Road trip check-in

My little family is currently on the road, visiting some of the most interesting places in the US. Well, interesting to us, anyway. So far, we’ve stopped in Orlando, New Orleans, Amarillo, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Roswell, and Memphis. We are heading out to see a little of Memphis today, and then heading to North Carolina and finally, Atlanta, before heading home. We are so very lucky to have my sister and her family staying with our small zoo at home while we are gone, but we are seriously missing our fur and feather buddies.

The amount of driving is seriously insane, but the views have been amazing. As South Floridians, we assumed that the whole state of Florida would be flat, but we were surprised to find that North Florida was full of rolling hills. It was such the opposite of what people expect of Florida, full of farms and gorgeous trees, not just palm trees and beaches. 

As we were making our way north on I-75, we came within feet of being hit head on by a southbound SUV that careened through three lanes, hit the guard rail and was on it’s way to flipping over into our path. Thanks to my husband’s quick response, we narrowly avoided it. It was the scariest three seconds of my life, and when we were safely out of danger, I couldn’t help but tear up thinking of what could have happened to our family, and what did happen to the person/people in that car.

Louisiana was marshy, and New Orleans was…well, not quite what we imagined. It was not very clean, and didn’t smell great. Oh, and we didn’t know how many mostly-naked women would be on Bourbon Street in broad daylight, trying to convince us to take in a Burlesque show. Mind you, we were a family of four, with our 10 year old son with us. We had to get off the main street, and walk back to the hotel on another street to avoid that scene. Somehow, that kind of "attraction" is not mentioned in the tourist information. On a more positive note, the architecture and detail work of the buildings were awe-inspiring. Where we are from, our buildings are plain and kind of boring, so to see the lion heads and scrollwork on almost every building was fabulous.

From there, we drove straight through to Amarillo, TX. We stopped at the Cadillac Ranch to make our mark on the historic site. The Cadillac Ranch is located just off the main highway, and unlike most of the sights we would stop to see, didn’t require a entrance fee. We walked through the little gate

into a flat  and bare field, littered with hundreds of empty spray paint cans and lids. In the distance, we saw the half buried Cadillacs, completely covered in inches of spray paint, with about a dozen people already milling about, taking pictures and adding their mark to the cars. My kids and husband quickly joined in, adding what they could to the already inches thick paint jobs on the cars.

Then, we headed back to the car. Once there, we watched another car accident happen and my hubby went over to make sure there were no serious injuries. The driver had "passed out" (driver’s words) at the wheel and drove into the guard rail. Both of the people in the car were okay, but the car was going to need a body shop.

Then we headed out to the Grand Canyon… but I’ll leave that for another day. And, I’ll add more pictures later too

Hope you are having a great summer so far!

Eliesa