Howdy y'all from Texas!

We done did cross d'State lyne t'day. Okay, we can't keep it up for a whole post, but we've actually been talking to each other with a southern drawl since we got here. A few surprises about Texas (at least for us). We haven't seen anybody carrying a gun, they really do talk weird, but everyone is super nice (the sign didn't lie).

We left our hotel this morning after an unusually hearty breakfast on the house. The 1.5 hour drive out of New Mexico was much the same - arid, prairie-like, abandoned homes, cacti and tumbleweed. It is odd that things seem to change so quickly when you pass from one state to the next. Coming into Texas, the desert was replaced by beautiful cotton fields that look like countless snowballs growing on sticks. The cotton tends to blow in the wind and accumulate in the ditch so we pulled over to pick up a soft cottony souvenir. Ouch! The one Catherine selected was embedded with burrs. Livia was inconsolable for quite some time because mommy got an ouch - sympathetic child that she is. The cotton is gathered up into huge blocks by cotton-picking machines.



Also intriguing were the new cacti we found as we crossed into Texas. We thought they were small ball-shaped cacti so we pulled over to see and we found instead - wild watermelons. No joke. There are piles of little watermelon growing all over the side of the road. Dan wanted Catherine to take one, but perhaps sobered by her burr experience, she declined. People in Texas have guns, we thought to ourselves, maybe these watermelons belong to somebody. Also, we weren't sure they weren't a poisonous cousin of the tastier ones that grow in grocery stores.


We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Texas for a restroom and diaper break. Here we met our first real Texans. Mostly, they're old, talk weird and friendly. We made friends with two of them (Joey-Bob and Marie-Sue - okay, we didn't actually get their names). Livia was running around the restaurant (we let her get away with that to encourage her to blow off steam before sitting in the van for another 5 hours - helps slow the muscle atrophy), and one of the old, friendly Texans suddenly jumped out of her booth and yelled, "boo". Amazingly, Livi didn't cry, and we sat and had a nice conversation with this older couple who recommended a nice zoo close to our destination.

So that's what we did. It was lots of fun and made our journey, once again feel like a holiday. It was really great to see Livia make friends with the animals (like "Bob" - the bobcat - "Hi Bob! Bob, come down!! Bob eating grass"). We (Dan and Catherine) definitely have mixed feelings about Zoos...the most exciting exhibits are also the saddest ones. It's hard to see the hawks perching on trees with no room to soar and huge cats designed to run and hunt with no opportunity to do so. The most spectacular animal was the Bengal tiger. He was so big and majestic looking (the biggest cat in the world we were told) but he looked weak and flabby from his confinement. At any rate, it was still very fun to introduce Livi to animals in real-life and we are planning a prison break tonight.

Cougars (and Livia)

Dan got a kiss from the Giraffe.

Awesome Bengal Tiger

We arrived in Weatherford, checked into the hotel and headed out to dinner at the closest thing to a homemade meal - good ol' Cracker Barrel. Tomorrow we are off to Louisiana. Till then, have a g'night y'all!