April 11 - 14

Thursday (4/11) was a very long day in the car. If we do this route again I think we’ll overnight in Fort Stockton instead of El Paso! We were on the road just after 6 AM and arrived in Cypress (Houston) just after 6 P.M. We took four ultra short breaks, and, I have to admit, I drove a little over the speed limit pretty much the whole way…  you can go 80 mph on this part of route 10 for a good long stretch, 75 most of the rest.

So we made good progress; and on Thursday that’s the only thing that counted. Of course there was a splendid reward waiting in Houston, if only we could make it there before dinner: a home-cooked meal by our friend Barbi - we know her and Andy from Destination ImagiNation -  who is studying to be a chef. I couldn’t resist!  Barbi and Andy invited us to sleep over while we helped appraise at the Texas D.I. State Tournament yesterday (more on that in a few minutes).

We drove this route 10 section from El Paso to San Antonio two years ago. I remember it as dry and grey, Henk thinks it was dark when we drove the part to Fort Stockton. I could look this up in the relevant blog post from that trip I suppose ;) . Anyway, the landscape now has plenty of green in it, and that made me happy. It looks like nature survived that long drought they had. As we went along we started to see a different set of flowers: deep evening sky blue ones (Texas blue bonnets, Barbi tells me), orangey red ones (Indian paintbrush), various yellow ones, yellow daisies with a brick red hearts, light pink ones, some variety of poppy, some purple and some lavender ones. It definitely is spring in West Texas!

By the time we skirted San Antonio there were plenty of trees in the landscape. No more arid landscape from here on, and much as we like the desert, we’re happy that we’re in greener parts.

Henk took over the steering wheel for a few hours when my eyes started to glaze over, then I finished the day’s driving. This is not our preferred method of seeing America, and once Henk is retired we’re going to drive less and spend more time admiring where we are and meeting the people that live there. Which is what we did Thursday night through this morning: we slowed ourselves down and soaked up the friendship and loving care at Andy and Barbi’s. We watched Barbi cook delicious food, ate delicious food, talked and laughed, snuggled with the mini-dog and with the 6 week old grandbaby, admired their beautiful home, and also spent a great day at the tournament.

The Texas State tournament (4/13) turned out to be bigger in size but otherwise just like New Hampshire and California, full of great grown-ups and creative youngsters, plus the usual amount of minor issues with the tournament site for us to tackle. We found out on Friday night, before the appraiser dinner, that our challenge (6” cars designed to run and stop precisely into scoring areas) wasn’t allowed to use the wooden gym floor. Obviously the 6” cars will damage the floor much worse than the squeaking basketball shoes of the players and the street-dirty sneakers of the audience? So tarps were put down, and the wrinkles will not sufficiently smooth out even if you leave them there for a week. Hmmm. The solution of the two men in charge was to cover the 20’x20’ tournament area with plywood sheets or something. Henk went along to Home Depot to help carry, and I went along to charm the evening manager into letting us return the sheets afterwards.  Which all worked out swimmingly. I really love Home Depot!

Meanwhile we missed the appraiser dinner. I found this out from two sweet volunteers, who then took off and bought us hot turkey and ham sandwiches. I don’t know their names - pity, because I think these two deserved a Spirit of D.I. Award!

Today (4/14) started with a leisurely morning and laundry. After a few tries we managed to get all our stuff back in the Prius, and we were off on our next adventure at around 12:30. We circled Houston clockwise, got back onto rte 10, and settled in for a good few hours of driving to New Orleans. Nothing much to tell about this stretch other than the 18 mile bridge that the highway runs on west of Baton Rouge. On top, cars; underneath, water and the occasional fisherman. Very weird. We made it to Metairie and the hotel at 6:30, refreshed a bit, had a cup of tea, and then we drove into N.O. for dinner.

Mistake: we drove. We needed to park the vehicle somewhere. Yes, there is public parking. Yes, it costs...

We found an empty table at Olivier's and had breaded eggplant, crawfish etouffe (sp?), jambalaya and catfish for dinner. Lovely little place not too far from the riverfront. They didn’t take too long either, which was a good thing; we were actually back at the car in less than 2 hours, so the parking was only $15. Would have been $25 otherwise. I guess we’re finding a bus into town tomorrow…