We decided we would start heading home this morning. It's Friday and we are about 10 hours from home (although add another hour with the time change). We figured another day and a half of driving.  We finished the last bit of the Trace, which ends near a cool bridge. This area (Nashville) was hit pretty hard with an ice storm last month, and there were still tons of downed trees and piles of cut up branches everywhere .  This wasn't a very exciting day, lots of miles. We made it past Cincinnati and stopped for the night at a state park. We don't need power hookups so I saved us $10 and we had this whole area to ourselves.  Geese galore at this park, lots of honking until the sun set.  We had hung out and watched the sunset, did a cool glow in the dark puzzle.  Had dinner and played some games and tried to go to bed early to get back on our normal bedtime. I was up early Saturday morning and ready to head home. I missed...

It unexpectedly rained early this morning. The campground being right on the Trace makes it easy to get going, just head north. There are pull offs with historical markers every 5 miles or so. When we drove this road last time we stopped at most of them. Today I just pulled it up on Maps as we drove by. We had a lot of miles to cover. We did stop at the Cypress Swamp for a quick walk and education.  Around lunch time we went into Tupelo to pick up some sandwiches (couldn't pass up going into the thrift store next door), fueled, and then back on the Trace. We found a nice place to pull over and ate. Just a few miles later stopped at the visitors center for some learning.  We ended up covering over 400 miles before we stopped for the night, this time at the free campground at the north end. About 30 sites in this one, less than half were taken.  We got set up, and I did what I do best which is collect firewood.  ...

We were up before the sun, and I stayed in bed while Joe moved us to a better spot closer to the water. After we did our morning things we headed out through Galveston. Not much activity this early in the day, but sure looks like a fun town.  Miles of beach, and at the north end a pier with an amusement park.  We had another ferry opportunity and we were excited to do it again. This trip was longer, just under 20 minutes, which was just enough time to get out and walk around the boat.  Back on land, about a mile down the road we passed a sign for Fort Travis, which prompted a u-turn back to a neat little park. There were a few batteries here, all locked up but easy to see inside, especially since I brought a flashlight.  We spent about 30 minutes reading the history and plotting our next steps  Past this area, the road ran directly along the gulf, and we made a quick stop to look for shells and cool rocks before ou...

We decided we would leave the beach today and not come back this time. I was starting to get depressed over how much plastic trash was covering the beach. This is what we picked up last night and this morning. Took the road north, back to Port Aransas, but this time we got on the ferry. This ferry is run by Texas DOT, and since it's considered part of the highway there's no charge. Probably the shortest ride in existence - less than 10 minutes from driving on the boat to driving off. We tried our best to stay near the coast today, but there were a few parts where that just couldn't happen.   Near Rockport, we came across this wildfire , it had started the day before but still was pretty big. Just before getting back to the coast, we drove through the town of Freeport, which looked and smelled like one big chemical factory, thanks to Dow. Luckily we got through there quick, and back to the coast. This section took u...

It's pretty awesome waking up already on the beach. This is an area we will come back to some day.  We got an early start and headed north into Corpus Christi. Our first stop for the day was the USS Lexington, a former aircraft carrier turned museum. We've did a similar museum a few years ago (USS Alabama in Mobile) so I had an idea of what to expect. We started with the lower levels, 4 levels down some pretty steep stairs. This boat was active into the 90s so they had more modern props set up than I expected (Men's Health magazines in the dentist waiting room, Rice Krispie treats in the captains personal kitchen).   Joe liked the model room of lots of boats, I got a kick out of the bathroom  This boat was huge, so big that they had entire rooms devoted to the history of  other boats. If you were really into this type of stuff you could spend days here watching all the movies and reading all the things. We were ou...

The wind last night was relentless, and continued in the morning. We had a pretty great view though. We left the vent lid open last night, quite the mistake. It's directly over the bed and I woke up to probably a cup of sand in the sheets.  We walked the beach, picked up trash, hunted sea beans.  I picked up all these caps in 15 minutes. Around 10 we left the park and headed to Port Aransas on the north end of the island. Drove around the town, this area feels like the outer banks. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that had old music videos playing on their TVs. After lunch, stopped at a small grocery store for a few things and then headed back to the beach. Went to the visitors center for showers, but they were only cold water and no heat in the building so we passed. The wind kept up all day, so we'd walk around outside for a bit, then back to Planet Express to warm up, play games, just hung out. 

We were up and on the road by 815, headed into San Antonio. I found the best deal on parking ($5 all day) and we walked a few blocks to get to the Alamo. It opened at 9 and we were one of the first people there.  I really should have brushed up on my Alamo knowledge. The majority of what I knew before getting there came from PeeWee.  We did the self guided tour and started reading, but still confused. This was a church, but then also the site of a battle? Luckily there was a docent there and she gave us a really great overview of the life of this building. Neat history, including the story of why there wasn't originally a roof (stonemason was having an affair with another guys wife, stabbed the other guy, got chased out of town, no one else knew how to build a roof that wouldn't collapse). After we had our fill of the Alamo, we walked about 2 blocks away to the Riverwalk. This was a really cool area, restaurants and bars line the river on each side. I b...