more of the journey

Lola and I left my mom in Houston on Thursday and headed for Dallas. One of my favorite things along our road trip through the south was observing the unique town names. Some of my favorites were Grosse Tete, LA (it means big head...get your mind out of the gutter), Cut and Shoot, TX, and Westward Ho, TX. Well, my trip to Dallas didn't leave me with any memorable signs, but I did pass a restaurant with a particularly interesting flashing sign announcing that they had "beaver bites" and they were "made to order". I also passed the "Texas State Prison Museum" which looked like an actuve prison from the freeway and left me particularly perplexed.

We arrived in Dallas to stay with my uncle Mike for the night. He lives in a very nice area of downtown Dallas (can't remember what it's called). I enjoyed walking Lola around the neighborhood and there were lots of other dog walkers out there too.

I love mexican food so Mike and Kyle wanted to take me out for Mexican (ok so maybe it was my idea). Mike asked if I wanted more gourmet mexican or authentic and I said authentic. We got in the car and were driving around. He was pointing out various things as we drove. We got to one section and he said "this is the ghetto" and I said ok. Then we stopped. I thought we were going through the ghetto apparently that was our destination! He said "you said you wanted authentic". It actually wasn't that bad of an area (at least during the daylight). The restaurant was nice inside and we had great authentic texan mexican food! After that we drove all around downtown dallas and through the rich area where bush just bought a house (not to his actual house area). It was a whirlwind tour of Dallas but it seems like a cool city and I'd love to go back and spend some time there someday.

Later we watched Inkheart. I'm familiar with the young adult books that inspired the movie, because of my students, but it never seemed like something I'd like much. The previews for the movie and the beginning of the movie didn't convince me otherwise, but then I got sucked in and I actually enjoyed the movie. The concept behind it is interesting.

The next morning lola and I headed out. Back on the road again, with our ultimate destination being Columbus, I decided Memphis would be a good stopping point for the night. Nashville would have been better distancewise, but I went there last year. First, though, I wanted to go to Little Rock, Arkansas. When I was student teaching I read the book Warriors Don't Cry with my 8th graders. It's an autobiography written by one of the Little Rock Nine (the nine black students chosen to integrate Little Rock's schools single-handedly). Since reading the book, I've always wanted to visit the schoolsite. Little Rock Central High School is huge, even by today's standards. Visiting it made many of the moments in the book more vivid. Next we went to the Capitol building (which is also huge and beautiful) and walked around the grounds. We visited the memorial statues for the Little Rock Nine and I got a picture of Lola climbing the capitol steps.

Off again, we headed for Tennessee. Crossing over the bridge to Memphis there's a welcome center with statues of various famous Memphis musicians like BB King and Elvis. We stopped in there and then walked along the riverwalk. We drove through downtown Memphis, checked out the famous Bealle street area, and finally settled in our hotel.

in a few words...

I'm not really in the mood to blog, so briefly...
We left New Orleans early and then proceeded to take an accidental tour of half of the city! Once we were finally on the freeway, we headed to visit Sarah (my college roommate from OSU) in Baton Rouge. We stopped by Sarah's house and caught up with each other, my mom of course, played with Sarah's adorable 4 month old Kiera and we also met, indirectly, Sarah's other child, her bunny Bear.
On the road again, we arrived in Conroe, Texas (about 30 miles north of Houston), at my great aunt and uncle's house a little before dinner time. We visited with them and had dinner and relaxed. They have a huge yard, so Lola is loving it here.
Today, we slept in and relaxed and visited with our family. I helped with their computer (although I'm not really sure I helped). Then we went to nearby Montgomery (the birthplace of the Texas flag apparently...who knew?) and did some shopping and looked around the quaint little town. After that we visited my mom's cousin and her husband (and their three dogs!). Their pekinese is like a little Lola with more hair! He has the same squished face and big eyes! Then we had a nice dinner back at the house and played our favorite game, Mexican Train (dominoes). Now, the princess is whining, so I must attend to her. Off to Texas A & M tomorrow and Dallas on Thursday!

the french quarter and such

After breakfast we explored Jackson square and the surrounding area. We did some shopping, toured madame john's legacy (one of last remaining structures in original french architecture), explored thw french market, visited Faulner's house, and had some afternoon beignets at cafe du monde. We returned to the hotel to check on Lola, showered again and headed out for round two! We rode the st. Charles streetcars all the way through the garden district, past loyola and tulane universities, to the end of the line and back. We wanted to go to the kupcake factory (a place my mom found in the tour book), so we took a cab there, but it was no longer in business (even though their website says they are), so we went to Mother's for po boys and gumbo.

