It has been a relatively eventful month.
First there was Thanksgiving, when The Kid came home for a
few days and we got together with a few family members so we could be thankful
together. Thanksgiving is my
second-favourite holiday – it happens at the best time of the year and makes me
think about all I have to be thankful for – which is plenty.
Almost immediately after Thanksgiving, Jim and I left for a
fall vacation. We drove to San Antonio,
Texas and enjoyed driving through areas new to us on our way there and
back. It was a fabulous vacation –
although entirely too short.
I’m not going to bore anyone with details of the trip – I’ve
already regaled a few friends and family members with tales from the road; I
just thought I’d share a few things I observed.
· None of the states we drove through looked the
way I was expecting. Louisiana is not
all bayou; Texas is not all sagebrush and cattle ranches. I was surprised that as we travelled from state to state, the country looked remarkably
the same - we could have been in northern Michigan. (Don’t get me wrong – I really like northern
Michigan!) That didn’t meet my expectations
at all. There was one notable exception –
an elevated section of interstate through the Atchefalaya Basin in Louisiana went
over and through a mix of waterways, swamps, trees and I’m not sure what
else. And when we came back onto the
ground, it went back to the northern Michigan landscape. It was fascinating.
· As intrusive and damaging as it is, kudzu is
also fascinatingly beautiful. It covers
trees, walls, poles – almost anything, it seems – and transforms them into
fantastical forms and shapes.
· There are a lot of white vehicles in Texas and
Louisiana. I don’t know if that’s
factually correct – we just saw a lot of them, and concluded that there were
more there than other places we’d seen.
· Travel websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor can be
really helpful when you are looking for a restaurant or hotel in a strange
place. Don’t be put off by the
occasional nasty review – you have to look at the overall remarks. We used these sites often and as a result
were introduced to some really wonderful meals and accommodation.
· There is no better way to spend an evening than
on an outdoor patio with a margarita in your hand and chips and salsa on the
table - unless there’s a plate of seafood stuffed jalapenos on the table
instead of the chips and salsa. That’s
what we had in Galveston where the patio overlooked the Gulf of Mexico and we
could watch dolphins and pelicans while sipping our drinks and nibbling the
jalapenos so that they didn’t disappear too quickly.
· Old hippies go to Galveston. At least that’s what we surmised from the
number of bongs and hash pipes we saw for sale in the historic downtown stores.
· Southerners really, truly are friendly and hospitable.
· Sometimes the best times are those you haven’t
planned.
· Best t-shirt I didn’t buy – “I may not be
politically correct, but I am right”.
