Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a happy holiday season with family and/or friends. We spent the last few days of 2013 and the first day of 2014 on a long road trip from Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina to Texas. We had such a great time with my family at OIB for Christmas and ate way too much! We left OIB on a blustery day and didn't see the sun for the better part of the four days we spent on the road. I think we wore our sunglasses for thirty minutes total in four days! Today is a bit brighter, but very, very windy. Too windy for me even to check the beach here on North Padre Island, but it's supposed to moderate later in the day, so hopefully I'll get out there eventually. Barry did go out to the beach this morning but said the blowing sand made it pretty miserable. We crossed through a lot of states in our road trip. We could have made the trip in three days but decided to take a leisurely approach and do it in four shorter days of 5-6 hours each. It's just easier on us and Paisley. We spent the first night east of Atlanta, GA. The second day took us into Alabama, a new state for both of us. We spent the night in Mobile. Our third day on the road took us quickly through the southern part of Mississippi, another new state for both of us. Almost before we'd had time to blink, we were in Louisiana -- yet another new state for us. I'm sure it would have been really pretty in a different season, and with the sun shining, as the bayou scenery and long bridges were interesting. We'll definitely have to come back -- can you believe we've never even been to New Orleans? (Sorry for the blurry photos -- the cloudy conditions made it even harder than usual to take photos from a moving automobile.) We've both crossed the Mississippi River many times, especially Barry, but never this far south! Our fourth state of the day was Texas, where we stayed for the night just over the state line in the town of Orange. Orange County was where we lived for so many years in North Carolina, but this one sure looked different. This just happened to be New Year's Eve. We were in bed by 10:30, old fogeys that we are! Our final day of travel, New Year's Day, took us through Houston, which was impressive. Barry had been there, but I never had, and I guess I didn't realize just what a big city is is. This was one of the short periods of bright weather we had during the trip, which helped with the pictures. As we got further south, the clouds returned, the temperature dropped from mid-60s to mid-50s, and we arrived here on North Padre Island/Corpus Christi in a light mist. We're staying in a very nice one-bedroom condo a long block from the beach. Once the wind dies down, we're looking forward to enjoying it and hope to get some bike rides and birding in. The weather is not as warm as we'd prefer (though there are palm trees here!), but still much more tolerable than most places in the US at the moment. Hope you're staying warm wherever you are. Again, Happy New Year!
2 Comments
Paula Segrest
1/2/2014 09:00:40 am
Mobile!! In the other corner of the state, I see. I loved all the pics, y'all!
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Emily
1/2/2014 01:09:28 pm
Thanks, Paula! You were certainly in our thoughts as we crossed your state diagonally!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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