I'm Back!!

It's been almost a month since I last posted. We arrived back in Sacramento June 13th after being on our vacation road trip for 29 days. We drove over 6,173 miles. We visited family in LaPuente, CA; Phoenix, AZ; Ft. Worth, TX and Enterprise, AL. We had layovers in El Paso, TX; Big Spring, TX; Pearl, MS; Baton Rouge, LA; Webster (Houston), TX; Austin, TX; Sonora, TX and back again at El Paso. We visited family again in Phoenix and LaPuente before finally arriving home.

We spent 3 days in Ft. Worth with our son, Keith. This visit was probably one of the highlights of our trip. We had an absolute fantastic visit. I've posted pictures of our visit in Ft. Worth on my other blog. Gerry and Keith went out on 2 days for a nice bike ride along the bike trail that goes along the Trinity River. I have some pictures to post on my other blog of those rides. We visited the Stockyards, the Japanese Tea Garden in the Ft. Worth Botantical Gardens and ate at some really fantastic places.

We had some thunder storms getting across Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Entering Mississippi it rained so hard, we were doing 20 mph on the interstate with our emergency flashing lights going. The other cars on the interstate were doing the same. The windshield wipers were not doing much good.

We drove down to Destin, FL from Enterprise, AL to see the Gulf of Mexico. That part of the Gulf was beautiful, the water reminded me somewhat of Hawaii. Beautiful green and turquoise farther out from shore.

We did some sightseeing in Louisiana, visiting a plantation, going on board the USS Kidd anchored on the Mississippi River and driving north along the Mississippi River to the town of St. Francisville. We took a ferry ride across the Mississippi River and then drove down on the west side of the river back to Port Allen where we were staying. We also visited an Acadian Village in Lafayette, LA that was on our way to Houston.

Leaving Lafayette we drove down to Holly Beach, LA and followed the coastal highway along the Intracostal Waterway into Texas. While in Webster (Houston) we toured the Johnson Space Center at NASA and drove down to Galveston Island where some of the destruction left by Hurricane Ike could still be seen. The gulf along Galveston Island is not as pretty as it was in Destin. We took another ferry ride over to the Bolivar Penisula which is across the Intracostal Waterway and Galveston Channel. The destruction left from Hurricane Ike was pretty intense there. It was a long 2 plus hour ride back to Houston from there so we turned around and got back in line to take the ferry back across to Galveston. That was a very long day.

In Austin we stopped at Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop (Lance Armstrong's bike shop). Gerry bought a bike jersey there and we got our grandson Nathanael a LiveStrong hat. From there we drove about 45 miles north to the historic town of Salado to go to Stamp Salado. An AMuse Art Stamp design team member who lives in Austin told me about the shop. This was the neatest shop. I will have some pictures to post in a later post.

Our visit to Enterprise, AL was the top highlight of our vacation. My grandson's graduation was fantastic. There was a slight delay in starting the ceremony to wait for a thunderstorm to pass over. After the rain stopped, a beautiful rainbow appeared. Our visit there in Enterprise was great and we were happy we made the trip to be there for his graduation. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I got to spend with Denise (my daughter). It was fantastic "mommy/daughter time". Also got to spend some quality time with Rebekah and Nathanael (grandchildren) and Stephen (son-in-law) spoiled us at the coffee shop. And got to know Britta (grandson's girlfriend) a little better. She is a sweet girl!


So it's back to a somewhat normal routine. We've had lots going on since we got home and it doesn't look like it will slow any time soon. We've had two memorial services to go to, I am planning Gerry's 70th birthday party for later next month (our Southern California girls from LaPuente will be in town) and I am hosting a Shoebox Card Swap here at our mobile home park the end of August. And somewhere in between all of this, I need to get back to my craft table and get some cards made. Oh, I'm also going to be taking a couple of classes the middle of July with Julie Ebersole at The Paper Garden for AMuseapalooza week. This is when AMuse Art Stamps releases their new holiday stamps. I'm looking forward to these classes because the Shoebox Card Swap is a holiday theme and I need some new stamps/ideas for that event. :))

Thanks for sticking with me and I hope to not be so absent from this blog. :))