One thing I didn't mention yesterday is that the people of Louisiana love their New Orleans Saints. It's the only football team in Louisiana, and a surprising percentage of cars, buildings and signs display the logo of these Superbowl champs. They even have Saints license plates available here. So, I guess it wasn't really a big surprise to wake up to breakfast in our western Louisiana hotel room and see this.
On the road today, the rain can't make up its mind. Like a tropical rainstorm, it's pouring one minute and then sprinkles to a stop. It reminds me a bit of when you rub your hands, clap them, pat your thighs and then stomp your feet to sound like a growing rainstorm. Have you ever done that? Whoever thought of that must have lived out here somewhere.
Not surprisingly, it's not difficult to find a Christian music station out here either. We even heard Christian music playing in the post office when we went to drop off some bills today. That one surprised me a bit. Someone would have had a royal fit back in Caifornia, I'm sure. Out here in eastern Texas they also have what they call no-cash tollways, which look like they might be paid carpool lanes. They run parallel to the freeway but have big signs saying you can't use them unless you have an EZ-tag. Sounds like the kind of place I would end up accidentally and get yelled at.
We've struck out on the sampling local food for a while now, eating instead at a favorite restaurant from home in Louisiana that turned out to be quite gross, and then skipping Louisiana food entirely because nobody like cajun or spicy foods (why, oh why didn't I think of getting some beignets??). I was convinced we were going to eat some 'Texas food' no matter what, so we stopped for lunch at a Texas Roadhouse to see what they had. (Please, if you're from Texas, don't attack me for thinking this is the best food Texas has to offer. I'm sure it isn't, but without any BBQ lovers in the car, we weren't set to be good judges of it anyway.)
We tried some fried pickles, which were ok at the first crunch but the sourness was a bit much after you chewed them for a while. They were much better with ranch, but I still only ate a few. K was the only one that would try them, and even then it was only because I gave her $1 to do it. She was also the only one who got something Texas-ish, with her bbq ribs. C and A got their chicken strips and mac-n-cheese staples, so they were no help. I had to pick up the slack and get a steak and shrimp dinner. When they found out it was our first time at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant, the manager brought us samples of the side dishes to try. The corn was fantastic, as was the mashed potatoes, and the steak fries were pretty tasty, too!
Even though it was really hot, the girls and I walked around outside for a little while looking for lizards. We didn't find any lizards, but they did find this cute little guy. He had shimmering gold metallic eyelids and he was quite sproingy, bouncing the moment you put him down on the ground.
Back in the car, we drove for a little while before eating some dessert we had bought the day before. Not a good idea. K had picked out this cool candy that was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (one of her favorites) topped with other things. One had a chocolate chip cookie on top, one had M&M's, and one had an Oreo (though they didn't use the brand names). It looked tasty on the package, but after a day in the car in the hot Texas sun, it didn't look so pretty on the inside. K was a good sport though, and ate them with a spoon.
Before
After
Cause
We began to look for a place to spend the night tonight and realized we weren't going to be passing through more than one state today. Why is Texas so darn big? It was nearly 880 miles across on Hwy 10, and that meant that we'd be here for a least a couple of days even though we'd spent the night just outside the Texas border last night. My attitude on this trip back across the country is completely different than the first time. Even though we moved just as quickly going east, we had all the time in the world and we were fresh and rested and ready for adventure. Now I just feel like I need to hurry up and get home, and although we still have time to see and do things along the way, our deadline date is looming in my mind and stressing me out a bit.
Somewhere between Houston and San Antiono I realized that all around me looked just like the landscape back home. Even though most of the area west of San Antonio looks just like New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern Calilfornia, for some reason this little stretch reminded me so much of the hills and valleys, and trees and shrubs back home. In this area, Texas also has a frontage road that runs right alongside the freeway. There aren't many exits so you often find yourself driving on the frontage road for a while before you can turn or get back onto the freeway again. The tiny little lanes going back to the freeway from the frontage lane are quite narrow and nearly impossible to see, so I missed them now and again, even though I was trying to watch for them. There's also quite a few ghost towns along the frontage road, which I think are pretty cool with their abandoned, windowless buildings. Their facades definitely evoke some sort of Wild West fantasies when you pass by them.
We entered San Antonio in the later evening, but I was glad we had arrived before the sun set. I wanted to see the Alamo and Mission San Jose before it got too dark. I already knew they were closed for the day, but I still wanted to be able to see them. Sadly, Mission San Jose had big fences up and I couldn't really see anything from outside of them. We did get to hear the bells toll for 8:30pm, though.
From this mission, it was about a 15-20 minute drive to the Alamo. I had read all of the online reviews that said the Alamo was such a disappointment and that it was right in the middle of downtown, so I wasn't expecting too much. But I still had to go and at least say I'd seen it, and be sure for myself that it didn't have a basement down there. (that was for Jaimee - if you haven't seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure, then nevermind). While I can't be sure if it did have a basement or not because the gates were closed here too (maybe we'll never know!), I did snap a photo and then went across the street to the gift shop to buy the pin and magnet to remember that we had been here. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting from the reviews. It was actually pretty neat.
By the way, in case you're like me and don't know anything about the Alamo other than that you're supposed to remember it, I read a little bit about it before we got there so I could tell the kids what the big deal was about it, since it is supposedly the #1 tourist attraction in Texas. Here's the extremely abbreviated version: the Texas settlers were living in Mexico-controlled land and didn't seem to have a big problem with that until the leader of Mexico at the time took on a more dictatorial stance that the settlers didn't like. They rebelled against the Mexican leadership and started to break away. The Mexican leaders weren't a fan of the dissension so they sent troops to take back control of the area (including the missions, which had been turned into forts). The Mexican troops obliterated the Texan rebels at the Alamo, killing all of them (except a couple who were sent to other towns as warnings). Even though most Texans had been uninterested in joining the rebels to fight against Mexico before that, the slaughter at the Alamo was just what they needed to convince them to join the rebel army in droves - eventually gaining enough strength to ultimately defeat the Mexican army. So, even though the Alamo was a major defeat for the Texans, it was a memorable turning point because the desire for revenge ultimately led to Texan freedom. "Remember the Alamo" was shouted by the Texas army leader when they attacked the Mexican army at a later date (as in 'remember what you did to us at the Alamo'). And there's your history lesson for the day. ;)
All around the area of The Alamo, horse-drawn carriages were giving rides up and down the streets. This one was particularly cute because he was wearing a little derby hat and pulling a carriage that had LED lights in the shape of Cinderella's pumpkin-carriage.
We also saw this bird on the way back to our car although we don't know what kind he was. Do you? We had seen the same kind near the USS Alabama in Mobile but couldn't get a good photo then.
Our hotel was just a little ways from San Antonio, in a town called Kerrville, Texas. Tomorrow we would cross the sprawling emptiness between San Antonio and El Paso.
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