Just look at those beautiful sand dunes. The Gulf of Mexico is just on the other side of those dunes... and it's beautiful from the fresh ocean waters of the Atlantic. Taylor summarized the beaches from an interesting TX point of view. "You could walk in the sand barefoot without burning your feet or even getting any stickers!"

This was a business trip, but of course we'll take any opportunity to travel and learn about other places. Oh yes, Taylor had the duty of completing a state workbook that I threw together from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/. She had a blast with that! On the front cover, I printed a map of the US. She drew a line showing our travel and she colored in every state from which we saw license plates. We learned about the state flag (colored and discussed what the symbols and colors represented) state bird, state reptile, state flower... and anything else I could find on that website.

The trip was wonderful. We even stopped to get letterboxes along the way when time permitted. Letterboxing leads us to neat places we never would have found without it. When travelling, it sure helps you get a feel for the nature of the area you are travelling through. The interstate only reveals pretty much the same thing for hundreds of miles. Below is a pic of "Jackson's Oak" at Village Point Preserve in Daphne, Alabama. Here's an exerpt about this tree from the website:

Other bits of the area's history are hard to miss, such as one of the highlights of the trip, Jackson Oak, that towers over the park and is draped in majestic and flowing Spanish moss. It was in the boughs of this massive tree in 1812 that General Andrew Jackson gave a rallying speech to his troops before moving out for the famous Battle of New Orleans. Today a boardwalk leads visitors around and up to the tree. A kiosk here features an audio recording that recounts the story of this famous tree.

We had the opportunity to stay with Tom's favorite Aunt Virginia and Uncle Bill. :-) They have a beautiful home and yard... and the hospitality is unsurpassed. Tom says that's Alabama food and hospitality that no one can beat! The food was wonderful... and it was served on platters rather than plates. Needless to say, we left with full tummies and recipes to take home... and of course memories to last a lifetime.

The kids got to go to the zoo and one of the lovely white sand beaches. Thanks to our wonderful family, they were well entertained!

Welcome centers can be really cool, too. Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit the FL welcome center because I was bad and took the wrong road to Ft. Walton Beach. We sufferred the consequences for being eager to travel the scenic route. After all, when will we get to do that again? When it started getting late, I began to panic for fear of my rudeness of arriving so late to such a welcome home. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop making mistakes of immaturity. At some point, we must outgrow all of that, right? Well, I made it a point to be prompt through the rest of the trip. My sweet husband told me to take our time on the way back so we could be sure to see what sites we could see. What a guy.

Ah, back in TX... and the best welcome center yet! We figured we'd see something huge when we got there. Texans pride themselves in living in the largest state in the US.... so everything in TX has to be big. Who knew this visitor center (I-10 bordering... well, you can figure that out) is located in a TX swamp! The Blue Elbow Swamp was such a neat experience. They had a board walk winding through the swamp that was full of turles, a few water snakes, baldcypress trees... what an intriguing ecosystem we just walked into. It was truly a different world. It's one thing to study and quite another to witness what you have learned. To learn more about this swamp, check out this website: http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2003/sept/ed_4/

Ode to the love of learning!!!

Eager to take another trip! Let's go!