Tony & Mary's Great Trek of 2001
Fireflies and 'Gators
and Whales...OH MY!!!
Fireflies and 'Gators
and Whales...OH MY!!!
The reason for planning the trip was unfortunately a sad one but we made the best of it and managed to have a wonderful time. As some of you may recall, Mary's mother passed away last January. She lived in the town of Lincoln in Talladega County Alabama. Mary flew down there the last week of June to pack up a few things and wrap-up some affairs. On July 2nd I flew down to meet her. On the 5th we loaded everything into a Ryder Rent-a-Bomb and pointed it West.
Of course, before we could hit the road we were treated to a wonderful down home 4th of July picnic with Mary's extended family. The setting was on a beautiful lake off in the pines where Mary's mother lived and where many in the family have double-wides for weekend getaways. The fare consisted of enough barbeque to put Tony Roma to shame...three kinds of ribs, sausage, three kinds of chicken, hamburgers, and hotdogs. There were many kinds of salad, jalapeño corn bread, cake, and a gallon each of chocolate, triple chocolate, strawberry, and strawberry-peach homemade ice-cream! Boy howdy did we eat well! The evening was full of fireworks (just about everything is legal there) from our dock and many others surrounding the lake. Fireflies added their own natural pyrotechnics to the event. We had to run for cover to get out of a down pour for about an hour. I mention this because of the irony that it was a rare sunny 4th back home in Seattle! The only other hitch to the evening was that I was eaten alive by mosquitoes and didn't realize it until it was too late.
The next morning we started our trek by heading for New Orleans. We were very lucky to get an incredibly good rate at the Fairmont Hotel. We were just a couple blocks from Bourbon Street and walked down there after getting settled. For those who have never been, all I can say is be prepared for one of the wildest streets you have ever experienced. Bourbon Street is for drinking Hurricanes in "go cups," loud music of all kinds, street dancing, and gawking at the store fronts of the sex shows. Family entertainment this ain't! There are other streets in the French Quarter for that. Whichever street you visit it is well worth it. We were too late to take it all in (a theme for our trip), but, late in the evening we made our way from the carnival that never stops on Bourbon and wandered over to Royal Street. It was much quieter and very romantic. The French Provincial homes and businesses with wrought iron rails and gas lights were intoxicating in their own way. Back on Bourbon we ducked into an open air restaurant in the hopes of finding good Cajun food. What we found can only be described as adequate at best.
The
next day our first side trip took
us to the Atchafalaya Basin in Cajun country. We left McGee's
Landing for a 90 minute boat tour of the swamp and were lucky enough to see wild alligators!
Bruce, the young alligator pictured, is about six feet long. The tour
guide explained that Bruce in particular is considered semi-tame despite living
in the wild. He is very used to the presence of the tour boats and came
out when called. The chicken parts that the tour guide tossed in the water also
helped. Bruce really was a ham and knew when the show was over. The
guide said "goodbye Bruce" and he turned and swam off. As we
were leaving that part of the swamp one of the other tourists noticed that "Big Fella"
was finally stirring and swimming out to greet us. He was not as much of a
showman as Bruce, but at 10 or 11 feet, he was very impressive! The swamp was extremely beautiful and full of life. In addition to the
alligators there were a variety of butterflies, huge dragon flies, white
and blue herons,
egrets, ducks, and among other vegetation, classic cypress trees with hanging
Spanish moss as pictured.
After our tour we planned to search for Cajun food once again. Believing that we surely would have no trouble finding it here in the heart of Cajun country our mouths had been watering all day! Back at McGee's Landing we asked for a recommendation. Unfortunately, we were sent to the restaurant where the locals must go when they get tired of home cooking! Thwarted again!
Feeling absolutely let down from lunch we climbed back into the truck and continued the drive to Houston. Around the border between Louisiana and Texas we drove through one of the worst deluges that I've ever been in to that point. I vowed that I was going to do violence to the next person that said, "I hear Seattle's nice, but, I don't think I could stand to live there because of the rain." HA!!! They get more rain in an afternoon than we get in a month! I will take Seattle weather any day over 95 degrees with 95% humidity with daily monsoons! But, I digress...
We arrived that night in the suburbs of Houston. Pulling off the turnpike (like a freeway with toll booths every 5 miles) we spotted, Mr. Mudbugs. It didn't look much different than TGI Friday's or the like, but, it did have a Cajun theme. So, we figured "what the heck" and gave it a shot. We had to go to Houston, to do it, but we finally got some good Cajun food!
The next morning we went
to Space Center Houston
which is the visitor center for NASA's Johnson
Space Center. Especially if you haven't been to a major NASA facility
or the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum the visitor center is a must
see. They have a variety of genuine artifacts of space exploration, lunar
rocks, and multimedia presentations including an IMAX movie. I always
get a thrill seeing such items as actual Apollo space capsules. However,
the highlight for me were the tours of the actual facilities of the Johnson
Space Center. There are three different tours included in the price of
admission. We saw the Historical Mission Control 
(pictured)
which has been restored to
look as it did in the days of the Apollo program, the new Mission Control used
for the shuttle, astronaut training facilities including shuttle simulators, and what amounts to the world's largest swimming pool where they do
EVA (space walk)
training. Because we went on a Saturday and there was no shuttle in orbit no one was working, but, it was still great to see everything.
If you ever get the chance to visit the Space Center you should try to go during
the week when there is some activity.
