Dallas, New Orleans, Houston

Hey Everyone,

I don't quite know where to start, we've been doing so much, and its been way too long. We're in Dallas right now, we've been here for 2 weeks, after going on a road trip to New Orleans and Houston. So we were in Dallas for 6 weeks before we left, and now we're here for another 2 months.

I've met some really nice people in Dallas, I even went on a camping trip with some of them. Paul stayed at home and I took Tallis, Ellery and Lindsay. The camp ground was right out of a movie. There was a big lake with this dock off the shore that all the kids were jumping from, the sun was glinting on the water and there were beautiful big native oaks and pines all around the lake. Unfortunatley I didn't take any photos, as I was too busy having a nice time. On the way home though, we pulled over for Lindsay to pee and found this old suspension bridge. It was this crazy old metal thing with wire hanging off all over the place and missing bits of wood on the ground. After watching the kids go across (with much tripidation) I found the nerve to cross too. It also looked straight out of the movies - heres a pic:

Also in Dallas we went to Medieval times, which was a dinner show where you sit around an arena, we were in the front row and really really close, and knights (in shining armour) had sword fights and did cool stuff on horses. Heres a photo:

It was very cool. Ellery had her birthday and turned 8. We went to Hurricane Harbour which is a water park that was huge. There were so many different types of water slides and stuff. There was a huge playground with water spraying off everywhere. Paul and the girls went on a nearly vertical water slide and Paul put his back out (again). I think I need to ban him from joy rides. But the best thing they had was called the lazy river. It was like a river that went in a circle, that I would guess was at least half a kilometre long, and it had this current that pushed you along. It was pretty gentle on the kids, so Ainsley could go in, the only thing was getting them off at the stairs (there were a handful of entrances). You had to get to the stairs before them, grab onto the rail, and then grab them as they went past, and put them onto the steps. Which was kind of hard with 4 kids. Anyway, didn't really matter, because I would have quite happily have stayed in there all day. I guess you could compare it to running while theres an industrial fan blowing behind you. All the fun with out all the effort. So Ellery had a great day.

Also went to the Fort Worth historic district, which was kind of like cowboy town. We watched some long horn cattle being herded down the street, the kids all went on a bucking bronco (hilarious) and through a cow pen maze. It was really fun. They had some authentic cowboy stores too. Thought briefly about buying myself some cowboy boots. They had some really nice ones with leaves and flowers sewn all over and in great colours. I really like the look of them, but just couldn't imagine ever wearing them, so I didn't make any purchases (they were also $600). They'd probably look nice on a mantle piece though. Or I could go as a cow girl to every dress up party for the rest of my life.

So that sums up Dallas, then we went to Houston. We went to the space centre which very cool. Saw a real life saturn 5 rocket. It was HUGE! Saw the mission control rooms. Went onto a space shuttle and learnt heaps about humans and space. Learnt all about what they've got planned next. Currently they're building an outdoor experiment area on the international space station, so that they can really do science experiments in space. Its not quite the same when they do experiments inside the station (apparently). Yet again I managed to get no good photos, because I was too busy. Also it was super hot.

In the last 4 weeks here, I don't think its been below 30 in the day. Today I got in the car and the thermometer read 49 degrees. Once I started driving it went down to 43. I'm really suprised that the components didn't start to melt. I'm pretty sure I was starting to melt.

Anyways, onto New Orleans. It was easily the most interesting city that I've been to so far. It was settles by the French and remained cut off from the rest of America until the the early 1900's (or something). We were staying at ahotel right in the French Quarter, which is the historical area, and the entire area is listed as national heritage. Heres one of the streets:

The place was a little bit like Amsterdam. As Paul very nicely put it, there were 25 flavours of sin. Our hotel had a couple of brothels next door, and apparently the busty lady that stood out the front was part man. You're legally allowed to walk the streets with alcohol. And Bourbon Street, they would shut off at night, and it became one huge party. Every second shop was either a nudie bar or somewhere to buy huge amounts of alcohol. There were numerous stores had like 20 super size slurpy machines lined up behind the counter, with many different flavours of margarita, that sold in only sizes that could be descibed as large. We got a baby sitter one night, and went down there. It was totally crowded and kind of crass and scary. But then we stumbled upon some great little jazz clubs that were really great. The audience totally got into it, and would cheer and whistle every time there was a solo. Even saw some jazz banjo which sounded awesome. Ended up having a great night and didn't want to go home.

We also went on a swamp tour, where they took us through a swamp on a boat, where they had all the swamp cypress with spanish moss hanging all over them. It was really fun, and there were heaps of huge alligators. The guy had this metal prong that he would put bits of sausage onto and the alligators would leap up and grab them off: At first it was really scary, I mean these alligators were jumping above the height of the rim of boat and easliy close enough to reach out and touch them. One was 15 foot long too. It didn't take a huge reach of the imagination to see one tipping the boat right over and the swarm of alligators laying into us. I settled down after a while though, when I realised how totally docile they were. The kids loved it. I really liked the scenery and the beautiful trees.

I also went to a couple of historic sugar plantation homes with Ellery. We learnt all about the slaves, and how the people lived. Heres a photo of one of the homes:

I really loved the huge oaks lining the path. The lady said that they're more than 300 years old.

It was pretty horrifying hearing some of the stories of what the slaves went through. You've really got to wonder what could have been going through the minds of the slave drivers. No wonder Africa is so screwed up, white people basically took all their working men over for more than a century.

Anyway, thats about it for now.

Cheers,

Nic