Texas has 'em all
from camels
to buffaloes
to longhorn cattles.
our Dallas connection
got house?
when lightning stikes......
our Houston connection
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muffaletta sandwiches
beignets
Lake Pontchartrain Bridge
Abita Springs, La (home of the bassigator)
may I have this dance ?
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Savannah, Georgia
Charleston, South Carolina
haggling over saltwater taffy. that's me.
a lovely Gullah woman and her wares. these seagrassbaskets are so beautiful you'd want to buy them all but
beware!! talk about sticker shock.
warm Atlantic waters off Myrtle Beach
one of General Lee's cannons
oh yeah
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at Gettysburg
pretty as a picture, Lancaster Pab
raving the toxic waters of
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River
raving the toxic waters oft
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River
Lady Liberty
an assortment of nephews and nieces
Jersey shore
did anybody say "fore"?
Palmyra Temple
the Smith Family cabin
henry contemplating surf at lake eriemark really wanted his picture taken
with that Amish dude
Carthage jail
Nauvoo Temple
Mark and Marc (our Denver connection)
Colorado mountains
hmmmmmm
Becky and Sam Lowe
(our Aspen connection)
our lawn after three weeks of no love but a lot of waterWe are back home after a three week road trip all across the U.S. We visited family in Dallas and New Jersey, friends in Houston, Denver and Aspen, church history sites like Palmyra and Nauvoo and civil war sites like Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. It was especially memorable going thru a lot of the civil war sites just as we would finish watching episodes of "The Civil War" tapes by Ken Burns in the car. We drove thru some of the most beautiful countryside and highways from Houston, Louisiana, the Gulf states, upstate New York, western New York etc., and farmlands (Amish country in Ohio and Lancaster, Pa) and still-snowcapped mountains in Aspen, Co. We drove over the longest bridge in Louisiana (Lake Pontchartrain), crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry in New Orleans and again coming from Nauvoo to Iowa. After leaving the coast (Gulf coast and Atlantic coast) we thought we wouldn't see water for a while but the lakes and rivers are numerous and all of them very pretty and some are breathtaking, from the Hudson to the Mohawk Rivers, the Susquehana River and Lake Erie, small rivers and lakes to the magnificent Niagara Falls. And then there were the must-see attractions that we absolutely could not pass on by. One of them is "The UCM Museum" just outside of New Orleans in a little town called Abita Springs. This museum houses the "bassigator" half bass and half alligator. Some say its not real but if you ask Mark and Sammy they'll convince you otherwise. We also went to this little town in Kansas north of all the major freeways called Cawker City. Here could be found the "Largest Ball of Sisal Twine". 'nuff said, right? We also had the best time discovering new food. We ate sopapillas in Santa Fe, in New Orleans we enjoyed gumbo, ettoufee (Mother's and Bubba Gumps) beignets (Cafe Dumond) and muffuletta sandwiches (Central Grocery). We had a really nice dinner at a restaurant called Poogan's Porch in Charleston that was voted by The Travel Channel as the "Third Haunted Place in America" due to its resident ghost named Zoe St. Amand. Ghost tours abound in Charleston and Poogan's Porch is definitely one of the stops judging from the number of people we thought were lining up to go to the restaurant. Ghost or no ghost, the buttermilk fried chicken, Ms Bertha's she crab soup and creole jambalaya were to die for. We were greeted by a summer rainstorm just outside of Savannah which made walking around the 21 or so squares that make up Savannah pleasant despite the humidity (the rain stopped minutes after we parked but not before we got a nice drenching looking for cover). Savannah, Georgia is a must-come-back kind of place. So is Charleston, S.C. and New Orleans, La. Myrtle Beach, S.C. on the other hand is the "we don't have to go there again" kind of place. The land of mini-golf (which Jolie discovered is her most favorite thing in the world) and hotels, motels galore. And every tourist east of the Mississippi must come there. Ya. (yikes more like) Still we had a great time. Washington D.C. involved a lot of walking and the use of the Metro but all the museums(Smithsonian e.g.) and memorials including the zoo could be had for free. Philadelphia meant a philly cheesesteak sandwich eaten at 11:00 at night at this no-nonsense hole-in-the-wall called D'Allesandros that a friend recommended and our GPS friend found for us. Yum. Three days weren't nearly enough to explore Manhattan (just enough to see the Lady Liberty, the World Trade Center site, for the boys and Jolie to skateboard Hoboken with an outline of Manhattan in the background and for Sam and mom to shop Soho). We had an awesome time. A lot of driving (for Mark), a lot of hotels, a lot of fast foods (McDonald's fruit parfait), a fortune in gas (ouch) and we are grateful to all the friends and families that welcomed us in their homes along the way and most of all the best memories of the beauty and grandeur of this great country and its people.
