And we were walking in Memphis

Well that was quick! Sorry for leaving you hanging, but we've completed our trip and are now home for the summer. The last leg of our journey was a bit rushed due to persistent rainy weather and strong thunderstorms. Starting near Houston, the rain followed us through Louisiana and up the central U.S.; seeing as though our budget was designed around the price of campsites rather than motels, we decided to hightail it back to Madison cutting our trip short by two or three days. Still a wonderful experience, we'd like to tell you about some of the things we did before returning home!

Our last entry left off right before San Antonio. We had a great time visiting the Alamo and cruising along the famous San Antonio River Walk. Kelly treated us to a fancy dinner at a nice little sushi place and we enjoyed a lovely evening stroll through HemisFair Park where the city was putting on the first of many movies in the park. The greatest part about San Antonio can be summed up in this picture:

It may not look like much to you. But it was one of the most hilarious moments on our entire trip for me. It started innocently enough. A couple of cute little ducks started swimming near Kelly begging for some of her ice cream, of course she couldn't say no. Ignoring the sign that said "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS," she started tossing a few waffle cone crumbs toward the ducks. A couple more ducks joined in for a treat and then a few more. Eventually we were surrounded by ducks and when we looked down into the water noticed tons of huge fish who were also trying to get some ice cream in their bellies! The funny part happened when Kelly got a little too comfortable with her new duck pals and tried to feed one hand to beak.  Inevitably, the duck snapped for the piece of cone and got the whole finger! OUCH! Don't worry, it's worth a good laugh because Kelly says it was more shocking than painful. 

After San Antonio, we headed to a suburb of Houston to visit Kelly's aunt. We had a short but very sweet visit and were introduced for the first time to margaritas...tasty annnnd intoxicating. The next day was spent in a cute old town shopping district. We wandered in and out of shops and around lunch time searched for an egg salad sandwich. After sitting down in one restaurant, ordering a round of waters, and asking the waitress if they had egg salad, we decided to awkwardly ditch the place after finding out that chicken and tuna were our only options! Eventually, we found our egg salad sandwich in a tea-party style restaurant and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and hanging out. We were very grateful for the time spent with family and sad that the visit had to be cut so short, but started off for New Orleans the very next day. 

I'd have to say that New Orleans was my favorite part of the trip. We had been looking forward to this stop for months after finding out that we could time our trip just perfectly to be in the city for their annual Cajun-Zydeco festival. We spent Saturday in the French Quarter where zydeco music filled the streets along with the seriously delicious smell of creole spices and crawfish (gross, I know...but they smell SO GOOD). We sat out a brief afternoon thunderstorm reading our books (we're both reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, very good!) in a coffee shop and then explored more of the festival area. Overall, a wonderful time -- we will definitely be visiting again! 

After New Orleans, we started our power drive up to Wisconsin. We drove up the entire state of Mississippi in an evening and landed 20 minutes south of Memphis when we decided to pull into a motel around 11:30pm. We spent the following morning walking in Memphis and ate breakfast at a place called Cockadoos. Now, I have to warn you. If you ever go to Memphis and get a craving for sweet potato hash browns, DON'T go to Cockadoos. I was so sad. We went their specifically for this dish and ended up eating two bites and nearly spitting them back out! Very disappointing. (They did, however, have the most amazing thing: French toast sandwich filled with peanut butter and bananas topped with whipped cream and blueberries..umm YUM). 

We then drove for 11 hours through five states. It went very quickly and we got to see the St. Louis arch from a distance. Two or three days earlier than planned, we made it back to Madison and are now catching up on laundry, jobs, and life. Oh, and I got a new bike yesterday. It's purple and shiny and I love it. 

Thanks for following us on our journey! :) 

Might as well be walking on the sun...

Greetings, Earthlings.

Okay, we only spent half a day there...but half a day in Roswell, NM might be half a day too many. By the end of our visit, Kelly and I were convinced that the city was actually inhabited by aliens long before the 1947 crash. You see, after many, many secret landings, someone got sloppy. Humans started investigating the crash and created a big hype. The aliens were smart enough to know that humans would flock to any place where "UFOs" had been spotted, so in order to cover up their crash landing, they deliberately leaked the truth, opened some shops, and established the alien capital of the world! Who'd believe you if you said you saw an actual alien in Roswell? No one! See, their plan was (is) perfect. 

