Freedom and Farewells!

We drove the short trek from Shenandoah to Washington DC for the last day of the trip. It was a fitting end to our great American tour! 

We walked around the White House, the National Mall, and had lunch in Georgetown before parting ways at BWI; where I picked up a car and made my way to Ocean City for some family and beach time!

Prior to this trip I thought I knew what America would be like. I was completely surprised by every state! I feel so lucky to have been able to see so much of this beautiful country and to have an amazing friend to share it all with! 

Smokey Mountains and Shenandoah

We left Nashville and headed east toward Pigeon Forge. We did all kinds of Dolly Parton research along the way and were thrilled when we finally saw this smiling face:

Pigeon Forge was wild. We didn't go to Dollywood but we had a gorgeous drive through the Smokey Mountains National Park. 

Once in Virginia we stopped to have a nice dinner and vote on all of our favorite things throughout the trip. We realized we had been to 14 national parks and 28 states! Some highlights from our "favorites" list were:

Favorite Activity: Sounders game in Seattle

Favorite Ice Cream: Strawberry cone in Navajo Nation

Favorite Geothermal Feature: Prismatic pool in Yellowstone. 

Our list is QUITE extensive!

We spent our last night camping in Shenandoah National Park; which was the perfect evening under the stars. 

One more scenic drive through Shenendoah and we were off to the nation's capital where we'd be parting ways. :-(

Music City

After a tearful goodbye to New Orleans we headed north into Mississipi.  We spent the night in Nowhereville, Mississippi at a National Forest. We were the ONLY campers in the place which freaked us out a bit. 

So we had some wine and cheese in the car and FaceTimed a few friends until we got up the nerve to pitch the tent and get a few hours of sleep. 

The next day it was on to Nashville!

Nashville was a great city. We were tired but still hit up Broadway with its honky tonks, shops, and restaurants. 

It was a great place to people watch and shop for cowboy boots!

I didn't buy any, but it was fun to see all the styles. 

The next day we went back downtown to visit the Hatch Show Print shop. Hatch Show Print is an iconic letterblock printing shop that makes posters for concerts, events, and businesses. It was awesome to see because there aren't many of these print shops left. We watched them make some new posters on the printing presses and purused the prints they had for sale. 

N'Awlins

We left Austin and made our way into Louisiana. As soon as we crossed the border we saw a billboard for the Gater Chateau so of course we pulled over to make some new friends:

The woman at the visitors center suggested that we take a more scenic drive into New Orleans. After grabbing a po boy for lunch we headed south past miles and miles of sugarcane and beautiful old plantation homes. 

The grounds of the plantations were amazing, but it seemed like only one really memorialized the fact that these places were run by slave labor. We toured the memorial museum at the Whitney Plabtation and then continued on into the city. 

We checked into our hotel and set out to explore a bit before it got dark. We stopped for coffee and beignets at the famous Café du Monde!

Then we went back to the hotel to change to head out for the night. We started by walking down Bourbon Street, getting a couple cocktails "to go" for the walk; including this "hand grenade":

We walked down to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop which is rumored to be the oldest bar in America. Lafitte's was great. There's no electricy and we had an awesome time sitting around the piano in the back room, listening to the music and chatting with locals and tourists. 

After Lafitte's we walked a bit further to The Spotted Cat where there was a fantastic jazz band playing! 

We stayed out enjoying the music for a while before heading back through the French Quarter to hit the hay. 

The next morning we headed down to the Lower 9th Ward to see some of the destruction that still remains from Hurricane Katrina. It's unbelievable how that neighborhood was destroyed and 10 years later it's still not rebuilt. You can still see the concrete pads and stoops that once led up to front doors and it's chilling to look at the flood wall and imagine a 15-foot wave crashing through. 

Before heading out of the city we took a self-driving tour of the Garden District which is home to beautiful mansions that once belonged to prominent members of society. 

New Orleans was such an awesome, unique place. I think we get what the hotel employee meant when he sang some Louis Armstrong to us:

"Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans?"

