Tuesday night. After more than 2, 900 miles driven on 12 different Interstates and assorted other highways and byways, I arrived home with a new appreciation of the schools we visited.

Oh, and one thing was obvious at every campus and almost every place we stopped to eat or gas up. Football fever is on the rise as the start of the season nears.

Ole Miss and Mississippi State have completely manicured their campuses and planted lots of trees and flowers.

Those two and Auburn had the friendliest campuses of all the schools we visited.

We would be walking somewhere on campus and strangers (employees ) would go, “How are you today ?” There was also a story going around in Alabama about the promotion Coca-Cola was having that was supposed to be life-size cutouts of Nick Saban, Tommy Tuberville and Houston Nutt drinking from a bottle.

But when the prototypes were shown to Saban he demanded everyone be the same height because the cutouts of him and Tuberville would be in some of the same stores and Tommy is 4 inches taller.

Most of the sports information directors went out of their way to be helpful, and almost every coach seemed shocked we had driven to their campus.

In fact, Miles was so intrigued that before the interview began he told us with great enthusiasm to eat only in local places to really get a feel for the area. He left the impression he’d like to be on the road trip with us.

We did eat in some local places, but because of all the driving we did a whole lot of Wendy’s drive-through.

At Florida, Charley Strong, the Batesville native who is long overdue for a shot at a head coaching job, stopped doing his group interview when he saw us and asked what we were doing there.

One of the most interesting side trips was in Lexington, where we got a personal tour of the Wildcat Lodge, the living quarters for Kentucky players and an equal number of students not on athletic scholarship.

At every stop we were asked the same question at least once, usually more, and that was what did we think of Bobby Petrino.

Of course, those asking had some general opinions that consisted of he’s a heck of a coach, got overtoasted by the national media for escaping the Atlanta Falcons and he’s a workaholic.

Which pretty much summed up our opinions because he’s been very private since arriving at Arkansas.

When we started the trip on Aug. 10, I had tried to play a trick on Shawn by turning his seat warmer on before picking him up at Citadel headquarters. He realized it almost immediately.

When we stopped for gas in Batesville, Miss., on Tuesday night I tried it again and this time, after the long trip, he didn’t figure it out.

And when he took the wheel for the final leg from Memphis to Little Rock, neither did I.