On The Road Again


Day 2—Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana


We laid out the atlas at the breakfast table and planned our route for the day.  In a flash of insanity, we declared our intentions to cross Texas in one full swoop.  Judging by the laugh of the motel clerk, a Burley, ID native, we knew we were in for a long day.


We got a decent start at 8 am.  The kids were full and happy—for about 45 minutes.  Then someone had to pee. And someone else was hungry. Resettled, they found their happy places and we got going.


We crossed into Texas and it was so….Texan.  They are so unapologetically themselves.  I love it.  


We stopped at Cadillac Ranch, an area where someone has buried cadillacs nose down in a field.  Bwahahaha.  Right off of Route 66!




We punched through some more of the state and stopped in Childress at a legit dive for lunch.  It was SO good.  They are not kidding about Texas BBQ!  
From there we made our way towards the top of the state.  Our plan was to hug the top of Texas so we could do a quick jog into Oklahoma and check it off. J  A five mile jog into Oklahoma got us this:



We had decided that since we were in Texas, we should crank up the 90's country tunes.  I happened to find an awesome station on Amazon Music that played hit after hit from my high school days.  The three of us belted out the tunes at the top of our lungs while our horrified children looked on.  So many laughs and memories.  It made the next two hours fly by.

We had promised the kids ice cream so we made a quick stop in Paris, Texas at a little ice cream shop. While driving around trying to find the freeway again, we happened upon an...interesting...area of town.  Careening around the corner was a guy on a bike with his chainsaw.  None of the houses were fully intact. It was quite the scene.

The clouds opened up and dumped buckets of rain, but we barreled forward and crossed into Arkansas.  We pulled into Shraveport, LA at 11:00 last night.

Our two longest days of driving are behind us and we feel like our vacation is starting now. The drive has not been nearly as terrible as I thought it would be.  All three of us have our own headphones and we find ourselves retreating into our own worlds for a while.  It’s been nice to plug them in and check out for a while, but knowing that the kids have someone else to bug if they need immediate help.  

We have no interest in hanging in New Orleans on a Friday night, so if we can’t get there by this afternoon, we’ll go in Saturday morning.  
Day 2 has come and gone and so far I’m having a blast!  It’s amazing to see how different everything looks compared to home. 

Except for the rain. That has remained a constant. 

 The kids have been amazing! So much better then I could ever have hoped!

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