Erickson Road Trip 2013 Week 3

 When last I checked in, we were still stranded in Brackettville, TX, observing the fascinating world of dung beetles to while away our time waiting for Max to be fixed.  We were able to swim in the big pool and that evening we got Max back.  We were so happy to say goodbye to Brackettville the next morning!  On the 22^nd of June we headed toward San Antonio where I was able to cross an item off my bucket list, the Alamo!  For some reason I have always wanted to visit there.  It was small but interesting I thought.  My family was over-heated and I got the impression they weren't too impressed.  I was thrilled to be there though.

We walked the beautiful River Walk downtown where I was just sure Bree would wander off the little path straight into the San Antonio River.  As we were trying to leave a policeman parked his car directly behind us and then took off on foot looking at the rooftops of buildings around us.  After we waited a few minutes in the parking lot in our car in the sweltering heat for his return, I walked a block or two where I found quite a bit of police activity and a guy in handcuffs and told a cop he needed to move his car.  I probably shouldn't have approached the situation but we were hot and desperate to move on.   The next day we found a ward that started at 8:30 so we attended church.  While there we met a missionary from my sister’s home ward.  Small world!  After church we hooked up the trailer and headed toward Houston.  After consulting my National Geographic Guide to National Parks, Guide to State Parks, Guide to Scenic Highway and Byways, and 1000 places in the US and Canada to See Before you Die, along with the internet, Paul and I felt like Houston was a city we could drive through without stopping and not miss much.  Well, Max had other ideas.  He decided to poop out yet again.  This time we were stranded in Brookshire, TX, about 40 miles west of Houston.  We called another tow truck and this time the ride wasn't so fun.  Our driver had only been in America from Palestine for 5 years.  He was nice enough but there were language barriers and he was more concerned with showing us pictures on his phone while driving in stop and go traffic with a ball on his truck that was too small for our hitch so it was only hanging together by chains.  I was secretly hoping Max would accidentally fall off the truck so insurance could replace it and not us pay for more repairs.  No such luck.  Our driver miraculously delivered us safely to an RV park and then took Max to a dealership up the road for us.  The next day we spent in the sweltering heat in the trailer, even with our AC constantly running, waiting for a diagnosis on the car.  It turned out to be a high pressure oil leak that would take a few days to fix.  GRRRRRR!  On the 25th we rented a car and decided to see some of the Houston area. 

With this newest glitch, we decided we would eliminate southern Florida and the Everglades so we needed to find some alligators.  Brazos Bend State Park south of Houston was our destination.  We were able to walk around a small lake, where we found our alligators!  But before that, and I will lose my mom of the year nomination here, Bree had us all in hysterics.  In the shade on the path were thousands of large, blue dragonflies.  They didn’t bite or sting or attack but they were big and Bree was freaking out over them buzzing by her, letting out little yelps and screams every time one came near.  At one point I turned around and she was running as fast as her little legs could carry her, crying at the top of her lungs as she made her way through a swarm.  Maybe you had to be there, as hot and tired and fed-up as we all were about our situation, but it was hilarious!  “I don’t like attigators!  I don’t like bugs!  I want to go home!”  My poor baby.  As soon as she got through the dragonflies and actually saw the gators she was happy.  We found a mom and dad and some babies which Mason was lucky enough to see.  It was pretty impressive being so close to those awesome animals in the wild.  There were also tons of beautiful birds.  Unfortunately we never did come across an armadillo as advertised.  I was desperate to see one and had heard they were all over the Houston area, with many as road kill, but we were never able to find one.  Very disappointing.  After the park we headed north of Houston to visit with Paul’s Uncle Larry and Aunt Barbara.  We had a great visit with them and their place on the lake.  We swam and then they treated us to dinner and ice cream with homemade cookies!  It was nice to see some friendly faces and stretch out a bit.

