Finishing up in Texas

Dear family, to tell you the truth... it's very difficult to blog while on the road. There's just too much to remember and too much to post! It's easier to keep a bound paper journal nowadays. Here's the last little bit of our Texas experience-- which I don't think Texas is done with me and Jake. We still have to drive back home and it's going to be hard to avoid this gigantic state. 

This is the beautiful 1850 loft we stayed in with our friend Matty. Jake and I were both afraid to walk across the glass floor for the first couple of days. Later he had a jam session with a couple of other guys in this room because the acoustics were great but my camera was in the car which was in the shop :(

A sign outside of a gas station kept making me laugh. These are the different phrases it flashed:

BEAVER NUGGETS

KOLACHES

TUR-DUC-KEN

PECAN LOGS

BUC-EE'S CAMO

CLEAN RESTROOMS

CAJUN FRYERS

HOG TRAPS

Galveston actually has a gorgeous cemetery. Some of the headstones are dated back to the early 1800's. Many are written in Hebrew and are beautifully carved out of limestone which keep wearing away. It was actually a really nice place to spend the afternoon.

We spent some time on the sea wall and watched birds dive for fish.

Right before we got out of Texas we saw this turtle hanging out on the side of the road. He was cool. He stuck his head out and chilled with us for a while. And that was Texas.

east TEXAS

And then came my favorite part of our trip thus far. F.A.M.I.L.Y. We were able to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and NIECE! We had a ton of fun with them just hanging out doing everyday stuff! Uncle Jake had fun pushing Landon in a swing-- probably higher than her parents would have liked but she was loving it! I wish I lived closer to all of my family! They're the coolest. The city of Austin was also pretty cool. We showed up on the perfect weekend because the East Austin Art Walk was in motion. We had the privilege of walking through multiple artists personal studios and seeing hundreds of pieces of art work. I still can't believe there are so many artists within a 5 block radius of my sisters house that currently have a million amazing projects in progress.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not get a serious picture of these two! I was lucky to even get a picture where Bronmin & Jake were both standing still! And I don't know how my brother in law managed to dodge every picture either, that takes talent. I guess we just had so much fun with these guys that half the time we didn't think to pull out the camera! Three days later we had to say goodbye and let them get back to work.  My niece is adorable and I already miss her.  :(

Then we went to Galveston where we planned to spend a night with another CS friend. One night turned to two nights. Then three nights, then four. And then we found out that the mechanic wouldn't work on our car over the weekend so we stayed a total of 7 nights! I'm so grateful for our friend Matty who told us we could stay with him as long as we needed while our "house" was in the shop. I think Jake and I were able to get a pretty good feel of what Galveston was all about, and we liked it. Give us an ocean and we're half way to perfection. We drove onto the ferry and took it across the channel just for fun. Galveston is an island only 3 miles wide and 26 miles long-- I couldn't capture the picture I wanted of hundreds of houses on stilts so I took a good picture of just one. It kinda looks like something out of the Wizard of Oz.

Matty was also kind enough to share with us some Blue Bell ice cream! This was Jake's first experience with Blue Bell and after a few bites he got distracted by something musical, set his bowl down and let the rest melt, then never mentioned anything about the ice cream. Later I asked him what he thought about it and he said it was just ice cream, nothing special. What?! Who has the weak palate now? So Jake and Matty played a lot of music together (every day), picked some palm frawns and made drumsticks. It was like a regular week at home for us. So far it seems like everyone we have stayed with, Jake has played music with. Oh ya... and we hit another open mic night in Galveston as well. Jake is so cute on stage. We also walked along the sea wall a couple times and drove around the beach. Yes, the sand is packed enough that you can drive your car right to the waters edge. There were so many seagulls that I couldn't help but scream and chase them a little :)

This series of pictures made me laugh.

west TEXAS

Tejas is sooo ENORMOUS I thought it deserved a post all it's own... and then I took so many pictures that it pretty much needed TWO posts. The first place we stopped in Texas was Pecos. Jake and I went into a gas station to get some hot water for our tea and an older gentleman held the door open for me so I thanked him. He replied with "Yes Ma'am." Then I went outside to stretch and a lady in an Oldsmobile pulled up next to our car, looked at the license plate and said, "Ya'll are a long way from home." I agreed and then she said, "Well enjoy Texas." When Jake came back out to the car I told him about the man who held the door from me and he said that he also thanked a different man for holding the door open for him and the guy replied with, "Yes Sir."