Back to the truck and on to San Antonio. We arrived rather late, but, we were still able to stroll along the River Walk. We had been told by a number of people that this was a "must see" and we weren't disappointed. We didn't spend any time in the mall, but, we did have dinner along the river bank at Casa Rio. It was a very good Mexican restaurant that has been in business since 1946. Our outdoor table was literally on the edge of the river. It was a very fun atmosphere with open air tour boats going by and lots of activity. The next morning we walked the two blocks from our hotel to the Alamo. It was well worth seeing.
After a lunch of Texas barbeque we headed off into the desert of West Texas. It was like driving through the scenery of a Western movie complete with saguaro cactus, arroyos (dry river beds), and red rock mesas. All that was missing was the cavalry charging over the hill. It truly had its own kind of beauty, but, after we had spent two or three days driving through it we were ready for something else. Civilization in particular. We spent one night in the town of Van Horn and that definitely did not resemble civilization. So far as we could determine its entire reason for existence is that it is about half way between San Antonio and Tucson and therefore a good place for motels and restaurants.
The next day we continued the trek through the desert. The scenery finally started to change as we got closer to the Rio Grande river, El Paso and into New Mexico. Remembering our bad luck with Cajun food, Mary consulted "Eat Your Way Across the USA" and found a listing for a couple Mexican restaurants for lunch. The first attempt took us off of the Interstate and into the chili pepper fields and pecan orchards. It turned out that restaurant was closed so we continued on to Las Cruces. There we found Nellie's Cafe and had some of the best Mexican food I've had in my life. If you ever find yourself in that part of the world I highly recommend it. They only serve lunch so make sure to plan accordingly. New Mexico and Arizona brought even worse rain than East Texas. It was amazing driving into an absolute wall of rain that you could see miles ahead. The lightening striking very near the truck was incredible. That night we stayed in Tucson with friends Mark and John and a small group of other house guests. Their home was beautiful and their hospitality was much appreciated.
The next day we entered the more familiar territory of Southern California...swimming pools and movie stars! That night we stayed in one of Mary's old home towns, Burbank. We were just down the street from Warner Brothers, NBC, Disney, and the Universal Studios back lot. We stopped there for an extra day and rented a red Camaro convertible so we could tourist in style! In addition to Mary having all the interesting information that you can only get from a local we hooked up with one of her former students who works in show biz. John is a script supervisor for a production company that does cable game shows and his partner was the assistant director for the Man Show. We passed up a chance to go to a party for the Man Show. It's just not our kind of show and we didn't have the clothes for it. We touristed down the Sunset Strip, Hollywood Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, and then into the hills of Bel Air. We had a listing of star addresses and drove by the homes or one time homes of Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Roddenberry/Majel Barrett (we got the best look at their home including Majel Barrett's Mercedes with vanity plates, "MAJELR"), the Reagans, Dean Martin, The Beverly Hillbillies house, Jim Backus, Alfred Hitchcock, Racquel Welch, Anthony Quinn...are you getting the theme that Bel Air is not the place for the new comers to Hollywood? The houses were incredible, but, truthfully what we really saw the most were the heavy gates and tastefully decorated and very high walls.
The next morning, very
sunburned from riding in the convertible, we made
a big right turn with the truck and started up highway 101, later highway 1 and the California
coast. While we enjoyed the coastal views and being back on the West Coast
there isn't too much to report on this part of the trip. The highlight was
seeing whales off of Big Sur.
It's hard to see, but, that white plume in the center of the water in the
picture is a whale spout. We estimate that there were six to ten whales
that we could see spouting. Once in a while we could see a bit of rolling
brown/gray in the water following a spout. Even without more detail it was
very awe inspiring.
That night we stayed in Monterey, but, we arrived too late to really see much of it. The next day we drove through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. We knew we would hit some traffic, but, we weren't prepared for how bad it was. We were in bumper to bumper stop and go traffic from the time we entered San Francisco until we got through Santa Rosa. We estimate we lost about an hour and 45 minutes in that mess. It went a long way to squash our thoughts of someday living in that area.
Because of the long delay
we got into redwood country when it was getting dark. That was rather
disappointing, but, at least we had both been in the area before. We spent
the night in Arcata. It is on the coast in Humboldt county. It is
beautiful country, but, the weather may be worse than in Seattle. It was
very gray and foggy. I'm told that is typical there even in July. In
the morning we went to breakfast with one of Mary's high school buddies, Dave
and his girlfriend Virginia. We had a very nice visit with them and they showed us
around the area before we continued the trek north. Once back on the road
we were able to see some red woods in the daylight.
Even having seen them before that is always an amazing sight.
We crossed into Oregon and now I was back in my home state. We followed the coast to Florence and then through the forest to Eugene where I went to college. After a night there we were back on I-5 and passed through Portland where we had a nice but short visit with my parents.
We knew we were home when we were leaving Eugene and people kept driving very slow in the left lane. Every time we'd pass them they would have Washington plates. We hit traffic south of Chehalis and were in stop and go driving almost all the way home. We listened to a Mariner's game on the radio as we drove. As wonderful as the trip was we were very glad to be in familiar territory and back home to sleep in our own bed.
To all of you that put us up or touristed with us, Mary and Bill (and the rest of Mary's family in Alabama), Mark and John, John and John, Dave and Virginia, and my parents we say a very big "THANK YOU!" We really appreciated all of your hospitality, help, and your company. We hope to see you all again in the not too distant future. We had a great time and we were glad you were there, we wish the rest of you could have been there too!
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Copyright 2001 by Tony Gianelli and Mary McGhee. Photos on this page may be copied or reproduced only with our written permission.