Dallas Detour…

We decided to spend the next day in Dallas as opposed to Baton Rouge. We had been told by our hotel in Baton Rouge that the city was flooded, there was no power and a lot of the roads had heavy traffic. This made us make a very quick decision that Dallas would be more fun.

The decision to go to Dallas instead of Baton Rouge was a very easy decision to make, while it meant a longer drive time the day before, it meant that we could make it to the Texas festival with about half of the drive time the following day. Plus I had been to Dallas multiple times for work and I absolutely LOVE that city.

Although firstly I think Tyler needs to explain our breakfast experience at the Waffle House…

As for the breakfast the day before I figured I would show Robyn true southern redneck culture… so I took her to a Waffle House… any one who has ever been to one of these knows immediately what I am talking about, to the rest of you the best way I can describe it is a small diner, with cheap breakfast food, and if they attract customers that have a full set of teeth or haven’t served some sort of prison term they are lucky. Ironically the food is great though, and it makes for good people watching J

In Dallas we partied like cowboys. We went to a dance hall (Red River) where everyone wears cowboy boots and cute dresses. There is a mechanical bull that you can ride and there is a dance floor that loops around the bar, so couple or varying degrees of skill level dance the night away.

We stayed in a lovely place in Dallas, where we able to actually get a good night’s rest and a wonderful shower. Yah for Dallas!

Red River Dance Hall, TX

Red River (google image)

I think the highlight of our Dallas trip was the red river dance hall, being a country music fan I absolutely loved this place, I was also excited to see Robyn enjoyed it and even took a turn on the mechanical bull. We tried our best to Texas two step, we failed, and we laughed and had a good night. 

The results of riding a mechanical bull

Two States at once…done

We even stopped in a place called Texarkana, which is on the boarder or Texas and Arkansas (which by the way for whatever reason is NOT pronounced Ar-Kansas but rather ARKAN- SAW…it’s weird, I know). It was really fun to stand there and know I was in two places at the same time. Now I only wish I could be in America and South Africa at the same time!

I was not nearly as excited by this prospect of being in two states at once as my wonderful girlfriend was, we even went to the center of town where there was a sign by the exact point where the two borders touch. The line runs literally right through the little town. Outside of this point there was really nothing to write home about as this town was really small and looked like it was crazy boring. 

Straight towards the hurricane…

Our next stop was Little Rock, AR (Arkansas). Since hurricane Isaac was currently headed towards that exact area we were a little weary.  We did hit a few patches of heavy rain on the way down.

Once we arrived in Little Rock we decided to go out to eat, mistake #1 since it was pouring with rain and extremely windy. Mistake #2 was paying for parking in an area where you don’t have to pay on weekends. And by paying I mean Tyler had to stand outside in the pouring rain while using a stick-like thing to push dollar bills into a tiny slot, while I sat in the car laughing. Don’t worry, he got his pay back. After eating a delicious meals, we headed (I mean ran) back to the car, I was carrying my leftover box, I opened the door and as I stepped towards the car a gush of wind blew the door straight onto the leg. So, now I had my first ever hurricane injury. And that was mistake #3.

Tyler "paying" for parking

My injury :(

The hotel we stayed in was terrible! We had no power half the time, the toilet made a horrible noise and the shower was terrible!

However the next day we were ready to head on to our next adventure.

By the time the hurricane had reached Little Rock (which is pretty far inland) it had lost a lot of it’s power, and I think that is the part that surprised me the most because it was still a pretty hectic storm. I cannot imagine how powerful it was when it first crossed land. That being said I really liked Little Rock, Arkansas and would like to go back some day when it isn't raining 24/7. There was literally rain the ENTIRE time we were there because of the storm. 

Look REALLY carefully for "Little Rock" in white

Mural on one of the walls :)

Our trip to Texas…

After not being in Texas for two years, Tyler and I decided to make the big trek southwards. This started with a one night stop in St. Louis. Where I had the best tea ever, well the tea was pretty standard but the tea bag was awesome!

Given we had a lot of ground to cover in less time we literally drove into St. Louis, slept, woke up and left St. Louis. We did stay in a pretty nice hotel though, otherwise though it was pretty uneventful. 

Coolest tea bag ever

Fat Eat Buffet

Texting errors…

While sending various text messages to let people know how we were progressing, I realized just how sneaky my phone is. It’s like it thinks it knows what I am thinking (man that sentence was confusing.) For example when I text the word ‘care’ if I don’t watch out any of these words could come out ‘cape, card, case, base, bare, bard, acre . ‘Eating’ comes up as ‘dating’ and ‘eat’ comes up as ‘fat’. I try to type “I’m booking it” and either “I’m cooking it” or “I’m cooling it” comes up. “Furry” comes up as “fuzzy” which I suppose is a pretty even swap.

