The rest of the trip... ;)
March 18th: Left Jackson TN early in the morning, and enjoyed seeing more and more flowers popping up along the sides of the road. Just outside Memphis, we saw our first flowering trees! The kids were very excited, but they kept getting more antsy in the car... can't blame them on the third day. Poor Ryan. I think he believes we are never going to be done! They also got to experience the bumpity-bump of the (red) Arkansas roads... I'm telling you, I think they MAKE those roads so bumpy on purpose to discourage drivers from trying to drink anything while they are driving. Not a terrible idea (but having been a pregnant woman on those roads, I can tell you that I did NOT enjoy it... if you're driving, you have to pee constantly from baby bouncing... if you're not driving, they just make you sick. ;) ) Having driven on those roads quite a few times over the last 7 years, and seeing the amounts of construction they've done and yet how bumpy the roads still are, I think Arkansas is just going to permanently stay bumpy. Anyway, today was our shortest drive - only 8 1/2 hours. We were so happy to arrive in the border city of Texarkana, TX (creative name, huh? They are also proud of their state name in Arkansas.... seems like everything has it in there somewhere... but I think the one that takes the cake is Arkadelphia. ;) ) Texarkana is actually a nice city with nice hotels, etc... we make a point of stopping at their Hampton, because it has the best free breakfast anywhere, beautiful pool, super-comfy, and has great military specials. So it is definitely something we looked forward to ALL day!
March 19th: FINAL DAY!!!! I think Ryan actually started accepting the car better, because he didn't cry when we put him in his seat, and only cried when he was hungry or frustrated (much less than the other days). I think he believed that the rest of his life was going to be in the car and he'd better start liking it. ;) The whole day was Texas. Texas, Texas, Texas. For over 10 hours. Flat and boring, mostly... and by the time we hit Dallas, those flowering trees we'd just seen yesterday morning for the first time (in Memphis) were already losing their flowers and getting leaves! So, apparently we drove "through" the season of spring in less than 2 days. ;) But, at least there is some green grass and those tiny Spanish oaks with little green leaves on them - the leaves never get big - and some flowers here and there... it's about the only time of year you will see either flowers OR green grass in most of TX. ;) (The eastern part, anyway... I hear the hill country is supposed to be prettier, but that is in western TX.) The kids thought that it was really funny that while TN had mostly black roads, the Arkansas roads were all red, and the Texas roads are all tan. We ended up having a lot of discussions about the colors of dirt. :)
Traffic was so heavy from Dallas to Austin, which covers several hundred miles... it was NUTS. It was almost like rush hour that whole time. Then we realized that Austin was having that huge "South by Southwest" week-long conference thing, which was probably not helping the traffic. Once we actually (finally) got into the downtown Austin area, we ran into a little slow traffic but nothing major. Heavy traffic continued from Austin to San Antonio, about another 2 hours... and then we were finally HERE!!! Our hotel (which we got SUPER cheap, thanks to the manager pulling some strings!!) is right on Interstate 10, right in the middle of the business district of the city. Super busy, tons of traffic all the time... huge corporation complexes surround us... (incl USAA, so that is cool.... never realized how many blocks that place takes up!) Tons of restaurants, stores, offices, etc...
What a difference from home, huh? It took me awhile last year to get used to being in the middle of "nowhere" and having to drive 30 minutes just to get groceries or get anything... but it has grown on me, and I really enjoy being able to see the stars (wow, what stars!) in the backyard, rarely having to deal with traffic, etc. The people up there are very friendly and everyone sticks together (sort of a must when you're dealing with feet of snow and temps well below zero much of the time.) Now, we are in the middle of EVERYTHING... so many stores, you can't even tell what you're driving by! It's one of the busiest business districts I've ever seen, incl in busy MD. So - though we are missing home - we are trying to look at this as an adventure, and are planning on enjoying being so close to everything we need... and are going to try to get out and do stuff before the weather gets brutally hot soon. :)
Thank you, St. Joseph, for getting us here safely and giving us a place to stay (on your feast day!) Please help Daddy during his training, and help us all grow closer as a family through the ups and downs!
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