In other news....

We did find actual pie in Pie Town, New Mexico. Thank goodness! We were routed there via a 12 mile long, BUMPY dirt road. Thanks to the abundance of coffee from Ancient Way that morning Kelly had a dire need to pee the entire time, so, needless to say, the journey was less than pleasant. We came upon what seemed to be Pie Town but could only find churches and dilapidated houses; where was the PIE??? Seeing as though we still needed a bathroom, we decided to hit the highway and find a gas station, giving up on our dream of eating pie in a town named after the sweet pizza. Fortunately, there was a whole colony devoted to pie right down the road from Church Town. Stopping in a diner called the Pie-o-neer, we found an assortment of pies and -- thank you, loving mother of George -- a bathroom!

After this brief stop, we drove and drove and drove across the southern part of New Mexico. Without even planning it, we ended up at the Very Large Array near Socorro, NM. The VLA is a huge center for radio astronomy, it's well-known from a scene in the movie Contact where Jodie Foster sits in one of the huge antennas. Thinking about the data that these antennas collect definitely brought me back to my childhood and young adult years when I was obsessed with outer space. It's cool to know that my fascination with the workings of the universe is still alive and well, even if I have taken a hiatus from the constant study of such things.

Let's see, I wrote about Roswell above so I guess the next part of our journey brought us into Texas. We knew we were close to the border when we started seeing oil drillers spread out across the landscape. Black gold. Pretty much immediately after entering the great state of Texas we saw a "tea party patriot" bumper sticker, woohoo! We also discovered the grossest thing in the entire world: highways completely overrun by huge locusts!! EWWW! At first, we thought they were crawfish, but there's no water, so that didn't make a whole lotta sense. We got the scoop from the State Park volunteer at our campsite in San Angelo. Apparently, locusts aren't that uncommon down here and, besides cars, their lives are threatened by TARANTULAS! Great, let's keep camping here please...

We're heading into Austin and San Antonio tomorrow. The beautiful rural landscapes have been nice, but these city girls are ready for the...city. hmm, thought I could make that more poetic, but you get the picture.

:)

ps. we're in a Barnes and Noble right now and the cashier is talking to a man about how she always lets tarantulas go when she catches them. The man said he always lets the rattlesnakes go too and then started telling her how to recognize a snake that's 10 times more poisonous than rattlesnakes. ummm, I don't think I could live in the South.

pss. it is HOT down here!!!!!

Over the River and Through the Woods (anyone have a grandma in NM?)

Well here we are. Last night in Gallup, we're sitting on the floor in a packed up room and trying to eat all of the contents of the fridge before we leave in the morning (don't worry, we planned for this so the fridge was mostly empty...).

We have a few more things to squeeze into the already full car but we're mostly ready to go! We'll take off tomorrow morning bright and early and head to our favorite spot in New Mexico: Ancient Way Cafe. Kelly discovered this little hippy haven in the middle of the desert pretty much immediately after getting settled down here. It's been our favorite spot ever since. One last taste of Ancient Way's delicious green chile and scrambled egg breakfast, a cup of coffee and we'll be on the road to Pie Town. Supposedly known for its scrumptious  pies, Pie Town has captured our stomachs' attention for many months. This will be our first time visiting and we're hoping to bust the rumor that Pie Town does not, in fact, have pie any more, a rumor Kelly picked up along the way and one that we really, really hope is nothing but treasonous slander against the most awesome place ever.

After (hopefully) consuming some Pie Town pie, we will settle our butts back in the car for the 5 hour drive to our final destination of the day: Rosewell, NM -- All-American City and UFO capital of the World. We'll camp there for the night and in the morning, TEXAS, HERE WE COME!...if we don't get abducted, that is.

To our dear friends and family who are following us on our journey, we have one small request: please think us cool thoughts. We will be driving through 95-100 degree sunny days and despite the better sleeping conditions, -- especially compared to last year's roadtrip (sleeping in a tent when it's below freezing...brrrr) -- Wyo, our little black car, gets pretty darn hot! If you have some time in your day and wouldn't mind sending us a few mental snowflakes and an arctic breeze or two, we'd be much obliged. :)

Stay tuned!