In theory doesn't sounds so bad but when you text a friend to ask “how ‘ Brian’ is doing” and “how is ‘ Asian’ doing” comes up, how exactly do you avoid the awkwardness? Luckily in this situation ‘ Brian’ is not ‘ Asian’. What about when you type “I will ‘see’ you soon” and my evil phone types “I will ‘pee’ you soon”. Hmmm. Then there is the awkward situation when you realize you just told someone you “love ‘avo’ on toast” and now they think you “love ‘bum’ on toast”.  

My phone also has this great thing where it thinks we are so nsync that it can finish my words for me. So it really annoys me every time I begin to type ‘yummy’ and my phone suggests ‘zumba’ instead. I see what you did there phone!

This is a growing issue even with me, given I have an iPhone and it loves to auto correct for me, I have only had one major issue, but otherwise it has been okay. My issue actually was quite embarrassing and happened when texting my mom. She had asked me to send her some information and she was bugging me about it, I wanted to text back, “just give me a sec” my iPhone apparently does not know slang so it autocorrected “sec” to sex and it was even smart enough to realize that if I were trying to use the word sex that the “a” wasn't necessary… so the message came out, “just give me sex” … something you surely NEVER want to text anyone, especially your mother. After doing some serious explaining the issue was resolved.  Apparently we are not the only ones with this issue though, there is a whole website devoted to these sorts of errors, and they are absolutely hilarious: http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

Strange streets…

Driving around we got to see a great deal of streets, towns, cities and lakes names. We also soon realized EVERY city or town has a Martin Luther King Jr road/parkway/street/ave. Here are a few of our favourites…

Weird cos it’s named after a country	Ridiculous Towns/Cities/Counties	Ridiculous Lakes or Wildlife Centers	Ridiculous Streets/ Roads/Avenues
(I understand why…it’s just weird though)	Tallapoosa County, AL	The Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge, VA	Hooper Dooper Ave, NY
Belfast, ME	Coosawhatchie, GA	Lake Sunapee, NH	Effingham Road, VA
Worcester, MA	Dumfries, VA	Contoocook River, NH	Witchduck Road, VA
Rome, NY	Chunky, MS		Hardscrabble Road, CT
Moscow, TN	Welcome, NC		Hungerford Road, CT
China, ME	Voluntown, CT		10 Rod Road, RI
	Braintree, MA		Nooseneck Hill Road, RI
	Canandaigua, NY		Gaspee Road, RI
	Cheektowaga, NY		Tick Tock Lane, MA
			Narragansett Ave, MA
			Kennebuckport Street, MA

Causalities on the trip…

Lucky for me this trip was not nearly as trauma filled as my West Coast trip.

1)      I lost my dragonfly from my belly ring 

2)      My flip flop broke and had to be retired

3)      Tyler tripped on I’m not actually sure what, but I laughed when he tripped and later when we past the same spot the memory made me giggle again (two for the price of one)

4)      Tyler spilled water on his pants while washing his hands in the bathroom in Nashville, and had to walk back to the table pretending he didn't look like someone who just peed on himself.

5)      Multiple bag injuries to both of us. From carrying our bags, loading our bags and even kicking or tripping on our bags.

6)      I walked into someone. No, not the little stumble where you delicately bump into them. I full on walked into a person who was standing completely still, I’m surprised he never fell over. Tyler sa the whole thing happen, started to warn me and then figured what’s done is done (although secretly I think it’s payback for #3)

As for #’s 3-5 I blame all the driving… yup I am still using that excuse. However… #6… this was one of the best moments of my trip. Robyn must have gotten into a zone where she had completely tuned out the world around her, I saw her heading toward the guy and figured she would turn and avoid him as there was still some space between them and he was standing completely still looking at something in a shop. Then Robyn began to pick up speed and get closer so I said to her, “hey careful, you are gonna run into that guy” but she still continued to walk at a normal pace. Given I was walking next to her I decided at this point that I would start to walk a little to the left so that she had room to slide over and dodge this guy, given she did not move an inch when I did I finally shouted, “HEY! LOOK O…”  and before I could get it out she smacked straight into the guys back… he looked seriously confused, I laughed, and Robyn looked at me and said, “why didn’t you warn me?!?” … to which I responded, “I did… twice”

Hotels ranking in order…best to worst…

Radisson, RI

Best Western, DE

La Qunita, AL

Days Inn, GA

Clarion, SC

Motel 6, TN

Rodeway Inn, MD

Motel 6, KY

Motel 6, VA

(this is from their website...pretty sure it didn't look like this!!!)

Feels like home, I guess…

We drove through part of it :) (Both have been there before)

We have previously visited Tom and Jena in Ohio before so this stop was more of a catch up on friendship, gossip and sleep more than a sight-seeing stop.

Ohio!!!!

We had a relaxed breakfast together before heading back to Milwaukee. My home away from home.

Along the way we stopped in Indiana somewhere for gas and lunch. Once inside, we ordered our food, *waited a while* and sat down about to start eating when Tyler suddenly realized he had left the car running. He had to run outside in the rain to go turn it off. This was also the coldest day of our vacation, so our Hull hoodies came in use.

The drive was long and relatively uneventful. But I was glad with the company in the car (including werid audio books!)

