Road Trip 2013, Week 5

My week 5 update, and I can hardly believe we have been at this for over 5 weeks now, starts with Darcy's 5th birthday on Monday the 8th.  We spent the night before in Hershey, Pennsylvania and woke up early on her birthday to start the party!  She picked out a stuffed fox at Smoky Mountain NP, a shell bracelet in Gulf Shore, Alabama, and we found some alligator Stompies at a Walmart in Atlanta so she had a southern birthday I guess.  We gave her her gifts and then headed to the park for a full day of fun.  This picture is of Darcy measuring herself to see which type of candy she is, which is her guide to which rides she could ride at the park.  She was tall enough to ride a few of the roller coasters, though she ended up not appreciating them very much.  I convinced her the Sooper Dooper Looper only had one upside down loop in it so she would ride with me, Drew, and Mason.  Luckily it did only have one, but I had no idea if that was true or not when I told her.  Bad mommy, but I wanted her to try it.  She did fine, though wasn't real thrilled with the roller coaster rides.  Mason was the only one who would go on all the roller coasters with me, even Drew wussed out after the coaster she took with Paul and Mason.  Paul is not at all a rides kind of guy, but I love them.  I even rode the Great Bear, where your feet are dangling and you go upside down I don't know how many times.  Drew was trying to talk me out of it but I did it and I was safe and I loved it!  Roller coasters are great, its the spinners that I don't appreciate much anymore.  We rode a bunch of rides and then planned to head back to the trailer for lunch and a rest.  It was perfect timing, as we reached our car in the parking lot the heavens opened and it poured down rain for about 2 hours.  Around 4 the sky was clear and warm so we headed back with our swimming suits on to try out the water park.  We also rode a few more rides as we waited for the weather all-clear to get into the water.  It was pretty fun but not quite as warm as we had hoped.  Bree started to get cold so we left around 8:30.  It was a full day of fun and a great way to spend a birthday.  What a lucky little 5 year old Darcy is, whether she thinks so or not.

The next day we spent exploring Philadelphia.  Well,  I should say the next afternoon.  It took a couple of hours to get to Philly and drop off the trailer, but  since we are so cheap, we set our GPS to avoid toll roads, and if you have ever been to Pennsylvania you know the best way to get around is a toll road.  Instead, we drove through some very unsavory parts of the city just to avoid what we later found out would have been a direct route into the city for a fee of $1.80.  Sometimes it doesn't pay to be cheap. On the way home that night in the dark we took the turnpike just to be safe and learned of our folly.

We got to the city in the late afternoon which turned out to be excellent timing because most of the tourists had gone for the day.  We were able to walk right up to see the Liberty Bell, which was awesome, and we caught the second to the last tour of Independence Hall.  What a great place to be.  Independence Hall is where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.  Pretty powerful place.  We toured the rooms where they were both signed and saw the original chair that George Washington sat in as he presided over the congress that created out constitution.  It is the chair in the middle of the picture below.  We also saw copies of the original documents that were made in the 1700's.  I love being in these incredible historic places.  I think Drew and Mason like these places too.  Especially because we like to watch "National Treasure" to recognize the places we just saw.  Whatever gets them interested I say.

We aren't very adventurous about trying the local delicacies in the different parts of the country but Paul did buy a Philly cheese-steak on the street right outside Independence Hall.  We all had a bite and it was pretty good I guess.

We found Ben Franklin's grave in Christ Church cemetery.  That was closed as we got there too late but his grave is right in the corner and they have it fenced in by bars right there so you can see it.  The pennies are thrown on the grave for luck I read somewhere.  It seems like an irreverent practice to me though.

We drove a bit around Philadelphia to see the temple there.  It was actually in the beginning stages of construction, right in the middle of the city.  It will be beautiful when it is completed.  We drove a bit further and came upon the art museum stairs that Rocky ran up!  Paul dropped Mason and I off and we ran up those stairs, along with a ton of other people, and you can see me in the picture on the right doing the bounce with my hands in the air.  Mason had no idea what we were doing there and I think my bouncing around kind of embarrassed him.

