The Last 3 Days of the Trip

So here's all that happened since I last had a chance to access the internet:

We left Mammoth Cave on Sunday and headed north to Louisville to hang out with Jordan for a few hours.  It was great catching up with someone I've been friends with since I was a young kid and who I haven't seen in over a year and a half.  We grabbed a bite to eat and got to catch up on everything that's been going since last Christmas.  We would have loved to stay longer but we really needed to put some road behind us, so we moved on toward Athens, Ohio.

Camping in Ohio was by far the worst night we've had on the trip.  We were very tired already and got to where we thought a campsite was just to discover that it was a ranger's station.  We hunted for a place to put our tent for about an hour until we finally located a crappy state park at the end of several miles of goat paths.  The only areas to set up were in a flood plain, but thankfully there wasn't any rain.  It was a moonless night and there were no lights anywhere in the park.  I was shocked when I noticed that even though my eyes had adjusted to the dark that I couldn't see a thing.  We got up and out of there bright and early the next day and enjoyed seeing one of the places Hannah grew up in.  

We parked outside her old apartment buildings and were able to walk right inside because the buildings were undergoing renovation and all the doors were unlocked.  We didn't really think too much about where we parked our car since we managed to park illegally and not get tickets in New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Saint Louis and Chicago.  The University of Ohio, though, takes parking seriously, and while we were only gone for about 20 minutes, during a time when most students are back home so parking rules are more slack, we came back to find a $30 ticked on our windshield.  There's not a thing that they can do to oblige us to pay it, so it will most likely go in the scrapbook Hannah will end up making.

(this is a candy shop Hannah remembers going to when she was little)

The New River Gorge in West Virginia was only about two and a half hours away and I really enjoyed seeing the bridge and driving all way down to the river's edge to go swimming.  It wasn't Hannah's favorite since the road down was only about 10 feet wide at most and had many tight switch-backs.  The bridge was huge and is actually 246 feet taller than the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis.  

Our campground was nice simply because we were able to find some showers after going without for 3 days.  This was the first time we'd been back near the Appalachian Mountains since the start of the trip and had forgotten how much dew falls at those higher elevations.  Thankfully this really cooled things down but the rain fly on the tent was a must.  

We got up early again and were very happy to be heading back towards Spartanburg.  We drove 4 hours south toward Archdale and got to spend several hours with Grandma, Grandad, and John.  They fed us lunch and dinner and Hannah and I soundly beat Grandad and John in 3 rounds of Sequence.  To be fair, we were on the ropes for the last game, but we still managed to pull it off.  We really wanted to stay the night and hang around a bit more, but we were just getting too tired.  Their house was our very last stop and it was one of our most fun visits!

The final two and half hours of driving were uneventful.  It was exciting to finally be on a stretch of road that was familiar and that we didn't have to rely on maps or a GPS to figure out where we were going.  Once again, we narrowly avoided a terrific storm and drove into Spartanburg just an hour or two after it passed.  There were plenty of downed limbs and even a few trees fell further down the street (or so 7 on Your Side has told me).  


We walked in the door, noticed happily that my car was still there and our apartment hadn't been broken in to, and went to sleep within a couple of hours.  

All told, we were gone for 21 days, traveled 4,911 miles, visited 17 states, slept in 14 different locations, and went into 5 national parks.  It was an incredible trip and we were amazed at the number of times that the Lord provided for us in terms of places to sleep, avoiding severe weather, and especially when it came to buying baseball tickets.  


Today we've spent plenty of time hanging up our camp gear to air out, unpacking our bags, and doing laundry.  We're mostly recovered from our exhaustion and are eager to get back in the swing of things at home.

We Made It!

I'll write a more detailed summary of our time after Mammoth Cave tomorrow when I've gotten some rest.  Here are the highlights: we left Mammoth Cave on the 15th...since then we've been to Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, then headed towards home.  We rolled into Spartanburg tonight at about 9:30 and are exhausted.  We're going to sleep now.  Thanks for all the prayers for Christ's safety and provision!

From the water's edge

New river gorge!

Have a Mammoth Day

Silly expressions like the one above are posted everywhere.  People at Mammoth Cave LOVE Mammoth Cave.

