Tag: road trip

What we did in July

I feel like July was another busy month. I definitely drove a lot. I mean, I went to three different Buc-ee’ses. (Not sure how to pluralize Buc-ee’s.)

The boys finished up the classroom portion of driver’s ed. Still waiting to schedule their road time with the instructor. In the meantime, we took them to drive around a few times. Only sort of harrowing. And at the end, they were only sort of mad at me for laughing so much.

There was the fourth of July (nothing exciting, the boys were at a sleepover, I watched fireworks through the bathroom window), then the boys went to the beach for a week with Grandee and Larry and I spent some time in Terry’s pool. I also made a bathing suit top real quick. (The Sandpiper from Helen’s Closet)

I drove to Orange Beach for a couple of days at the end and spent some time by the pool before bringing the boys home. We tried fishing but spent more time watching sharks and sting rays and a blue heron.

Then this past weekend, I took the boys on a short trip to Atlanta to see a pro soccer game. (Atlanta United vs Cruz Azul, a team from Mexico.) We had a great time.

We stayed the night in Birmingham on the way there to see Mary Catherine and her people, and it was wonderful. Don’t tell the boys, but it was my favorite part of the trip. So nice to see friends. Of course we got a picture of the boys with Millie, and I got to catch up with Ann Fran. It was all very lovely and for a minute, we all wanted to move to Birmingham.

Then we headed to Atlanta, and went to IKEA on the way into town, then relaxed in the hotel room (it was storming), then the next day, wandered around downtown. We went to the World of Coke, which was entertaining, and the boys gazed longingly at the College Football Hall of Fame, and then I felt terrible for not taking them there instead but it was $30 a person and also, for me, snoozarooni. But Miles got a hoodie, at least.

That evening was the game, which was at the big fancy stadium where hot dogs were $2 and giant refillable sodas were $4. Glorious to this cheapskate. I was rooting for the other team, and they won in a penalty shoot out, which was so nerve wracking it reminded me why I don’t really like sports.

(I guilted them into lots of group pictures, heh.)

And then yesterday we wandered around Georgia Tech, snuck into the stadium, then drove home and that is July!

Other random things: we discovered Miles has a silver spot in his hair; Ziggy is still cute; we did not escape the escape room; the broken door finally got replaced in the vanity, so it’s done!

August means the start of sophomore year of high school! Eep!

A visit to the Rosebud Motel (sorta)

There’s a cool store in Hattiesburg, Mississippi called the Lucky Rabbit that seems to be obsessed with Schitt’s Creek as my friends and I are. So Jen, Stephanie, Terry, and I made the two hour drive yesterday to go!

Here we are at Mardi Gras last year! So fun.

Anyway. There’s a little “Rosebud Motel” set right there in the store, and it’s pretty amazing how detailed it is, if not completely accurate. (For instance, Moira’s wig wall was not really in David and Alexis’s room as it was here.)

Me on the left, David on the right, in case you didn’t know.

Wide shot of the whole room

(If you need more pictures to see what the actual room looks like to compare, well, just go to Netflix and start at episode 1 and watch it again if you haven’t already. Or even if you have!)

Is this Schitt’s Creek or is it life?

Because suddenly I find myself living indefinitely with my family in two hotel rooms, squabbling siblings included.

The 'Schitt's Creek' Motel Is For Sale: Photos of the Real Rosebud!

Okay, fine, we’re really staying in a Courtyard by Marriott on the outer edge of Houston and we’re probably heading back to Louisiana soon.

16 years ago I was blogging about our evacuation from Katrina, so I figured I should probably blog about this.

We booked hotel rooms on Thursday but for Sunday and Monday nights, reasoning that we could cancel them if we needed to. Well, we didn’t need to, but we did need to tack on Saturday night. Good thing, because if we hadn’t left Saturday we couldn’t have.

