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”