We woke up this morning after a very restful night's sleep and realized that we only got a couple of sprinkles of rain in the night.  We made our breakfast and coffee then headed to the visitor's center to pick up our tickets for our cave tour today.

There were lots of idiots on the tour.  Their conversations were painfully stupid, and their vocabulary often included such gems as "probablisitcally".

Once we were able find a spot in the line of people winding through the cave that was relatively stupid-free, we really enjoyed our 4 mile hike underground.  Some areas in the cave were wide enough for a small plane to fit in, while others were tiny passages that even short little Hannah had to duck down in to...although, most of the time when I was bent over double trying not to smash my forehead into low hanging boulders, she was able to confidently walk upright.

Fun fact: so far, there have been 392 miles of cave passages discovered, and they still have not reached the end!

While we were in one especially large passage our guide cut the lights and asked everyone to be silent.  The darkness and silence were almost palpable.  I would have loved to sit still for an hour or so in that complete quiet.  C. S. Lewis speculates that in heaven he believes that all the terrible and continuous noise of earth will be done away with.  Instead, he believes that all will be music or silence.  Hannah, though, hated it and was glad when we all started talking again.

We spent the remainder of our day showering, cleaning some of our things, and hunting for a place with wireless access.

We have been debating for a few days now whether or not we have the energy to finish the final leg of the trip we've planned out.  We've really enjoyed the time we've had and we're even sad to see it coming to a close, but, in all likelihood, we are going to cut the final portion of our route so we can get home and get some much-needed rest.  So, our revised game plan is to head north back up toward Louisville tomorrow morning and meet Jordan for lunch.  From there, we have a 4 hour trip up to Athens, Ohio, where Hannah lived for a few years when she was younger.  We'll camp in Wayne National Forest, check out Athens a bit, then head south to New River Gorge National River in West Virginia to spend the night.  Then, instead of heading further east toward D.C. and the Outer Banks, we're going to head on towards home, stopping along the way in Archdale to see Grandma and Grandad.  It's been a killer trip and we're having a blast, but we want to make sure we're enjoying ourselves, not running ourselves ragged just to finish out of sheer force of will.

The pictures we took while in the cave turned out blurry most of the time, and the ones that didn't don't really do it justice.  Here are some that did turn out!

(Not the entrance we came through today, but the original one that folks discovered)

(These are gypsum crystals that grow in ribbons because the high humidity in the cave leaches this mineral out of the porous limestone...I listened to the tour!)

(One of the big passages...these huge areas were all through the cave system)

(Flowstone and stalactites that make a formation they call Frozen Niagra)

Please Don't Feed the Wildlife

I'd like to start by saying that I hate Indiana.  I think most folks who visit Indiana feel the same way.  I also think that the state of Indiana knows this.  Take, for example, their state slogan as you cross the line into it, "Welcome to Indiana: the crossroads of America."  Most states try to lure you into staying or visiting on a regular basis with their slogans.

A slogan like, "The Grand Canyon State" says, "You've got to see this thing!"

Or, "So much to discover" says, "There's a lot more to see here than you'd think given that this is the state of Ohio!"

"America's Dairyland" just says, "Yep, we've got some good milk!"

I think it's fair to say that a crossroad is a synonym for an intersection...and I think it's also fair to say that if you park your car in an intersection you are likely in imminent danger of getting into an accident, or being ticketed at the very least.  No one wants to make their home in an intersection, and you'd never "visit" one unless you have to.  This is how I feel about Indiana.

On the much brighter side, we are in Kentucky now, and as of 4:00 central time, we are back in central time!


We drove past Abraham Lincoln's childhood home today.  

Finally, we drove on into Mammoth Cave National Park.

We found a decent campsite that isn't likely to flood, is surrounded by dense forest, and doesn't have any dead or weak looking branches hanging overhead.  We're expecting storms tonight and tomorrow, but so far God has been good to us by steering nasty weather away from us (or, more often, steering us away from nasty weather: Pensacola, New Orleans, San Antonio, Lake Michigan, just to name a few camps that didn't work out).  We've seen a ton of deer, turkey, and rabbits around.  See!