 While in Philadelphia we realized we were only an hour away from Atlantic City, NJ.  Well, I need to digress for a second.  GPS can be a great tool, or it can be your downfall.  I have my huge Rand-McNally atlas on my lap at all times during the trip, coming up with routes of my own, while Paul pays close attention to his GPS which I "affectionately" call Sloughfoot Sue.  Most of the time Sue has great directions, but she has been know to come up with some pretty ridiculous routes too.  Just enough that is makes me at least question her intelligence at times.  I don't know if Paul has the same problem with her.  He knows she has tried to send us down some dead end roads, but he still likes to trust her over me.  There have been maybe one or two times where he will go with what I say, but usually he follows Sue, and then he gets a small silent treatment from me, whether he realizes it or not.  Maybe he does realize it and that's exactly why he does it.  Seriously though, 9/10ths of this trip would have been very difficult without good old Sue.  So anyway, Atlantic City was supposedly only an hour away.  And it would have been if we had taken the toll road, or, and this is hard to admit, if we had listened to Sue over me.  The one time Paul chooses me over Sue I mess up.  In my defense though, the map I have is the large print version (a gift from Paul who I love dearly) which means states are chopped up into like 6 pages and its hard to find where you are from one to the next and not all road numbers are posted on every page.  So I got mixed up and I had us driving through a bunch of towns which meant numerous stop lights, instead of taking a different highway that would have gotten us there much sooner.  Oops.  I was big enough to admit my mistake though once I figured it out.  I doubt Paul will listen to me over Sue again.  We got to Atlantic City around 9:30 and we were able to walk a bit on the boardwalk and also wade in the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a very pretty city and it was fun to be there.  On the way back to our camping spot in PA we took the correct highway and got back much faster than before.

We left Pennsylvania the next day and made our way in to New York.  We saw New York City on our trip in 2007 so we skipped it this time.  We spent all of this day driving up towards Palmyra, near Lake Ontario.  We were able to see some of the Erie Canal on our way, and the picture to the left is of the canal.  It doesn't transport big "ships" anymore.  Mostly just pleasure boats.  Still cool to see!  We camped in Wolcott for 3 nights, waiting for the opening performance of the Hill Cumorah Pageant which is a pageant the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints puts on every summer, telling the stories found in the Book of Mormon.  We got there a day and a half early so the 11th we explored tiny Wolcott.  And we really did cover every inch of the place.  We woke up to another flat tire so we took it in to get fixed, only to find out that the same thing that happened to our first flat tire happened to this one too.  For some reason the tire is pulling away from the wheel and is unfixable.  The place was able to put a tube in the tire, along with our first flat, and we have been able to use it till we get to Paul's Aunt's house tomorrow where he had a spare tire delivered.  Always an adventure!  We went to a pizza joint in town while we waited for our laundry to get done, and it was advertised as "authentic New York style pizza."  And boy was it ever.  The whole experience was authentic New York!  We had Vinny and Sal waiting on us, and you couldn't find two more stereotypical Italian New Yorkers if you tried.  I bet we could have ordered a mob hit right along with our pizza.  They were awesome, their accent was awesome, and I suppose the pizza was awesome too.  What fun.  The only part that wasn't fun was the cigarette smoke wafting in from Vinny's smoking right in the doorway of the restaurant.  It seems the Surgeon General's warning has not reached northern New York.  Everyone there smokes I swear.  And they for sure don't follow any 50 foot from a building entrance rule.  It was a quaint town but it was a smokey town.  That afternoon we went to Chimney Bluff State Park on Lake Ontario.  Drew, Mason, and I took a mile hike along the bluffs of the lake and met the others at the other end of the park.  It was a really nice walk in the beautiful forest there.  New York and Pennsylvania along the lakes are absolutely beautiful.  I never knew it was such an agricultural area either.  Very beautiful place.  I asked Paul if we could retire there but there really isn't anything more to do there than admire the view.  Here is a picture of the kids in Lake Ontario.  It was pretty muddy looking and had a lot of seaweed by the shore.  Kind of gross.

