Tag: TX

Categories
Uncategorized

RV trip, TX and beyond…

This post will hardly capture everything that’s happened over the last few crazy weeks, but it’ll have to do.

At the beginning of March, we revisited a campground in Medina Lake TX. This was the place with all the tame deer. I remember thinking it was cool the way they’d walk right up to you, but this year I thought I’d try to restore a healthy fear of human predators:

The whole reason we even went back to this area was for the local dentist, Dr. Martin in Lakehills TX. It is surprisingly hard to find a dentist who is willing to simply clean a family’s teeth, but Dr. Martin took care of us again (she filled a cavity for Carrie last year.)

We finally made it to downtown Austin on Wednesday the 6th. The campground had messed up our reservation and didn’t have a camping spot available until the next day (they comped us a free bookdocking spot right outside the office for the night.)

While in Austin, it was Emily’s turn to take her hard-saved money to the Apple store to pick up a new iPod:

It was great to be back in Austin for my 3rd SXSW.

It was a week of crazy days:

…and crazy nights. I rode Amy’s bike into the evening fray one night just to gawk; I was so grateful to be able to go “home” after a long day and avoid the nightlife.

We discovered (and fell in love with) a real Austin treat: breakfast tacos!

After a week in Austin, we headed to Dallas. Carrie got to visit an old (boy)friend from her elementary school days, and Emily got to do some plane-spotting at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport:

On our way to Mississippi, we stopped in Arkansas to visit Amy’s Aunt Dorotha and Uncle Clennis.

We arrived in Tupelo MS last week and camped at an RV park within walking distance from Amy’s grandmother.

Amy was really glad to be able to spend so much time with her grandmother who we don’t get to see enough. Here are my girls, Amy, Amy’s grandmother, and Amy’s aunt Genia:

While in Tupelo, I made a pilgrimage to Tombigbee State Park. My sister and I went to a summer camp there a couple times when we were kids. I was amazed at how little it had changed since 1987.

We stopped for a night in Atlanta Georgia to catch up with our old friends Kevin and Julie, formerly from Indianapolis.

These are just a few of the states we’ve driven through recently. There might have been others.

We’re now camped again in my sister’s driveway in Greensboro NC (we spent about 5 weeks here in the Fall). It’s starting feel like a 2nd home here.

We’ll be here for the rest of the week, then it’s off to Williamsburg VA…the start of some serious US history. 🙂

Categories
Uncategorized

RV trip, deeper into TX

We continued our push toward Austin this past week, making some more repeat visits to campgrounds we were at about this time last year. When we weren’t traveling, we made a point to focus on work and school.

On Thursday we moved to Columbus TX:

We saw the strangest thing on Friday morning: frost!

We needed to drive through San Antonio to our next campground. Amy couldn’t find any running groups to hang with there, so she found a race instead:

As we were ready to pull out of the campground this morning, two things struck me: 1) what a dump this place was, and 2) I get to leave. Many of the RVs there looked like permanent residences, so I was very thankful for our family’s freedom to move on.

We only drove an hour or so today to our campground for the first half of the week at Medina Lake Preserve in Lakehills TX. (We were here last year.) It felt like a warm Spring day; it was wonderful to be outside all afternoon.

This was my weekend project: a clothes drying rack made out of $13 of PVC pipe:

It surprised me how satisfying it was designing and building with something other than zeros and ones.

I like to sample local beers from wherever we’re at. This Texas brew has an extra nice vibe to it:

We’re here until Wednesday, then we’ll head to Austin for SXSW…I’m pretty excited about that.

Categories
Uncategorized

RV trip, N’awlins

Our home this past week was on the “westbank” at Bayou Segnette State Park. It was conveniently located just a few miles away from New Orleans, yet mostly insulated from its craziness.

We took Tuesday afternoon to go exploring, which started with a ride on the Algiers Ferry to cross the Mississippi river.

We had planned on renting some bikes to cover more ground, but once we got downtown the idea of riding bikes in a crowded setting like New Orleans was a bit overwhelming to the girls.

Still, we got to see some of the sights, mostly of the French Quarter:

We ended our afternoon with a treat of beignets (pronounced ben-YAYS) and café au lait. Yum:

On the ferry, heading back to the car on the westbank of the Mississippi:

Amy and the girls took a side trip on Wednesday to Jean Lafitte Nature Preserve. There they learned what those things sticking out of the swampy water are (they’re the “knees” of the Cyprus trees…parts of an elaborate root system that help it breathe and withstand the hurricanes.)

There are fresh and broiled seafood shops everywhere (even McDonalds and Wendy’s push their “seafood” entrees down here.)

Remnants of Mardi Gras:

The campground provided free use of washers and dryers, so laundry was a major theme of the week:

Keeping with our custom of partying hard on Friday nights in rowdy cities, we took a final spin through New Orleans at the end of the work/school week. Our first stop – and arguably most important one – was at Southern Candymakers to get a box of pralines (pronounced PRAH-leens).

…*Ahem*…

There have been a couple times on this RV trip where I’ve eaten something so delicious, it moves me, changes me. Tasting these pralines was like seeing a beautiful new color for the first time. Once you have one, the $22.95/lb price tag becomes irrelevant.

The infamous Bourbon Street:

We wanted some local flavor for dinner, but the “Po’boys” sandwich place that we hunted down turned out to be at the back of a bar (read: no kids). So we got our sandwiches to go and walked to the nearest park bench to eat.

We walked around a little more after that…

…and ended the evening with more beignets and café au laits. Yum again.

I loved the waiting area for the ferry. It had that warm, friendly, incarcerated feel to it:

A final view of New Orleans from the ferry:

One of the most unsettling things about New Orleans is how it’s bracing itself for the worst (though I can hardly blame them). This levee outside of our campground was a continual reminder that this place is perhaps just one hurricane away from being wiped off the map.

Hope you’re on the right side of the wall when this bad boy closes:

Last night we landed in Eunice, Louisiana. We obviously didn’t camp there for the scenery, but rather to be near some local Cajun happenings (thanks for the tip, Tawn).

First we stopped by the Acadian Culture Center in downtown Eunice and caught the last few minutes of a Cajun music showcase: [Listen]

Then we heard a guy give a cooking presentation on “cracklins” (we tried some samples; they’re sort of like chewy chunks of bacon.)

The main event was seeing a local live radio show — the Rendezvous des Cajuns — at the Liberty Theater on Saturday night. The dialog was hard to follow, as it toggled randomly between English and French, but the live Cajun and Creole music was fantastic.

(Note the 12-year-old kid on accordion in the photo above as well as this sound clip. He was amazing; the Justin Bieber of Cajun, one might say.)

Today we made it back to Texas:

We stopped at Big Thicket National Preserve to get in our Sunday morning walk. It wasn’t anything breathtaking, but it felt good to be outside. We saw some more cool Cyprus knees…

…and some pitcher plants. I’m not a big plant person, but a plant that eats insects is just plain cool. There are only five types of carnivorous plants that grow in the US, and four of them can be found at Big Thicket (the Venus flytrap is the lone decenter).

We’ve settled in for the week in Willis, TX at a campground we were at about this time last year. It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road long enough to be a repeat customer anywhere.