This picture doesn't really show it, but this deer looks terribly emaciated, as do most deer around the park.  Also, it was about 8 inches away from our car when we took this shot.  I've been hunting plenty and have seen bunches of deer out in the wild.  One thing that all deer seem to have in common is that they just don't like people.  Not these deer though...it was obvious that they're accustomed to being hand-fed.  

I feel bad for the poor deer though (very punny!).  Using my imagination, I bet their lives are really tough.  They have gotten so used to eating the oreos, white bread, oatmeal, and fruit roll ups that people willingly throw their way that I'm sure they've lost their taste for the grassy, dry taste of forest foliage.  As a result, they look as though they've subjected themselves to crash diets as they reluctantly munch on the nasty greenery, just waiting for some kind souls to continue slowly destroying their intestinal tracts with processed foods.  

Also, I could have easily killed this deer with a slingshot or just by reaching out the window and strangling it. The little learned behavior of approaching vehicles won't help them one bit when enthusiastic, deer-hunting rednecks first lay eyes on them.  

Well, tomorrow it's down into the caves!

Chicago was fun

The last two days have been incredible fun.  We happened to be in Chicago when the Taste of Chicago festival was going on, so Hannah and I got to try food from tons of different restaurants in a park only about 2 blocks from our hotel.

We did lots of walking around town and got completely exhausted from the heat.  Thankfully, there were some big fountains that tons of people were playing in that we could cool off in.  

That night, while I was trying to find a way to get on the roof of the hotel, someone walked into our room using a working card key.  Hannah just told the startled couple that the room was occupied and they left.  We didn't really think much of it until we got a call from the front desk around 10:30 at night.  They informed us that we had been checked out and that they had sold the room we were in.  I told them that we weren't going to be leaving since we paid for 2 nights and had a receipt to confirm this.  She acted as though she was being gracious when she said she was extending our stay...I asked if she was charging us a second time and she said that nothing would be changed on the billing.

Today has been one of the most fun days yet, except for when we checked out of the hotel.  As I thought, they screwed up the billing and charged us all kinds of wacky rates.  We finally got the manager on the case and he took us upstairs and essentially gave us a full refund for half of the charges.  We ended up paying a rate that is less than half of what we should have paid.  I defy you to find a hotel in downtown Chicago for $75 dollars a night... apparently the trick is to get your room sold while you are still in it!

Well, with that productive start, we were pumped to tackle the rest of day.  Our general plan was to head down to Wrigleyville (we found out that this is what the area around the ball park is called), find a place to ditch the car, then scrounge up some tickets to see the Cubs play the Diamondbacks.  Normally, parking around the ball park can cost anywhere from 20 to 40 dollars, but we just left the car at a meter for 5 hours without paying and it turned out to be fine.  Next step was to find tickets.  We were waiting in line and had just decided that we were willing to spend $30 per ticket on some of the worst seats in the house (top row, limited view) and if there weren't any to be had, we'd just head on out.  As we were waiting, this guy taps me on the shoulder and asks, "You guys going to the game?"  

Me, "Yeah, we are."

Guy, "Here, take these"  *Hands us two tickets*

Me, "Um, what?"

Guy, "Don't worry about it!  The mayor was coming to the game with us and had to cancel, so you guys can have these...we'll see you in there!"

We instantly ran across the street and bought Hannah a Cubs shirt and me a hat.  Then we ran back across the street and practically sprinted to our seats, which were on the 9th row!  

Right before the game was supposed to start there was a rain delay that lasted about 3 hours.  There was a tremendous amount of rain, so much so that large portions of the concourse flooded because of the amount of water washing in/because several drains started working in reverse.  This means that copious amounts of water were bubbling up and covering the floor in 3 inches of water.  Finally, the game started again and we got to watch a good portion of it before more lightening started up and another weather delay was called.  Regrettably, we had to leave because we had been there for 6 hours and really needed to hit the road.  

Here's a picture of the guys who gave away the mayor's tickets which run about $112 per ticket!

The original game plan was to head to a campground right on Lake Michigan, but the chance of thunderstorms was just a bit to high for me to have a clean conscience about taking my wife out to spend the night in an area at risk for high winds and lightening with a just a sturdy piece of nylon to keep us safe.  