July 12th was the day of the pageant.  We put down some blankets on chairs so we could save our seats for the performance that night at 9, and then we explored the historic church sites in the area.  We saw the Joseph Smith cabin, the Palmyra temple, The Sacred Grove (picture at left), and the visitor's center.  It was really great to be there and see it all.  Bree threw one of her epic fits at the grove so we weren't able to be there as long as we would have liked.  Since we got there so early to save our seats we had time to kill before the show so we went to Walmart to stock up on supplies and then we saw "Monsters University."  It was a fun change of pace and a cute movie.  We had dinner at Burger King, which is losing a ton of money on us this summer on their 50 cent ice cream cones.  Its a cheap way to provide dessert and make 4 little kids very happy.  We stop as often as we can!  And I'll digress again but we have done really well staying away from the fast food.  We only eat out maybe once every 3 or 4 days.  We're still only eating horrible junk like mac and cheese or PB&J sandwiches at the trailer but at least its cheap.  We'll eat vegetables again in a few weeks I guess.

The pageant was very neat.  Mason seemed to really enjoy it a lot which surprised me because I thought he would get bored since it was real people and not some cartoon or superhero.  He always surprises me.  That was a late night after a full day but it was a great experience for all of us.

On the 13th we said farewell to Wolcott and made our turn west toward Niagara Falls.  It was pretty much a zoo.  The falls are beautiful and we managed to squeeze ourselves up to the fence to see them, but we didn't hang around trying to do or see anything else because it was so busy.  Its kind of funny, the US side of the falls is a nice state park but the Canadian side is a party.  It has towering hotels, a hard rock cafe, and amusement park rides.  We didn't cross the border because we didn't want the hassle.

That night we camped right next to Lake Erie.  Drew and Mason have now played in three of the five Great Lakes.  They are only missing Huron and Superior.  Erie was much cleaner and a better place to play than Lake Ontario.

Today we made it to Ann Arbor, MI to visit the Michigan campus.  This was my third time here but I still love it.  I was a huge Michigan fan well before I met Paul (thanks to Chris Webber), who's family are all fans and his dad graduated from there.  It was just an added bonus when I married him to learn he was a fan too.  We weren't able to get in to the stadium this time but the kids pulled out their crazy poses again and we were able to see the tunnel the team walks out of onto the field.  We have been on the field before.  Its pretty cool in such a huge stadium.  We also stocked up on the merchandise!  Tomorrow we will visit Paul's Aunt and Uncle and then on to the family farm up north.  Try as I might, and I know I am going to get in trouble with some family here, but I just can't fall in love with the state of Michigan.  It actually bugs me.  It has very pretty deciduous trees everywhere, but it kind of freaks me out that there are no mountains and its too flat.  I have to tell myself there are mountains behind the clouds in order to keep myself sane.  Its kind of like claustrophobia, or maybe reverse-claustrophobia?  Whatever it is, Michigan isn't my favorite state.  Sorry family.

I can't think of anything I learned this week on the road.  Maybe my mind is going numb.  Quote of the week though:
Me: Is everyone having a good trip?
Darcy:  Sort of yes but a lot of no!
Sorry Darce, only 3 weeks to go!

Road Trip 2013, Week 4

 Week four was pretty good to us.  No breakdowns!  Well, the car didn't break down but the two youngest finally did.  I'll get to that fun stuff as it happens chronologically.  Here is the crew finally enjoying a campfire in Georgia.  We haven't had once since so I'm glad we got at least one in on this trip.