How awesome is Texas?! 

We've managed to stay off the interstate this entire trip so far and it's been great. We've seen a lot of good scenery and met a lot of good people. We're also highlighting our route in our Road Atlas which I wish I could share with all of you somehow but that seems like a big project to transfer onto a computer. After a night in Pecos we slept at one of the most serene places I've visited. Lake JB Thomas. We saw a lake on the map and so we figured out how to get there. It was another one of those times where Jake and I had the place all to ourselves. West Texas is not very exciting, but it's the perfect place to get away from everyone and everything. There's so much land!

And then the cotton started to show up. Jake was amazed at how cotton grows into a perfect cotton ball. It really is a pretty raw crop that doesn't seem like it needs a lot of refining. We pulled over and Jake picked a bunch of leftovers right off the side of the road. He stretched and twisted some for a while and made me a little cotton bracelet. Now he wants to make a pillow- that's Jake for ya. Just imagine what that man could do with unlimited resources! Along with the cotton fields came hundreds of windmills. So pretty! We also stopped at a few.... markets? I don't know what you would call them but these houses just had a bunch of crazy stuff in their yard for sale, and usually there was nobody there to sell it.

We drove through this little town called Mineral Wells which was really neat. There were a bunch of signs that read, "Keep Mineral Wells Krazy, drink Krazy Water!" There's a long story about a guy who dug out a well and after his family started drinking the water all of their health ailments magically disappeared. The town is really old and there's a beautiful, HUGE, abandoned hotel called Baker Hotel. It was meant to be a classy day spa with wining and dining in the evening to draw in the rich and famous. There are records of Clark Gable and other hotties staying there. This picture doesn't capture the grand impact of this building, but a picture is better than smelling all the bat poo wafting through the air in Mineral Wells because of that condemned hotel.

We kept driving east and the flatlands turned into beautiful rolling hills. The next 2 nights we stayed near Denton with a friend we met through CouchSurfing. For those of you who have never heard of it, go to their website and check it out. CS-ing is pretty much the coolest thing I've discovered this year. Then we went to Huntsville and stayed with some other CS friends. The whole point of visiting Huntsville was to talk with some professors about their Music Therapy program and see if it was something Jake would like. It was a really cute University town that caters to a lot of music, dance and art students. Our friend took us to an open mic night and Jake ended up playing some songs and then jamming with some locals for a few hours- another very "Jake" thing to do. It was a lot of fun AND Jake ended up learning how to hula hoop! He said he had never been able to do it before but after a few minutes he was turning heads!

Southern Utah/New Mexico

After 2 nights with Wayne & Ann in Elsinore, we headed south with some home canned jam and a lot of excitement. We didn't make it too far -- about 120 miles -- before we pulled over to sleep in Hanksville. It's a pretty small town where one of our good friends from Utah actually grew up. We asked the 1 cashier at the 1 grocery store if she knew 1 girl named Dana. Of course she did! The cashier went on to tell us the latest news she's heard about Dana (who Jake & I have seen more recently but this grocery clerk was just as up to date as we were.) I love small towns for this reason- and hate them all the same.   

 










We also drove through Capitol Reef National Park which was BEAUTIFUL. It's kind of out of the way, so you don't hear a lot of people talking about it as a vacation destination but
it was definitely a nice surprise along Highway 24. The leaves were changing and it was gold all around us. 


We were able to see some hieroglyphics which are always intriguing. It's fun to think that hundreds of years ago somebody else was standing in the exact same spot as you and telling a story through their drawings. Sometimes I wonder what kind of mark we are leaving behind. What of me will be left after my life and what kind of story will it tell?

Then we went to the Four Corners. Boooooring. Just look at Jake's picture! I couldn't get him to do anything other than stand and stare. 