We hit the road heading south and ended up in Lebanon, Indiana before we got too tired to keep trucking.  Interestingly, the GPS said it was going to be a 4 hour drive and we were confused when we beat that time by an hour.  We are back in the eastern time zone, but we'll be back in central time tomorrow when we head down to Louisville and Mammoth Caves.  

The view from our free ninth row seats at the cubs game!

"Singers", Pizza, and Buildings

We rolled into downtown Chicago today at around 5:00.  The traffic here is an absolute nightmare.  The best way to get around is just drive super aggressively.  I finally got parked in a garage and decided I'd had enough driving so I went ahead and swallowed my stinginess and left it there for the night...I may even leave it there until we leave.  It's just not worth the hassle.

Hannah found us a pretty cheap place to stay while we are here...it's by far the most expensive place we're paying for while on this trip, but it's also way cheaper than any other place around.  Plus, it's right in the middle of downtown and near the park, which is right on Lake Michigan.

After dropping our stuff we started walking to a pizza place that is considered a local landmark.  Along the way, Hannah recounted a weird conversation she heard.  There were two people talking in the lobby of the hotel.  The girl was just excitedly explaining something to the guy when Hannah approached.

"So I'm a singer!"

The guy replies, "Oh yeah?  What do you sing?"

*It's at this point that Hannah, or any other sensible listener, would have expected to hear a reply mentioning perhaps the genre of music, or whether this person was a backup singer or something...instead...

"I sing 'Jesus Take the Wheel' by Carrie Underwood!"

Hannah missed the guy's reply because she was so baffled by this response.  Just one song?

Later on, while riding in the elevator with two girls, one of whom took an inordinate interest in my feet (she made a lot of creepy comments), we heard them talking about how they were not looking forward to getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning.  We scratched our heads over that one too because, of course, everyone was getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning...we felt left out that we weren't going to.  We let this go too because of the weird feet comments she kept making.

When we saw dozens of people just sitting around the tiny hotel lobby, and all around the outside of the building, we worried that maybe we had accidentally rented a room in a hotel that doubled as a halfway house.  Our suspicions were strengthened when we heard many, well, the majority really, of these hoodlums singing.  Actually, we heard people singing in their rooms too.  Singing all different songs and as loud and passionately as if they were in the shower.

We discussed some of these weirdos but forgot about them when we got to Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.  I've never had pizza quite like it.  It was not within a hundred miles of being like Italian pizza, or the amazing pizza to be had at Venus Pie, or the Thirsty Fellow.  It was great, though, and it certainly lived up to its name of "deep dish" pizza.

Next we walked several blocks to Willis Tower.  This thing is just mind-boggling.  It is the biggest building in North America, and is even taller than the Twin Towers were...the New World Trade Center that's being built will be taller, but not quite yet.  We rocketed up the elevators at 50 miles per hour to the 103rd story (5 stories short of the top).  We went in the late evening after sunset so the typical 2 to 3 hour waits were non-existent. 

Naturally, the views were incredible, but the tower also has a little feature called the sky deck.  It's an all-glass enclosure that extends 4 feet from the building, letting you see the ground 1,353 feet directly below your feet.  I've got to be honest, it even made me a little nervous...it's just so counter-intuitive to look as if you're stepping off the side of a building that most people couldn't help but react in some way.  

(that's the box hanging out from the side of the building)

On the way back we were feeling pretty tired and enjoying the cool night air when we once again started seeing weirdos all gathered along the streets that our hotel is next to.  There were gaggles of people singing at the top of their lungs and we walked in laughing openly about one character right outside the building.  A guy with a guitar slung over his shoulder noticed us laughing and said, "I guess you're not singing, are you."  

"....um, no? That guy was real good, huh?" I say sarcastically.

Dude replies, "Oh you think so?"

Now laughing at the dude who is talking to me, "Ha ha...no! No he wasn't."

Dude says nothing...things get awkward.

Hannah breaks the silence by saying, "Is there some kind of audition going on?"

Dude rolls his eyes, "Yes..."

Hannah, trying her best be polite now, "Do you know what it's for?"

Dude replies, "Uh yeah...American Idol."

Now all the weird people, conversations, and singing that's been going on make sense now!  Apparently the big audition day is tomorrow, so Hannah and I are debating whether or not we want to make the 3 mile trek through streets and subways to laugh at people's dreams.