 July 2nd we ventured into Atlanta to see the sights and see my Braves play!  We bought tickets early so we would be sure to have seats (no where near a sell-out but I wanted to be sure), and then we drove around the city looking for something to do.  It seems like the best place to be in Atlanta is the well-visited tourist areas.  We got off track a few times and it was a bit scary for us country bumpkins.  We visited the Martin Luther King National Historic Park, where Mason and Drew were interested in seeing his and his wife's tomb.  They learned quite a bit about him at school on the last MLK Jr holiday so it was good for them to experience it.  After driving around crazily looking for some fast food before the game, we finally found a McDonalds and then headed to Turner Field for the baseball game!

 Here we are at the field!  I was so excited.  I grew up watching the Braves play in the 80's when they were really horrible.  Mom wouldn't let us get MTV so Cori and I would stay up on Friday nights to watch music videos "Night Tracks" on TBS.  Inevitably the Braves would be on and inevitably the game would go extra innings and they would lose, cutting into our video time so we watched and waited.  I have loved them ever since and I was thrilled to actually be in Atlanta watching my Braves play.  The game didn't disappoint!  We beat the Marlins11-3.  We got to do the tomahawk chop a few times too.  The first hour was absolutely miserable with the hot sun beating down on our sensitive faces, but once it went down I think we all had a pretty good time.  Since we are cheap we didn't buy any souvenirs at the stadium but Drew and Paul picked up 7 commemorative plastic Braves cups people left behind.  Works for me!

The view of the city was beautiful from where we sat.  I have seen the Braves play 3 times now so I told Paul we could take a break from them and not plan our next vacations around their schedule.  I had such a good time and I guess I owe Texas a big thank you for wasting so many of our days so it worked out I could see the Braves in Atlanta.

 Heading north on July 3rd we took a very short detour into South Carolina.  Paul and I both started out this trip each needing only 5 more states to be able to say we had seen all 50.  South Carolina was one I needed so we took a small detour and crossed the border.  It had a nice little turnaround so we took the picture, slapped the sticker on our map, and headed off on our way.

The next stop was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee.  North Carolina was the first state that was new to all  six of us.  This park is the most visited National Park in the US, probably because is has a highway running through it.  It was absolutely pouring rain as we arrived at the park and it rarely let up.  Rain in the east is not like rain in the west.  When it rains it is in torrents here, not nice, gentle, never ending showers like we are used to.  I'm sure this park is great, and we caught glimpses and outlines of distant mountains that made us believe if we were there on a clear day it would be a beautiful place.

 You can see some of the wispy clouds that give the Smoky Mountains their name.  Its actually formed by output from the dense foliage in the forests.  And these forests are dense.  I thought Oregon had a lot of trees, and we do, but these forests are different.  I thought where we were in the Appalachian mountains, around the place where Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia meet is one of the prettiest places in the whole country.

 Here we are at the state line.  You can see how overcast and wet it was.

At the top of the Appalachians we found the Appalachian trail.  I was excited to see it.  I absolutely love experiencing in person all the things we read and hear about at school and just in life in general.  Its kind of like a living history, Americana tour.  If it wasn't so wet I would have insisted on hiking some of it, maybe not all the way to Katahdin, Maine, but a little bit to get the true feel of it.  Paul, Mason, and I were the only ones brave enough to get out of the car and get a little wet to say we have been on the trail.

That evening Paul and Drew drove about 45 minutes north to hit the Kentucky border.  Yep, Paul needed Kentucky.  They stopped a the Cumberland Gap and as horrible as it is to say, I'm glad the park was closed so they really didn't see anything more than the sign.  I would have kicked myself if they had really been able to see the Cumberland Gap.  Some day when Mason has every state in the continental US filled in except Kentucky I will remind him how much more important it was to him to stay in the trailer and watch Spiderman than to visit Kentucky.  Live and learn, buddy.