Deep in the HEART of Texas!

We drove south until we were about an hour outside of San Antonio. We had dinner and found a spot to make camp and sleep for a couple hours. The next morning we headed into the city. San Antonio is beautiful. It's clean and lush and historic. Had it not been over 100 degrees we would have loved to walk around and explore more!

We had a great breakfast at the Gunther House which was the home of the Gunther family who started the Pioneer Flour company in San Antonio in 1852. The home is now a museum and restaurant where Rachael claims she had the best pancakes of her life. 

We then drove downtown to see the Alamo. It was really interesting, but we wished it was curated a bit better to tell the story. 

Still it was cool to see the mission and the grounds where the battle took place. From what I could gather, in 1836 the Mexican army attacked the Alamo Mission which was being used as a base for the Texan defenders. The Texans lost but the cruelty of the Mexicans made the battle a motivator for revenge; hence the phrase: "remember the Alamo!"

After the Alamo we walked around a bit and sifted through a huge antique store before retreating to the car for a little AC. 

Around midday we went to visit with my old friend, Mary! We got to see her home and meet her awesome husband and adorable baby, Chloe. Chloe was smiling and laughing the whole time we were there. It was so nice to catch up with one of my best childhood friends. I'm hoping I'll get to come back to San Antonio and visit with her and her family and explore the city a bit more!

After San Antonio we headed north to Austin. We got sucked into a wine tasting when we saw a giant billboard for "WINE AND VIEWS!"  As it turns out the tasting was at the "Arc de Texas":

The wine was great, the views were great, and the guitar player was great. Best of all, it was breezy up there so we got a little relief from the heat. 

We had just been to Austin in October so we didn't have a pressing agenda. We had breakfast at our favorite taco stand, El Chilito! 

After breakfast we went to the city-wide yard sale. The yard sale was essentially a flea market, but we enjoyed poking around and even found a few deals! We decided that the 105 degree heat was more than we could stand to walk around the city too much so we got in the car to make tracks towards New Orleans!

Get Your Kicks!

After the petrified forest we drove to Albuquerque and from there we were able to hop on and off Route 66. It was awesome to see all the old buildings and businesses along "The Motheroad".

 We even saw a familiar face!

We drove through Tucumcari and saw all the neon which was very cool; classic Route 66. 

We spent the night in Amarillo and went to check out Cadillac Ranch the next morning. 

Next stop, San Antonio! We began our journey south; stopping at a couple junk stores along the way. 

I even picked up a hitchhiker:

Positively Petrifying!

We spent the night in Holbrook, Arizona and the next morning we got up early to have breakfast at Joe and Aggies on Route 66:

Then it was off to the Pertrified Forest National Park! We stopped at a rock store on our way and were stunned by how many geodes and pieces of petrified wood and fossils there were!

The park was awesome. At the visitors center the park ranger encouraged us to become Junior Rangers! So we went on a scavenger hunt through the park filling out the Junior Ranger booklet. It was actually an awesome way to see it all! 

The petrified wood was originally from the Triassic period. It was covered by sediment and fossilized. Then the continents shifted and the sediment eroded, exposing the fossilized logs. 

The colors of the logs were amazing. 

The area was also home to primitive native tribes. We were able to walk through the ruins of a 100-room pueblo.

The park is also home to hundreds of ancient petroglyphs! It was so cool to see these drawings and imagine the interpretations. 

The north side of the park once had Route 66 running through it. 

The telephone poles running behind this car are all that is left of the road in this area. 

The main attraction for Route 66 travelers passing through was The Painted Desert. The Painted Desert Inn was an adobe hotel that is still standing. It was acquired by the park and now is a museum of what it may have been like for the Route 66 visitors to the beautiful Painted Desert. 

We stopped by the visitors center before leaving to turn in our Junior Ranger books. We were sworn in, took an oath, and received official Junior Ranger badges and patches. 

We also had a good laugh at these clocks that perfectly illustrate our time change confusion over the previous few days!

Onward toward Texas!