Chicago has been tons of fun so far.  I'd put it on the same scale as New York City in terms of size, but minus the trash and commodes on the sidewalk, 1/2 the number of hobos, and plus a lot more friendly people.

Saint Louis and Other Stuff

It's been a bit since we've been able to update, so here's what you've missed.  We wrapped things up at the campground outside of Saint Louis by going to see the petroglyphs (rock carvings).  The signs made a big deal about how cool they were and all the neat symbols you could see.  As I predicted, it was a disappointment.  Hannah put it best when she described the experience by saying, "I feel like I'm looking at a sonogram."

Anyway, we drove an hour and a half up to Saint Louis and powered through the whole city in a day.  We got to the arch and went to the top to see all the cools views.  Also, I've never seen Hannah so excited as when we got to the arch...she started speaking pure nonsense when we arrived.

(Hannah is the small person standing on the left side of the arch)

(See the clump of bushes and trees on the right side of the picture?  I had to hide my pocket knife over there because the folks at the metal detectors told me I couldn't bring it in.)

It's very easy to get away with free parking in Saint Louis...I guess the meter maids have their hands full and can't make their rounds very quickly.

Next, we went to City Museum, which is a 10 story building that has taken recycled stuff from landfills and made a obstacle-course-like play place.  There are not really any rules and you can just climb wherever you wish.  Some areas are better for young kids to play (we're talking like 16" diameter tunnels that run for 40 or more feet), and others are designed for big kids like Hannah and I to play on.

(Here's a good example of what the place looks like...doesn't that look easy to navigate?  We saw plenty of panicked parents telling their children it was time to go...the poor kids helplessly replied that they had no idea how to get out.)

(I think this is a smart way to break kids of their fear of heights.) 

There is also a 10 story slide which is exactly what it sounds like.  Here's a video of me going down it...I think the only thing you can really gather from this terrible bit of footage is that it's long and fast.  Oh and you end up down in a dark, basement-like area, so not only are you terribly dizzy, but you can't see a thing until your eyes adjust.

After this we went and grabbed lunch at a killer meat and three place called Sweetie Pie's, drove around the city some more, and got some frozen custard at Ted Drew's (thanks Justin for the suggestion).

Finally, we drove through East Saint Louis, which is known for its extreme poverty and some of the worst performing schools in the country.  It wasn't so much dangerous looking (there are sketchier places to be found in Spartanburg), but it was hopelessly poor...for example, most of the stoplights in the area weren't working and they had just tacked up stop signs at all these intersections.

We drove to our campground near Springfield, Illinois and enjoyed a nice view of a bath-water warm lake (nicer to see than play in).  

There's lots of corn around here.

Today we move on to Chicago.  We'll spend the night there tonight and tomorrow night and play in around the city during the day.  On Friday, the day we leave, we're hoping to catch a Cubs game, then drive to a campsite in Indiana alongside Lake Michigan.  From there, we'll finally start heading south again.

The view from our campsite outside springfield illinois

CUSTARD!

At the arch!

Driving in Missouri

Yesterday we packed and ate lunch at Neely’s Barbecue…it was good but Rendezvous Barbecue was way better.  We hit the road for Saint Louis at around 1:00.

We only had a 4 hour drive but we arrived at our campground in Washington State Park feeling terribly exhausted.  We thought about it and realized that we’ve been in/through 10 states in only 12 days and that we’ve been moving at a break-neck pace.  This has mostly been due to the fact that we’ve been so excited to see new places but ever since our drive from Austin to Memphis we’ve been beat. 

Over dinner at a lousy “pizza” place in downtown De Soto, Missouri, (population 6,400) we settled on a game plan to get us back in action.  We were out of clean clothes and needed a day just to rest and go at a slow pace, so today we’ve just stuck around the campground doing laundry, walking some easy trails, shaving my head, and playing in a river where we found a water moccasin.    

The temperature has been fantastic since we’ve been here…we left Memphis and it was holding at around 97 degrees, but up here in the Ozark “Mountains” (they’re just big hills where we are), the temperature dropped by 20 degrees. 

See the mountain?  Me neither, but I'm told that I was standing on one.

