Thursday, July 19, 2007

Monday, July 16, 2007

Vacation

It's been 2 weeks since the last post - we have been traveling along the Gulf Coast, through South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana. I finally am back online with time to write.
R and I left Dallas July 2, and drove to Port Arthur, then along the Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.
I was through LA and Mississippi in July of 2005, just prior to Katrina and Rita, and it's hard to believe the change the hurricanes wrought. Texas and western Louisiana were trashed by Rita. There are FEMA trailers everywhere, trash piles along the road, and lots of empty foundations where houses and businesses once stood.



Although we avoided New Orleans, we drove soth from Slidell along the coast to Biloxi, where the bridge it still out. R hadn't seen the coast in 30 years, but I remember pre-hurricane, and boy, has it changed. Except for the casinos everything is gone. If you didn't know any better you'd think the casino's were spared the wrath of God, since they are pretty much all that's standing along the coast.



The bridge at Biloxi is still out, so we left the cost and went up to Mobile.

After leaving Florida we drove through Georgia, and saw the fires around the Okefenokee Swamp. It burned and incredible amount of land. Back in April when it started we were driving through Atlanta and saw the smoke:



Since April it spread across southern GA, and we saw the results outside Waycross.


We ended up in South Carolina with Elizabeth.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Houston





We went to the rehearsal dinner and wedding of R's niece in Houston this past weekend. The wedding was really lovely, short and sweet. The reception was fun, good food and wine, a little dancing and plenty of pictures and conversation. I wish the newlyweds luck.