This is just a picture of an interesting plant they have in some of the south eastern states.  Its kind of like ivy but its called a creeper or something.  It takes over trees and bushes and leaves them looking like something out of a Dr Seuss story.  Its kind of cool looking.

July 4th found us in North Carolina.  We needed to head east to get out of the rain and find some fireworks before Mason and I came to blows.  ALL he could talk about for 2 days was fireworks.  Even when we were talking about other things he would say, "wait, did you just say fireworks?"   I was so tired of it and I was about to explode like one myself if he said it one more time.  We bought sparklers but didn't find a place to light them which set off a million more questions, suggestions, and hints from him.  Crimony!  Enough!  We dropped our trailer in Durham, NC in a more than somewhat undesirable RV/trailer park, and visited the Duke campus.  Once again, trees everywhere!  I had no idea there were so many trees there.  I couldn't even get a good picture of any of the buildings because they were all hidden by trees.  Duke was pretty but we liked the University of North Carolina better.  Lots of trees again but not so crowded.  While at UNC we saw signs for Fireworks parking so we decided to stay there for the show instead of driving 30 minutes south to Raleigh.  We got to sit in the UNC football stadium and watch the fireworks show.  That was actually the first time we have taken the kids to see fireworks.  Horrible, I know. Usually we are at my parents' house with a bunch of family setting off wussy Oregon fireworks and we never go to the good show in town.  So this was fun for us all, and thankfully Mason hasn't mentioned fireworks since.

 The fifth of July we headed north through Virginia into Maryland to visit with Paul's cousin, Laurie, and her husband Eric and son Logan.  It was good to see family again and stretch out in a beautiful home.  And Logan was nice enough to share his toys with the kids so they were happy.  They also thought Logan was a pretty good guy to call second cousin.  He's a cutie!  And Laurie and Eric prepared a delicious home-cooked meal for us too so it was a really nice visit.  Laurie and Logan were able to join us the next day in DC for the hike around the National Monuments.  They were smart enough to head home after about 3 hours in the sweltering sun, but we were glad they joined us for some of it.

 The 6th of July was my birthday.  I was so not looking forward to it and I wouldn't let my family sing to me till 2:17pm when I couldn't deny that I was 40 any longer.  UGH!  I woke up that morning to these fun posters and streamers Drew and Paul came up with to decorate the trailer.  I love my family.

 We drove into DC that morning and toured all the sights, starting at the White House.  Our plan was to see the monuments before it got too hot and then go indoors to the Smithsonian museums in the afternoon when it was warmer.  Well, there was no such thing as less than too hot.  It was so stinking hot and humid that we were all dying.  My poor kids.  Notice in the White House picture how Darcy is missing.  The first stop of the day and she is already throwing a fit and refuses to be in the picture.  That was par for the course for the day.  Either Darcy was making a horrible scene or Bree was.  At one point in one of the museums Paul had to stand in the hall and man-handle Bree to keep her from flipping out of his arms while she stiffened her body and threw a major fit.  I understand they were hot and tired but jeez, happy birthday.  It seems they know when Mom is doing something important to her and then it sets off a break-down alarm in their heads.  They freak out and there is no stopping it.

 Thankfully Darcy graced us with her presence for the picture at the Lincoln memorial.  We saw many of the monuments but skipped the FDR and Thomas Jefferson ones because they were just too far to walk to for my family's little legs.  We saw Lincoln, WWII, Korean (one of my favorites), Washington (which looks nothing like it should as its covered in scaffolding for work being done on it to fix the cracks from last year's earthquake), and the Vietnam memorial which I missed because Bree was throwing a fit and I didn't think she needed to be bothering others trying to experience it.  Thankfully I had seen in before.