God has really answered prayers by keeping all the big storms in the area away from where we are camping.  It wouldn’t have been too fun to spend the night in the car because of high winds or lightening.

So the park ranger at the place we are staying is a very unyielding person.  The camp host warned us that he was handing out tickets the other day to drivers who were going 15 miles per hour instead of the posted 10 mph speed limit.  All he does all day is drive around his little kingdom in his park ranger car and see if anyone has stepped out of line.

Our game plan is to head to Saint Louis tomorrow.  We are about an hour southeast of the city so we’ll get up early and head there straight away.  We plan to spend the day playing around the city, then we’ll either head out of town and find a motel/campsite to stay in between Saint Louis and Chicago, or, if we still want to stick around for a bit, just find a place within the city to stay so we can get in some more time the next day. 


A couple of fun facts about Missouri: no matter how fast you are speeding, locals will always tail you; the state must have saved a fortune in road paint because most of the small roads we have driven have no lines, just big grooves cut in the middle to warn you when you've crossed to the wrong side; many highways have names like "CC" or "DD" or "NN" instead of names like "William Wallace Avenue" or "Highway 63"; there are petroglyphs in this state park...I think they are just carvings in stone that Native Americans left, but we haven't been by to check them out...I'm prepared to be less than impressed; finally, there are several animals here that we have in South Carolina, like the gray tree frogs I caught, or these fence lizards that my kids at school caught...but then there are also guys like this that are neat too:

Memphis

Yesterday we woke up, ate some breakfast in the room, then started driving around Memphis to see stuff.  We parked in downtown and decided to walk around for a bit.  We were good sports about it until about 30 minutes in...the heat was just awful.  We've had hotter days on this trip, but we haven't been anywhere where the air was so humid and stagnant.  We stopped in a couple places and looked around (like the Peabody hotel, where they have ducks that swim in the fountain in the lobby!) but eventually retreated to our very sketchy hotel.

On the subject of hotels, I'll give Hannah credit on this trip; even though we've been in more hotels than we like due to heat/the impossibility of finding a place to camp, she has saved us a ton of money by being willing to stay in some seedy areas.  For example, in San Antonio, we heard several gunshots throughout the night.  The place we're staying at now doesn't look so bad until you notice the marks on the door that looks like someone took a crowbar to it trying to pry it open.  Also, the shower will probably give you athlete's foot

We did some grocery shopping for stuff we were running out of, then headed back toward downtown when things were cooling off a little.  At Justin's suggestion we ate at Rendezvous, which is a barbecue place.  For the second time on this trip I believe Hannah and I enjoyed some of the best food that can be made by man.

                                   

Today we head out for Saint Louis.  We were really hoping that the heat wave would be over today, but it looks like we'll have to wait until tomorrow.  We are camping in a town about an hour south of the city called De Soto

I'm Tired of Driving Places

Yesterday we got up at a decent time, packed, and hit the road by 10:30.  We then proceeded to drive for nearly 12 hours and traveled about 600 miles.  We should have finished sooner but we did stop for lunch, then Arkansas had closed down two interstates that we were driving on and that added a lot of time to the trip.  I hate Arkansas roads...at one point the traffic came to such a standstill that everyone was starting to get out of their cars.  I took this as a bad sign and soon found out that a large portion of the interstate was closed down, so they were diverting all traffic onto the next exit that was still 2 miles ahead and that we would have to take back roads for a long time.  Given that there was still 2 miles of completely stopped traffic between us and the exit, and that we were still about 2 hours from Memphis, I drove the car through the median and pulled a U-turn to go back to the previous exit.  We then back-tracked through small farm roads parallel to our route and passed a lot of the merging traffic that was getting off the interstate.  After about 25 miles of backroads, we finally were able to get back on.

Directly after this we hit the 2nd big storm of the day and Hannah managed to get some cool snapshots of the lightening on the horizon.

That is 100% of the barely noteworthy stuff that happened...not too much fun stuff to mention when you are just driving all day.  Here are some cool pictures of lightening though!