 

 The 26^th we went to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.  That was so cool.  We took a tour and were able to see the communications room where the first words from the moon were received and also “Houston, we have a problem.”  The rockets are launched in Florida but the communication all takes place in Houston where they are in charge of manned missions.  It was a pretty neat place, we were able to see some actual space ships, the training facility for the Space Station, and we also got to touch a real moon rock, one of only eight in the world you can touch.  That was a great stop and I think the three oldest kids plan on being astronauts now.  But Mason has to decide if he wants to do that or be a National Park Ranger like he said he would be the first few weeks of the trip.
 

After the space center we headed about 20 miles south to Galveston to see the Gulf of Mexico and take the ferry we had planned on taking east before our car broke down and made us change plans.  That was fun.  We saw pelicans diving very ungracefully for fish, and dolphins playing alongside the ferry.  We also caught our first glimpses of the standard for homes on the Gulf.  They are all built up on stilts!  Not very aesthetically pleasing, but I guess if you are trying to survive the floods of a hurricane being practical is what counts.  We found a beach in Galveston and waded a few minutes in the Gulf.  Just long enough for all the kids to get completely soaked after they were warned not to. 
The 27th Paul turned in the rental car at 11 and then made his way walking miles in the sweltering heat to the Ford dealership where he learned the car would be ready by late afternoon.  He turned around and walked to a movie theater to kill a few hours waiting.  The kids and I were sweltering in the trailer having a “Gods Must Be Crazy” marathon.  Good times.  Paul returned around 7 that evening with Max, thankfully.  The 28th we took off as quickly as possible and headed east to get out of Texas once and for all.  We ended up spending 12 nights in Texas.  I thought San Antonio and Houston were both nice cities and if the weather wasn’t so beastly, might be nice places to live.

We made it all the way to a camp site just south of New Orleans that evening, after having driven through Cajun swam country in western Louisiana.  The swamps and trees and bayous and Spanish moss and alligators out in the water were just so cool to experience.  What an amazing mix of terrains and vegetation we have driven through on our trip.  This country is so different in so many places but through it all we have found that the people are all the same.  Very nice and helpful and interested in our travels.  Americans are great people!  We also drove by a couple plantation houses from the 1800’s along the Mississippi River.  So cool.

Paul and I honeymooned in New Orleans so we had seen most of the famous parts of the city but we planned to take a pedestrian ferry across the Mississippi to the city to walk around a bit with the kids the next day.  We woke up to a thunderstorm with torrential downpours so we left the trailer and drove it instead.  And I am thankful it worked out that way.  Bree would have been miserable walking miles yet again, but we saw a few families like ours, with the dads carrying backpacks full of water bottles and fruit snacks while the moms kept turning around to make sure all their squirrelly kids were still following behind, and none of them looked happy.  A few of them were being bothered by street people.  We saw Bourbon Street on a Saturday morning and it stunk as I rolled the window down to take a picture.  We drove on beautiful Canal Street and saw the Superdome and then headed out of town.  That was enough of New Orleans.

This is a cemetery in New Orleans.  Since they are below sea level they can't dig a grave so people are buried in tombs above ground.  Its kind of creepy.

Canal Street in N'awlins.











Back at the camp site as we were going potty before taking off, Mason, Darcy, Bree, and I came face to face with an armadillo!  We were thrilled!  They are funky looking things.  I sent Mason to get the camera and Paul and Drew, but in the hubbub the little bugger wandered off and we lost him.  Paul refused to believe we had seen one, even though there were 4 witnesses.  Though Bree’s witness wasn’t very reliable when she said she saw a pink “armandillo.”   I really think Paul was just jealous.  Since then we have seen a few as road kill along our route. 