Road trippin'

I have no idea what I was doing or how I left the keys in the car with the car running as I have never done that before in my life, but I think at that point my head was a little cloudy from all the driving (does anyone else see this as a re-occurring excuse for me being scatter brained?) That being said as we sat down I looked out the window and saw my car with the lights on and thought I had only left the lights on… till I saw the windshield wipers go… whoops.

Our 5 things we are thankful for today…

1) Wonderful friends (Thomas and Jena Kubiak, Geri Abbott and Jennifer Abbott Clark)

2) New friends (Blake Vaden and Megan Harper)

3) Tyler Augustin for putting up with me AND driving *pretty* safely

4) My camera *although it's needs to go to the camera doctor tomorrow*

 5) Braden, Finn and Annabel…for making me feel so welcome when I got home :)

Thank you for reading about our crazy, amazing adventure! The next few posts are things we found funny, interesting and even silly on our trip – enjoy!

Of a GREAT adventure

Green Lake…

New State (or area of the state)

Breakfast with Richard and Marilyn, which was, amazing! Then onto a walk around Green Lake, which is so awesomely beautiful! The water is clear and the trees are lush. This is another example where the pictures will do more justice than any of my words.

Next we followed Marilyn, as she was going to show us and awesome shop. Just our luck, we missed the turn into the parking lot, so thinking we could just take the next one, we turned and discovered we were now on the highway. Oh bother! Lucky Tyler has Google maps so we pulled out the map and tried to re-route, the off ramp we were supposed to take was closed which means to get back to the shop took a little more a u-turn.

Finally we got to Wagman’s where it is impossible not to find at least 5 foods you love. There is the grocery section of the shop then there is seating where you can buy food from a salad bar of sort and dine in. I’m talking shrimp, mac and cheese, stir fry, strawberries, deep fried chicken, so many types of salad…and so much more! After gathering plenty of food, we settled down to eat before our journey to Columbus, Ohio.

By the way…Today happens to be ‘Women’s Day’ in South Africa, so I mentioned this to Tyler. He then told me he had put all the SA holidays into his calendar so he could wish me and read up about it, but this must have ‘fallen off his calendar’ cos he couldn’t find it anymore. Am I the only one that finds this phrase slightly funny?

Again at this stage it was nice to see some friendly faces ready to greet us and show us around. We had a great time taking a walk around the lake and sharing stories, the breakfast was absolutely amazing and I am still waiting to get a recipe on that! As for the shop that we went to I think Robyn explained it well, but that is a fat kids heaven, I was perfectly at home there.

So I am not sure where the phrase of something “falling off your calendar” came from, however I hear it a lot in the business world when discussing schedules. Apparently it isn’t something my girl friend is use to. 

Small space for two people…

New State :)

No, the title is not referring to the car. We decided since Vermont is known for Ben and Jerry’s (ice cream) and it’s scenery, we would combine the two.

We planned for a two hour kayak down the Lamoille River. Two hours always seems a lot longer when you are pulling your own weight across water using an oar. But we were able to see some ducks and scenery. We also managed to get stuck on the rocks numerous times, but so did the rest of our group so I felt a lot better.

After ending at the Boyden Valley Winery, we had some Ben and Jerry’s which was great.

Then we started off to Syracuse, in upstate New York…to visit Dave’s (my host dad) parents.

So what we learned is that we can spend 90+ hours in a car driving around the United States, however we cannot spend 2 hours in a Kayak together. That being said I would challenge any couple of any age to take that challenge, I want you all to spend a week and a half in a car together driving every day and not staying in any one location for more than 24 hours and then hop into a kayak and force yourself to work as a team for two hours and report back to me… I would say we performed pretty admirably ;)

On the road again

Taken with a disposable camera

Our view on the river

The river

Our 5 things we are thankful for today…

1) Dunkin donuts breakfast

2) Finding postcards in New Hampshire

3) Kayaking in Vermont

4) Ben and Jerry's

5) Pretty trees, lakes and mountains (on our drive to Syracuse, NY)

I forgot to mention the stop/drive through Concord, NH (New Hampshire) but the pics are below

Pretty  church

New State :)

Pretty house/building

Where lobster comes from…

Maine is where lobsters come from, so I figured what better place to eat lobster. It’s a little tricky and very messy, but I had done my research before travelling and had read a short article about how to eat lobster. Tyler stuck to steak.

Onto Vermont…let the adventure begin…

Our 5 things we are thankful for today…

1) Eating real Maine lobster

2) The scenery at Acadia National Park

3) Seeing a moose (it was a statue…but still)

4) The giggle I got (Robyn) seeing Tyler wearing a crown eating a burger king kids meal

5) Healthy Food (I found veggies, fruit and yoghurt *Robyn*)

I have had Maine Lobster before and honestly I am just not a seafood person, however I love beef, I think that comes from being raised in the Midwestern United States which is known for having tons of cows, and hence tons of beef. I did however have some clam chowder so that should count for something right?

Yummy!

So ready to eat up!

My bib, haha