The Alamo, Barbecue, a Rodeo

Today was tons of fun.  We woke up and headed to downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo.  Locals there take that place seriously...by this I mean that there were signs that said, "This is hallowed ground.  Quiet please.  Gentlemen, remove your hats."  In general, folks from Texas take a lot of patriotic stuff seriously...more on that when we get to the rodeo.

After leaving the Alamo, we did something that we've not done since we left Spartanburg:  We actually traveled north on an interstate!  We're excited for this because the heat wave is supposedly ending soonish and Texas has searing heat.

We went to the hill country outside of Austin and ate at the Salt Lick.  No kidding, this may have been the best meal we've ever eaten.  All of the meat is cooked over these huge stone pits like the this one:

It was so good, I felt compelled to buy a t-shirt there...and I never buy t-shirts at full price!  

Next, we went to downtown Austin to stop for a rest break and eat some rocket tots.  

That's Austin...

Anyway, drove a little further north and went to a rodeo.  Most folks we saw were dressed in typical cowboy attire; boots, fancy leather belt, fancy cowboy shirt, and big ol' hat.  We stuck out.  Everyone there looked dressed well enough to be going to church.  I guess rodeos are fancy events??

The whole things started with a 10 minute salute to the troops.  Then we moved on to some indoor fireworks and big American flags being waved around by red, white, and blue cow girls.  Then it came time for the singing of the National Anthem.  The announcer introduced the singer by saying, "It's been called the greatest song on earth!"  I'm not sure who is supposed to have said that, but I can guarantee that that person was an American who had never traveled abroad.  

Then came the pre-rodeo prayer.  Here is a fairly accurate quote of what was said, "Dear Lord Jesus Christ, sitting upstairs, smiling down on us here in the Lone Star State, in the greatest nation on earth, America..."  Hannah and I were laughing pretty hard but got kind of scared because everyone else around us was in hearty agreement with everything that was said.  Those folks LOVE America.  

The events were fairly fun to watch.  The first was mutton bustin', which I believe anyone on earth could enjoy.  Who wouldn't love seeing kids under the age of 6 holding on to a bucking sheep for dear life?  We also saw calf and cow wrangling, bucking broncos, and then bull riding.  

Here's a video of one of the events.  It was funny how he just man-handled that poor little guy. 

Overall, we didn't travel too far and made lots of stops along the way.  We plan on heading out tomorrow to drive through Dallas, then head north and east toward Memphis.  If we make it all the way to Memphis tomorrow, that will be a 9 hour drive...if we just aren't feeling like it, we'll either stop in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Atlanta, Texas.  

One of the best meals we've ever eaten and absolutely the best bar b que we've had. This is at a place called The Salt Lick in the middle of the hill country around Austin, Texas

I found a good looking lady by the river walk.

Remember the Alamo, boys!

Day 7: San Antonio

We packed up camp today and got to visit the Johnson Space Center.  Hannah acted as though Christmas had come.  We got to touch a moon rock (only one of 8 in the world available for touching), see a Saturn V rocket, see a space shuttle, and got to go to THE mission control room...like in the movie Apollo 13...and like the real-life Apollo 13 too.

Next we drove about 4 hours west to San Antonio and have officially completed one third of our trip.  It has been BLAZING hot lately.  Last night, sleep came slowly since the temperature and humidity were both around 90.  We were kind of relieved when we called every campsite we could find around San Antonio and heard that they were all booked up...except for a KOA site, and they were asking $36 for a piece of grass to put up the tent with no water or electricity.  We paid just slightly more and got a motel about 12 miles west of the city.  

We ate at a restaurant called Los Barrios tonight that had some killer Mexican food.

This was our plate of 5 different enchiladas and they were GREAT!

Last, we headed toward downtown San Antonio to check out the fireworks for the 4th of July.  There were thousands of people all over the place and after circling around for a bit got to watch the best firework show Hannah or I have ever seen.  Everything was shot directly above downtown and it went on for about 25 minutes. 

That's a pretty blurry picture, but you can see the Tower of the Americas to the left and that seems neat.  As you can probably tell by the writing today, I'm getting tired.  Tomorrow we plan on finally heading north where we hope to find some cooler temperatures.  We've heard that the heat wave is supposed to subside a bit over the weekend.  We'll plan on going to Belton, Texas (north of Austin) to see a rodeo, then we will probably stay in Temple.