After dinner, we headed to pat o'briens for a hurricane. Then, we headed to magazine street for some macaroons and gelato at sucre.

Now we just returned to the hotel and fed lLola. Don't know where the rest of the night will take us but we're headed to Houston tomorrow.

Driving into new orleans we saw a lot of buildings that were still damaged or completely destroyed by katrina. The french quarter was relatively untouched from what we've been told and everything seems to still be business as usual. There are many scattered businesses that have closed down, but it's hard to tell if it's katrina related or just our overall national economic woes. Almsot 4 years later, the impact of katrina is obvious, the people here call it "the storm" and refer to "before the storm", but the city still has throngs of tourists, even in the heat. I've heard the 9th ward still looks like a war zone, but we haven't visited it. You can actually take "disaster tours", but the small parts of destruction I've seen are enough for me. The sadness mixed with humor can be felt in a bumper sticker I saw that said "I drove my chevy to the levee, but the levee was gone".

I'm kind of surprised by the number of families with young children we've seen visiting. It may not be mardi gras time, but it's still not a place with much to offer small children, beyond offending them.

We've seen more and done more, and missed even more in our whirlwind tour, but those are the highlights for today!

continuing...

In Mobile, we also drove through an area of historic homes. We drove through Biloxi, but didn't see anything we wanted to stop and see. Beautiful bridges, rivers, marshland throughout our whole route. Biloxi reminded me of just another touristy beach town, not at all what I expected. We arrived in new orleans, where we are staying on the 16th floor of the westin overlooking the river (we couldn't stay any higher, because of the dog, which really ticked my mom off). The hotel is actally attached to a mall which we didn't even know, so it's perfect! The only problem is you have to take two different elevators to get to the room or leace the room and Lola is terrified of elevators. She shakes and freaks out every time we get on one. After feeding Lola and getting settled, we walked around the french quarter, checked out bourbon street and had a very nice dinner (although I don't remember the nameof the restaurant), and road on a streetcar (not in that order).

Day 3
We got up early, took the princess for her walk, and headed to cafe du monde for coffee and beignets. Unfortunately, being sunday and father's day, people were waiting in line for an entire block. We didn't want to wait, so we had a very nice breakfast at the river's edge cafe. I'll update more later!

day two

Had a wonderful saturday. After our am walk on the beach and check out of the hotel, we got carryout for breakfast and ate it at a park on the water. Then we headed out through fort walton beach and pensacola and into alabama. We stopped in mobile and walked through an amazing old cemetary. More later

interlude

Woke up this morning and found out we actually stayed on Okaloosa Island. We haven't actually made it to ft. Walton yet. It's over the bridge. Had a lovely a.m. Walk on the beach. The sand is much whiter and finer here, so it seems softer and squishier than ours. Getting ready to check out and head to new orleans.

On a separate note, does anyone know why it says I posted my last blog at 8:52 when it was after midnight local time or 1 am our time?