 After lunch at the Reagan building we headed to the Smithsonians.  We visited the Museum of American History where Drew found this robe worn in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (She's a huge HP fan), though I'm not sure why it was there since Harry is British.  Oh well, she was thrilled. There was some great stuff in there and I can't even remember it all right now.  Oops!  I do remember feeling like I couldn't believe all those things were really there and they weren't just replicas.  Those museums are awesome.  We also went to the Museum of Natural History with all the dinosaur bones.  Mason was in heaven! I swear he took 500 pictures of bones in there.  I'm glad he found something he enjoyed.  He also admired the mummy in the picture below which came from Egypt thousands of years ago.  Good stuff!  Unfortunately we had to race around that museum, which was extremely hard to do since it was a zoo in there.  There were so many people, all with the same idea as ours I guess, get inside to beat the heat.  We had tickets at 4pm to tour Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was shot.  We had to miss the Air and Space museum but thought it was OK since we visited NASA earlier in the trip.  DC is just too big to see all in one day and we had to pick and choose our stops.

Ford's Theater was so neat, as weird as that sounds.  I have been into Lincoln and Civil War stuff lately so I was thrilled to be there.  The chair on the right in the picture is where President Lincoln was sitting when he was shot.  The museum had the actual suit he was wearing the night he died, and I was very surprised to see the actual gun Booth used to kill him.  What a great stop.  Drew, Mason, Darcy, and I went next door to the boarding house to view the room and bed he died in.  Wow.  What an experience.  

Bree threw another fit in the car about buckling her seat belt and I was wrestling with her so hard I started to cry!  It was a long, hot, day that was hard on all of us I guess.  My phone logged us walking 7.4 miles in 8 hours in 95 degree heat with I swear 200% humidity.  No wonder we were all exhausted.  Paul drove all over Maryland it seemed trying to find a Dairy Queen for me to get an M&M blizzard for my birthday.  It was a very full day and hopefully the kids got something good and memorable out of it all.  I think Drew and Mason did.

 Today we drove north to Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg.  Yes, it was the last day of the 150th anniversary celebration, but we were surprisingly able to find a parking space for our huge caravan near the visitor center.  Well, Gettysburg was an experience.  I didn't realize it was so commercialized I guess.  They actually charged $12 per person to watch a movie about the battle and to enter the museum.  At a National Park!  And my pass wouldn't get us in.  I was really disappointed at how it was run.  We all were.  We were able to get a magnet and a hat pin for Mason but that's about all we got out of the vistor center.  We attempted to drive just a bit around the battle field to get a sense of it.  Thankfully we were able to make it through pulling the trailer but it was close.  I "enjoyed" it though, for lack of a better word.  I have been to Antietam and Vicksburg battlefields so I guess I was OK not touring the whole place.  Maybe when Paul and I are old and gray we can go back and experience all of it.  Darcy was throwing a fit again and she refused to pose for the picture.  The bottom picture is a bit of the battlefield.

Tonight we are in Hershey, PA.  We plan to visit the Hershey amusement park tomorrow to celebrate Darcy's 5th birthday.  Even if she does throw a mean fit she is still my sweetcheeks and deserves a special birthday.  You don't turn 5 every day!

Here is my weekly installment of things I have learned on the road:

1)  Shorts in the South are SHORT and TIGHT.  Yikes!  I don't know if its the new summer style or if its just a southern thing but let me just say I am glad I live in the Northwest where capris are prevalent.  And body type doesn't really seem to play in anyone's decision to wear the shorts.  Yikes.

2)  We are silly northwesterners.  I insisted on carrying sweatshirts to the baseball game in case it got cold when the sun went down.  HA!  And we took sweatshirts and blankets to the fireworks show in case it got cold.  HA!  That's how it works at home.  When will I learn it doesn't EVER get cold here!?

This is the quote of the trip so far:

Bree:  Mom!  Drew is a mom.

Me:  Drew is a worm?

Bree:  No!  Drew is a MOM!

Me:  No, Drew isn't a mom but she will be someday.

Drew:  I'd rather be a worm.

Me too, sweetheart, me too.

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 ;)