We drove the gulf coast of Mississippi and into Alabama where we camped at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  We swam in the Gulf on a white sand beach at 7:30 that night while it was 85 degrees.  The water was warm and it was just beautiful.  It was a great evening, except for the little black bugs that attacked Mason on the way home and freaked him out so much he gave himself a huge scratch on his neck thinking they were all over him.  Yesterday, the 30^th, we drove over the border into Florida so Mason could say he actually went there since that’s where he told everyone he was going on this trip, and then up into Alabama again and on into Georgia.  Paul had a tiny green inch worm “attack” him a couple times while driving and Drew had a little green frog jump on her window out of nowhere which freaked her out.  I guess Darcy and I have gotten lucky when it comes to critter confrontations this trip.  That night we pulled into Stone Mountain Camp Ground in Georgia where a very nice man informed us we had a flat tire on the trailer.  Paul was getting us registered and the man brought back his truck with all kinds of nifty tools to help Paul change the tire.  It wasn’t until afterward Paul told me the Good Samaritan couldn’t pump up the jack because of his chemo treatments.  What a blessing he was to us at the perfect moment, and I just know he will be blessed for his kindness.  Like I said, we have met some really great people on the road.  Stone Mountain is a huge granite rock formation just outside of Atlanta.  We saw a laser light show on the side of the rock and also some fireworks.  Before the show we were treated to lightning bugs by our campsite.  So cool.  The kids had never seen them before and I had only seen them once in Michigan.  We caught a couple and then released them.  We have been treated to some awesome experiences with nature so far this trip.  We decided to stay in the Atlanta area for 2 days because our time in Texas messed us all up and we would be arriving in D.C. on the 4^th of July, which would be very cool but also a bit ridiculous to attempt, and also, with our messed up Texas time schedule, we probably weren’t going to make it to Philadelphia in time to see the Braves play on my birthday.  Instead, we get to see the Braves play in Atlanta tomorrow night!  I am sooooo excited!  Bucket list!  I love my husband very much and appreciate his ability to see through my attempts at playing the martyr and giving me this amazing gift!  What a guy I married.

Tonight was the first night of the trip we were able to be outside with a camp fire due to previously extreme weather.  Mason is thrilled and he got to light it!  He said this is the best day of the trip since we swam and had a fire.  Huh.  He must have a short term memory to forget all we have seen and done.  I was actually hoping we would never be able to have a camp fire.  Now we will all be smelly for days and so will the trailer.  The things we do for our kids.  They deserve it though, they have put up with a lot of adult "fun" on this trip so I'm glad they are happy campers right now.  

A few more things I have learned this past week or so:

11)     My sweet, sensitive nosed Darcy can’t stand the smell of “beef turkey” when Paul and Mason snack on it in the car.  She just doesn’t get that its called Jerky.  The funniest part of this story was when we were at the Guadalupe Mountains Darcy found a display with a stuffed wild turkey.  She called me over and asked if it was a beef turkey!  Love that girl.

22)      Texas doesn’t look like its hurting any from the recession.  We were amazed at all the new construction everywhere, with large, dine-in restaurants lining the streets.  McDonalds were few and far between.

33)      Instead of Starbucks on every street corner, Texas has “Twice the Ice.” Little stands that sell icees.  Makes sense, its too hot in Texas to drink coffee.

44)      I have horrible posture.  In all the pictures of me on this trip I am bent over like a hunchback.  I need to work on that.  And also my tan.  I thought I was getting a pretty good one till I see myself glowing in pictures.  I must have started out almost transparent.

55)      Bree LOVES water towers of all things.  She calls out every one she sees, and there have been many.  She hasn’t seen a pink one yet but is on the lookout.  She does claim to have seen pink bunnies in Louisiana though.  Maybe she had too much fun on Bourbon Street.  She is also a connoisseur of toilets.  She admires them whenever we stop to pee.  She says most of them are “so cute and little.  Just like me.”  She’s a bit conceited too.

66)      I need to keep my mouth shut and never give a definitive answer to any of my kids questions about where we are going or what we are doing next.  9 times out of 10 what we thought we would be doing has ended up being nothing like what we end up doing.  This has been tough on Drew and Mason especially since they are just like me and need to have things planned out to the minutest detail.  It has been a learning and growing experience for all of us with still 4 plus weeks to go!

P.S.  Sorry if this is formatted crazily.  I had to copy from Word onto here because the internet was spotty and I couldn't stay connected.  Thanks for bearing with me ;)