Day one

After running errands this morning we hit the road about 10:30. Princess Lola curled up on "mommy's mommy" and we were off. We enjoyed the scenery...all the green, some horse farms, etc. as we headed north. Our first stop was Talahassee where my mom and I visited the capital for the first time. We walked around down town, saw the capitol building, FEA headquarters, courthouse, etc. and some of the FSU campus. It's a very nice downtown-campus area. We moved on driving mostly with the coast on one side and forrests on the other. We saw two bear crossing signs. In a town called panacea there was a flashing sign to watch for smoke and we saw what I think was the remenants of a forrest fire. I also enjoyed the quaint town of appalachicola. we planned to check out panama city and possibly find a hotel there. We spent a lot of time there in traffic, because of an accident, but we thought the beach area was pretty scuzzy and not somewhere we wanted to stay, so we moved on.across the panhandle. We drove all through Destin, which is absolutely gorgeous and the houses on destin beach are amazing! We started looking for hotels in destin along the beach, but no one would take the dog, we finally found a room outside of destin on the edge of fort walton beach. We checked in, fed Lola and headed out to dunner at 10 p.m. We ate at the crab trap on the beach at this area called the boardwalk (but not actually a boardwalk). The shops are open super late there, so we did some shopping and got some gelato. When we returned to the hotel and I walked lola, and got into bed to attempt to blog on my phone, I realized the time changed at some point in time, so it's actually an hour earlier here! I'm exhausted, so I'm going to try to sleep. Tomorrow night we'll be in new orleans! Sorry for any errors, it's hard to edit on the phone.

Packing for 5 weeks...

Darci said she was surprised I wasn't more motivated to pack, because it always makes her more excited about her trip. I think I'm not motivated, because I'm packing for five weeks and that's a lot of stuff! I don't want to take too much, but I don't want to have to spend a lot of money to buy stuff I already have either. I've gotten it down to 2 medium suitcases and an overnight bag for me and one suitcase for Lola.

My car situation...I found someone to fix it for 1/3 of the original estimate, so I'm going to have it fixed. My neighbor owns a towing company and said he'd tow it to this guy's shop tomorrow. If all goes well, it will be fixed by the end of next week and my mom can pick it up for me. I'm taking her car on our road trip. I'm still anxious that something will go wrong, because I won't be here to orchestrate every step of it, but the control freak in me is going to have to throw up her hands and let it be.

So, on the news today I heard about a breach of security at my bank (Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union)and I'm like "oh, great, just what I need". Well, what was waiting for me when I got home, but a letter from my bank saying they were cancelling my debit card and I would get a new card in the mail sometime next week! Uh, hello, I'm leaving tomorrow! Before we head out tomorrow, we will now be stopping by my bank to try to work something out. I'm guessing I'll have to order new checks too. I think I'm a magnet for problems like this!!!

I am very very excited about my trip, but it comes with the stress of taking care of things before I leave. Once, I'm on the road, I will be a much happier, carefree person!

We are planning on leaving town about 10 tomorrow morning (after errands and bank issues!) and stopping in Gainesville to check out gator country before heading west across the panhandle. We're going to stay somewhere along the panhandle tomorrow night. I'm not sure how well I'll do at blogging on my phone, but I'll do my best!

anxious to get going!

Well...I was in car accident last week. I had a little run in with a truck. It was only a minor fender bender, but my little hyundai crumpled like an accordian! Well, not quite that bad, but it's very damaged, so I'm taking my mom's car on my road trip now and my car may be repaired, depending on the price. I'm working on getting cheaper estimates and I'm ready to just be done with the whole thing! We plan to leave on our road trip on Friday, but it might end up being Saturday. It all just depends. Luckily, we have no real plans for our trip to mess up! I just have to be in Columbus by June 27th. My mom is going on the first leg of my road trip with me (or I should say our road trip...Miss Lola is going of course). We're going across the Florida Panhandle, then going to New Orleans, stopping in Baton Rouge for lunch with a college roommate, going on to Houston to stay with my Great Aunt & Uncle for a few days and then who knows where Lola and I will land before arriving in Columbus. My mom is flying back to Tampa from Houston next week. I need to go get a shower, because Lola & I have a lunch date!

Oh I give up...

I was considering blogging about my road trip this summer, but I was still resisting...until my brother went and started a blog! Since I'm already following multiple blogs on here, I thought I'd start one of my own. I don't have much to add, except to say that I am obsessed with Chuy from Chelsea Lately's tweets right now, so you should definitely follow him if you're on twitter...too funny! More later!