We packed up the car with a few changes of clothes (you’d think I’d have learned from Katrina?) and the boys and Ziggy. After 11 hours of winding back roads, torrential rain, horrific traffic, and a lot of snacks, we made it to our hotel. (Normally it would be 6 hours.)

Yesterday a friend went by our house and checked for any possible damage. The news was good! A few ridge caps from our roof are missing, the shed fell over, and the top half of a tree came down. We won’t know until we are able to get back in if we have any water damage or something else, but fingers crossed everything inside is okay.

We will stay at my mom’s for a while – we have no idea when power will be restored to the city. But Baton Rouge isn’t in great shape either, which is why we’re staying in Houston as long as we can afford to.

So yeah, that’s where we’re at. At least this time we don’t have to re-plan a wedding!

(More random evacuation photos.)

The Great Road Trip of 2019: Part 2 (off the road)

So I’ve already blogged about the two days we spent in NYC as well as the fun we had getting to Virginia. But most of our trip was actually IN Virginia and we did a lot there, so I need to post about that now!

So uh let’s see. We arrived in Virginia Thursday night and were all pretty exhausted. Dinner. Wine. Sleep.

Friday we walked to Chipotle for lunch. Then we got ready to go our first professional soccer game. The boys were very excited. We went to Audi Field to watch DC United play New England something. I can’t remember. The boys got free scarves! The sunset from the stadium was gorgeous. Anyway, ultimately the game ended in 2-2 but we didn’t mind because it was exciting.

Outside the stadium
In front of the field – check out Miles’s new “smile”.
Beautiful sunset view. Look, the Washington Monument!
Linus
Miles
Ollo

Saturday, the boys and I drove to my sister’s in Clifton. It’s about half an hour from Kiki’s, and it’s a pretty drive if you take the shorter (I think) route but it’s also windy and hilly so I prefer to take the boring highway route. I know, it’s bad but what can I say?

I’m going to put the rest of this behind this link. There’s a lot.

The great road trip of 2019, part 1

I already blogged our road-trip-within-a-road-trip, and now it’s time to post about the rest of it. I’d better start with Part 1: Getting to Virginia.

Kristina flew down Sunday night, and we spent Monday getting ready for the trip. Packing, laundry, making sure we had a plan for our roadside attractions. Oh, and eating delicious meals at Picnic Provisions & Whiskey and Molly’s Rise and Shine. Highly recommend both. Also visiting Terry and taking the boys to Dollar Tree to pick out road trip snacks (I gave them each a $5 budget.)

Monday morning, we hit the road with my new cargo bag on the roof. First stop, the giant catfish in Slidell! (Huge thanks to the website Roadside America for all of our stop ideas.)

A couple saw us pulling off to take a picture with the fish, and thought it was hilarious, so pulled over as well and offered to take a picture for us. Thanks anonymous Slidell couple!

Lots more road trip adventures inside!

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor…

…well you know the thing they say about the USPS. The same could be said of the boys and soccer.

Their tournament this weekend in Alexandria (a smallish town 3 hours from NOLA) was cancelled at the last minute, but me being the cheapo that I am, booked our hotel room via hotels.com instead of the team travel agency. And of course it was non refundable. So we decided to make a road trip of it!

And so I find myself sitting in the car while the boys play in the rain (only a mist right now, but it had better get worse later since they ended the season early for this, breaking little hearts all over the state) at a park that Ren found for us. THANKS RENNY!

The exciting part of the trip for me comes tomorrow when we head an hour north to Natchitoches, the small town where I went to boarding school for nerds (LSMSA) for two years. I am hoping it will spark an interest in the boys, like when my sixth grade science teacher told me about it. (Thanks Mrs. Schucker!)

We’ll be getting a tour of the school on Monday morning but tomorrow we’ll wander around town and I’ll tell them about all some of the hijinks we got up to. And we’ll eat meat pies and get drive through daiquiris, just like the old days. Well, maybe Sonic slushes for the boys.