Year: 2026

Loiusiana, Day Two

Really exciting day. Upon awakening, I went into Hammond to get my usual caramel latte. I went to a 7Brew drive-thru. I gave my order, and when I got to the place to pick it up, they handed me an iced version. Totally forgot where I was; these guys default to iced drinks. I took it and drove off. Not as good as the hot one, but it wasn’t half bad.

After breakfast Sally headed into NOLA to get her State Department ID squared away while I lazed around the VRBO. When she got back from the big city, we headed over to B & J Seafood in Hammond for fish poboys. Craw for her, Cat for me. Then for a quick visit with the birthday gal before settling in for the evening. Try and contain yourself.

Loiusiana, Day One

While taking a walk in a park near the VRBO, Sally heard a faint motor sound. Turned out it was a powered paraglider in a field east of the park. There was a nice pink and orange glow to the clouds in the southwest sky, so I was hoping it would come our way so I could take a photo of the paraglider with that sky as a background. He seemed to be staying over where he was, so I forgot about it. Suddenly the motor sounded like it was getting closer. I quickly opened the camera app and followed its progress. It was coming our way. Sadly, he came closer on the wrong vector to get the really good sky…

On The Road To Loiusiana, Day Three

Today’s drive consisted of 160 miles in Texas and 200 miles in Louisiana. Except for the city of Baton Rouge and the next 20 or so miles, it was pretty easy driving. Dinner was at the home of Sally’s mom, AKA The Birthday Girl, and now we are settled into our VRBO. Tonight’s entertainment is watching the college football championship game with the sound muted and Radio Paradise playing on a portable speaker. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have something more exciting to write about.

P.S. My GTI is internet famous; the folks that wrapped it featured it in their Instagram post for today.

On The Road To Loiusiana, Day Two

Now out of the panhandle of Texas, there were no Quanah Parker Arrows to stumble on. And actually we spent a whole lot of time on 2-lane Texas state routes. When we blew through San Angelo, 90 miles and an hour and a half from the start, we didn’t expect to have to wait another 2 3/4 hours before we got to the next spot for a snack and nature break. There was no emergency, but both of us were happy to find a place to relieve ourselves indoors.

Also, Sally has this internal worry that some car-related failure would leave us stranded in literally the middle of nowhere and would prefer to be on mostly major roads. I, of course, never worry about it, and maybe I should, if at least for her sake. The result of this is instead of my ideal 3-day, no-interstate drive, I think next time I’m going to bite the bullet and do this Santa Fe-Hammond-Santa Fe adventure in two days of mostly Interstate travel.

Tonight’s stop is the town of Crockett, TX, which is named for Davy Crockett because he camped here on his way to the massacre at the Alamo, where he perished. This is totally different from the town of Bowie, home of the world’s largest Bowie knife, which is named for another Alamo casualty, in that Jim Bowie never got anywhere near that town.

On The Road To Loiusiana, Day One

In my never-ending quest to find a different path between Santa Fe, NM, and Hammond, LA, that includes minimal Interstate travel, this one is number five. It is actually the route that was our return on the Thanksgiving trip but was abandoned for weather reasons and includes Big Spring and Crockett in Texas.

While driving thru the town of Plains, I spotted a Quanah Parker
Arrow, so I pulled into the Yokum County Building’s parking lot and took a picture. Longtime readers might remember that I have taken photos of these before. I went back through my photos and found 6 more, five of which came from Donna and my Oregon to Mississippi and back trip in 2023. The last one came from our 2018 South Carolina to Tahoe and back, but I didn’t note that one’s town. There are approximately 80 of the arrows, all in Texas, but as far as I can tell there is no list of the cities they are in. There is a list of all 51 counties that have one or more on the website, Quanah Parker Trail, but it hasn’t been updated since 2011 so your mileage may vary.

A Santa Fe Day

For Christmas I ordered Sally one of those adventure scratch-off things from Reach International Outfitters for the state of New Mexico. There are 3 cards for Santa Fe, if you count the one for the Santa Fe National Forest. We had a down day, so she said scratch one off and we’ll do it.

The one I picked recommended going to Meow Wolf. This was met with a resounding, “No, thank you.” First off, it is basically sensory overload and more suitable for kids and stoners. Secondly, it is $35 a person, and lastly, and most importantly, we fit neither of those two previous categories.

The second one suggested a visit to the Santa Fe Museum of Art. This was met with slight indifference. Turns out neither one of us is a big art lover. If we went, we would probably enjoy it a moderate amount, so we decided instead to go to the New Mexico History Museum, which we both would enjoy leaps and bounds over some art. We spent maybe 2-1/2 hours wandering the 4 floors of exhibits. One of the featured exhibits was Zozobra: A Fire That Never Goes Out. It’s Santa Fe’s version of Burning Man, but really those roles should be reversed, as Zozobra predates Burning Man by 60 years.

So, while the folks at Reach International Outfitters went 0 for 2, it did spur us into going to a museum, so we’ll give them a 1/2.

Travel Day

Like last January’s trip to Santa Fe, I flew. I’ve got all-weather tires on the GTI, but if I were to have to drive through a real storm somewhere along the 4- or 5-day trip either way, they might not be good enough. They were fine for about 5 miles of slushy roads in Utah back in early December, but even if they can handle that weather, that many miles of heavy blowing snow creeping along on an interstate, I thought taking to the skies was the way to go.

Unlike last time’s direct flight on Alaska Air, I had a two-hop trip on Southwest. Southwest doesn’t fly direct to ABQ, and I had to use my vouchers from the two flights I cancelled during the government shutdown. That was two separate flights because of the 2-day stay in Vegas to see The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere, so they turned into 2 one-way flights between PDX & ABQ.