The site is currently under construction so you can tell that the Navajo people are working to make it into something more special but for now... it's just a desert. 


We kept driving and after Jake realized that we would be driving through Farmington, NM, he spent the following 100 miles talking about these Japanese noodles he fell in love with when he had been on the road working and putting up ceiling tile in a church. He had talked these noodles up so much that there was no way we were leaving Farmington without getting some. They were good and look at how big Jake's smile gets!

We slept under the stars the next night in Santa Fe. It's a town of about 160,000 people and after spending some time there I decided I really liked that size of population. Not too big, not too small. The old part of town was cute and quaint with some really cool, old adobe buildings. My friend told me that Santa Fe is the oldest town in our country... true or not, that little piece of history made it even more interesting. We walked around the capitol and the old railyard. I wish our generation used passenger trains more regularly- not subways, but trains. It's an economical way to travel but because the demand isn't too high, it becomes more difficult to schedule regular train rides. Anyway, Santa Fe had a nice feel to it. The mountains there were more like big rocky hills but it was still very pretty and it had one of the most brilliantly colored sunsets I've ever seen.

From Santa Fe we drove three hours south to Roswell. In that three hours we passed maybe four towns. Four ghost towns. Closed businesses, crumbling buildings, broken windows... sad to most people but probably a photographers dream. I needed to use the restroom and as we were driving through town Jake kept pointing out different (spooky-broken-down) buildings that probably had a toilet somewhere inside. There was no way I was going to find my way through a dark, abandoned-looking gas station that had no doors or windows left on it. I decided I could wait a little longer and that the side of the road was probably an all around better idea for me. Fortunately, 95 miles before reaching Roswell we came across a rest stop- which was still a little creepy but alive with other people.

In Roswell we stayed two nights with my amazing friend Whitni who I met at BYU-Hawaii. She's pretty much the coolest person and the most comfortable host. "Come early, stay late" she said. Plus, she made us incredible gourmet food for every meal. Ever heard of Grilled Pizza? Yum. Whitni & Jared's home was so relaxing that Jake and I thought we might just stay forever. Jared actually went hunting earlier that day and we caught a picture of him still dressed in his gear. After watching a deer bask in the sun for nearly half an hour, he leveled his rifle and pulled the trigger.... with the safety still on. We think the deer was in on it because after he squeezed the trigger the deer looked over his deer shoulder right back at Jared, stood up, farted and trotted off. Later that day Jared took his frustration out on a coyote. **Last 3 sentences donated by Jake**

After church we went to Carlsbad Cavern to see some of God's creations on the beautiful sabbath day. Does that sound justified? We wandered around town trying to figure out where to get tickets to enter the cave. When we finally found someone with the answers she looked at the clock and said, "oh the last tour is at 3:30, in less than fifteen minutes and it's seven miles from here" (down a twisty-turny road.)We knew this would be our only hour spent in Carlsbad so we rushed to the car and Jake took those canyon turns like a pro. We ran from the car into the Cavern Entrance and made it there at exactly 3:31. When we went to buy tickets they were very kind but apologized and said the cave was closed for the day. Rules were rules and the last elevator had already dropped into the abyss. BUMMER! We begged and pleaded but the cave lady with the mounty hat just repeated what we already knew. We walked away with slumped shoulders, not even wanting to check out the gift shop. I guess the ranger must have had a change of heart, or maybe our faces just looked too depressing because before we could get to the exit, she was chasing after us declaring that she had good news. The forest ranger that was assigned to make the final sweep of the cave still had to make the 750 foot journey into the cave and we could hitch a ride in the elevator! Wow this story is getting long. 

So.... the cave was super cool and the rangers in the cave were even cooler. This awesome volunteer named Lionel let Jake and I hang back from the group and watch all the lights go out. Actually, he let Jake and I flip all the switches. It was fun, quiet, dark, eerie and awesome.


Another thing we liked about New Mexico were the license plates. I know, the simple pleasures in life! But have you ever seen those bright yellow license plates? And the turquoise ones.... those were our favorites. There was still one big disappointment with Roswell in that we didn't see any aliens (other than illegal ones.) And now I've rambled on too long.