Road Trip

So I'm backtracking a bit to give a quick rundown on what happened during our road trip. As most of you know, we safely arrived here in NOLA (New Orleans, LA) four months ago and I never published my blog, but in case you are curious, this is how it all began...

Carl and I and some of our spectacular friends all came out the day before we left to pack our ENORMOUS 18 wheeler in which we'd rented 8 cubic feet of space. We had that 8 feet packed floor to ceiling, wall to wall (it was really quite impressive). Our driver, Ronnie, gave great advice. Unfortunately, we learned from him that the truck would be arriving at the new place in NOLA on Thursday morning. Thing is, we weren't planning on getting there until Saturday morning. Oops! So that's really where the fun began.

After spending a great evening with my family in the Dido on Danny's birtday, we woke up at the booty-crack of dawn (5am) to call the moving company and find out if we could delay the delivery. No one answered (of course). While we waited we got the last few things ready, helped Grandma fill an Indian spice container (loose ends, right?), said bye to the doggies and hit the road right on schedule two hours late :)

We drove straight to Phoenix and arrived at about 1:30 pm. The moving company still had not called. We didn't know if we needed to drive to Texas that night (our next stop was Lubbock) or stay in Phoenix where we had friends to visit. Remember, we had to somehow cut two days off if they wouldn't change it. Finally, a few hours later, they called and agreed to one day earlier. So, a semi-stress relief, though it meant we had missed our Phoenix excursion (Arcosanti) and would have to miss our "fun day" in Austin. Boo hiss. All turned out well though as we got to hang out with Diep, Michael Ocean and their dog, Panda Bear, as well as go over to Jess Martin's place where she cooked us AMAZING homemade pizza! It was fantastic!

The next day we set out on our longest day - 12 hours. For all of you roadies who say that's not that long, bite me :). I hate driving, it was long. We had fun though. The entire trip we listened to Book 6 in the Harry Potter saga. It definitely kept us entertained! We arrived that evening in Lubbock, TX where we got to hang with the best of the Biggs - Stephani, Jason and their newborn (and I mean NEW born) Alexander. Oh, yeah, and their dog Sampson too!

The next morning, we got up bright and early (sensing a trend?) and drove on to Austin, TX. We stopped just outside of Austin at Lake Travis. A friend had suggested going to Hippie Hollows (a nudie beach) but due to time restraints (haha) Carl and I decided to pass and go to this awesome lakeside restaurant/bar called The Oasis. There we enjoyed delicious margaritas, an amazing view, some neat art, and the 103 degree weather. Okay, the temp was not enjoyable, but the rest was! Following this delightful excursion, we drove into town and met up with Carl's college buddy, Amanda. She helped us get the best of Austin including the Congress St bat bridge, a yummy Mexican restaurant, and a fleeting glance at the first-ever Whole Foods!

The next day, we took on the last leg of our trip. With only a few hours of HPot left, we knew we must end the journey soon! We got to stop in Crowley upon entering Louisiana where we got to see Carl's nephew, Ethan, who happened to be visiting his paternal grandparents. Then we continued on to our new home (with a short side trip to Target) arriving around midnight and slept soundly on an air mattress in the dining room :)

And that's the story of how we got to Louisiana...