Louisiana through Arizona

We've seeing a lot of new areas lately. We left the snow of WV behind

and ventured south. Our first stop was Chattanooga where we saw a Erich and Emily from this summer at Roger's. But we woke up to rain, so we bailed. We headed south and covered Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi (first time there! Nothing interesting on I-59S. Oh, except, I swear a poultry truck somewhere ahead of us had a hole in it because the over half of the roadkill looked like white chickens), and Louisiana. We checked out a bayou
Early the next morning we decided to check out a scenic route that we hoped would let us see a couple more swamps (and maybe an alligator!?) and a beach! Turns out, the only free way (as in, not a boat tour) to see swamps is driving down the freeway.



The beach road had pretty fields, swamp land, spanish moss, and lots of refineries lining it



We finally found a boardwalk through a swamp
but it still wasn't as amazing as the I-10 corridor


We really thought we might see an alligator in this swamp. We hugged the middle of the wide-enough-for-a-car trail.
Alas, we only saw a couple of these
On to Texas! We crossed 5 states in 1 day, but it took us 5 days to cross this one state. Here's a sunset over Houston. Possibly the biggest city in the world

Austin, Texas is known for it's amazing music scene, and, I learned, for it's food culture of eating food from foodmobile trailers. They were all over! Mexican food, hot dog stands, thai food, diner-on-wheels, etc. Also, their parks are nice. A lot of water for the desert




and some cool limestone formations



but proof that it is, in fact, desert. And proof that the desert loves
we climbed a couple days

This is DanDee the sock monkey. He's coming with us on the trip. And Evan! We stayed with him while we were visiting. We learned that he has a beautiful mullet


Then it was on to El Paso, where we went to Hueco Tanks State Historical Park. We've been here before, and we didn't take a lot of pictures, but here's one of a really brave bird. The other thing in the picture is my leg and foot


Arizona came next.We went to Cochise Stronghold outside of Tucson. It was pretty cold and windy, so we didn't stay long. We'll be back though. Here's some cacti and other nature shots



even though it's a multipitch route climbing area, Micah finds bouldering everywhere


Then we headed off to California (where we are now), but along the way, we checked out the Saguaro National Park. Here's one
and some other Sonoran Desert plants



we've already got some good California shots, but we'll be in this state for almost the whole month. More when we leave the state!
Love,
Stella

PS Favorite conversation overheard in AZ
Cool Guy in Green Shirt: where are you from?
Micah: West Virginia
CGIGS: do you climb at Cooper's? I know some Pennsylvanians who go there to climb
Micah: who do you know in PA?
CGIGS: do you know Chet?
Micah: yeah! I used to climb with him a lot!
CGIGS: do you know Micah?
Micah: ... what?

Exploring

Hey everyone! The winter here is way too snowy, once again. People try to reassure us that it's not normal, but this is 2 years in a row.. I'm not really buying it. But luckily Micah and I are headed out west at the end of the month for a little vacation from all the snow.

But NOW, we're living here in Fayetteville at our friend Lydia's house. Which sits on 30 acres. So I did some exploring. Below are some pictures of all the interesting stuff I found on those 30 acres.

First, though, are some other pictures:


Roger installed a pole to "help support the roof" here's what happened on day 1:
I had fun, so I kept playing on it (on a side note, I'm eating melted chocolate in an eggroll wrap. Awesome)
I was working on getting my feet to touch my head. Obviously I haven't gotten very close
This is my most showy move. You kick up into the splits and hold it while you go 360 around the pole. I don't think I make it 360 though.
here's a picture of Waterstone. since I now spend the majority of my time here, I thought I'd add it.
And now to "Things I Found on Lydia's Property"

Micah on the bed
Ollie! Ollie is the softest cat ever
and the best cat ever
from the house toward the barn
from the bridge you can see the house!
this bridge is part of the driveway. Not gonna lie, it was kind of scary to drive over the first time
bathtub
deer poop! I also see deer tracks all the time
a fire ring! There are lots of these around
a chicken coop!

this chicken door leads out into a dilapadated chicken-wired space
"You can take a ride on my big green tractor!" -a country song that I can't stop singing everytime I see this. Also, that ladder used to be at the Junkyard wall. It was how you got in and out if you didn't want to walk up and sown the steep, glass infested hill. I miss that ladder.And here's where the ladder led! Someone's bed! Actually, later this same day, some of Lydia's friends spent the night at our house. Turns out, it was one of them who lived here all summer. He had to walk down to the barn to get the bed
stalls!
Proof that the stalls were used by horses
this was in the stall too
hmm. Actually, what's more interesting (though I didn't know it at the time) is those pallets on the upper edge of the picture. The guy who lived in the barn said it's an outhouse! You just slide a bucket under there, I guess. I'll look at it more closely the next time it isn't buried in 7 feet of snow (give or take)
the house!
there are two ponds in this picture, you just have to look hard to see them
this was in the field above the house
this was unexpected! Just outside that field above the house
and this is the ridgeline (of the hill) above the graveyard
from the house you can see this fire pit on a peninsula
this is a cool little patio in the backyard! There's a built in grill on the left there
..and a little man made pond on the right
grapes!
there's a dam in the creek, this is where it came from
Micah told me later that I should have examined this more closely. That nubbin left by the beavers has actually been carved into a face on the other side

-Stella