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Big day today.

This was just a quick trip, but we went off the path a bit to do some exploring. We went up to Bishopville, S.C., to check out Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden — both because my mom recommended it after seeing the documentary A Man Named Pearl and because we certainly couldn’t resist anyone who shares a name with our Pearl. This Pearl apparently has no training in the art of topiary, but he just felt moved to start doing it and suddenly he was doing topiaries for the whole neighborhood and people were making movies about him. The garden is just in his yard and is quite extensive. In fact, his work is everywhere on the whole street:

Then on Pearl’s actual property, the topiaries just go on and awesomely on:

That’s just a small corner of the yard. Amazing!!

After that, we decided to head over to Congaree National Park, home of the continent’s largest old-growth floodplain forest, champion trees, swampy goodness, and so many mosquitoes that they have this sign:

Eek. As you can see, we were pretty safe to go enjoy the park, so we walked for a bit out on the elevated boardwalk through the forest.

I really loved Congaree even though we only spent a tiny amount of time there. The air was sooooo fresh (thanks, trees), and there was this lovely balance of silence and lots of thriving forest activity sound (woodpeckers, squirrels, falling leaves, etc.). Plus we got to see a bunch of cypress knees:

The next day was Halloween and we spent most of it at the wedding (which was, after all, the point of this trip). Look at this beautiful location:

We had a great time reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. Plus, the bride and groom left on a boat as we all stood on the pier ringing tiny wedding bells. So lovely!

We headed out the following day and didn’t make very many stops because we had some lame, rainy weather (the worst for a meandering road trip). However, we can always make time for a giant Solo cup:

I mean, come on.

So! We are back in Cleveland, Mississippi, for now. Further bulletins as events warrant!

Hey, y’all. We’re on our way up to South Carolina for what is sure to be a delightful weekend including a lovely wedding! This is going to be a quick trip, so we each packed one tiny little bag and shared a garment bag and that’s it. Quelle différence! Packing, getting into our en-route hotel (a lovely Ramada Limited in Douglasville, Georgia), etc etc etc is a million times easier without a stuffed-to-the-gills Pearl. She’s got room to spare this time!

We’ll update more when we have more fun tales to share. Today was just driving; the most interesting thing we saw was a bowl of Halloween candy at our hotel’s front desk.

We had so much fun today at Avery Island, home of Tabasco!

This is one intense, Tabasco-loving place. Our adventure began at the Tabasco Visitor Center, where we were treated to a few small exhibits and a brief talk and video explaining Tabasco’s history and how it is made.

Okay, between you and me, I’ve never been that big a fan of Tabasco, and neither has Brian. But how it’s made is really interesting! First it starts with these peppers:

They are Tabasco peppers and they are grown there on Avery Island and also in South America (where there is a similar climate and they can grow year-round). They save seeds, though, so even the South American peppers are originally from Avery Island. All the peppers are hand-harvested, and workers are each issued one of these:

That is le petit bâton rouge, a stick painted the correct shade of red for perfect pepper ripeness. When the peppers match le bâton, they are harvested, then they are ground up along with a small amount of salt (also from Avery Island; there is a huge salt mine underneath the island — allegedly the salt mine is as deep as Mount Everest is high) into a “mash” :

The mash is then placed into these white oak barrels to age (at this point, at the South American pepper farms, the barrels are transported to Avery Island — all Tabasco ages at the warehouse there). The barrels are topped with a thick layer of salt from the island and allowed to ferment. The salt layer allows gases to escape without letting any impurities in. They sit there aging for about 3 years!

Another interesting aspect is that they are a no-waste company (which they reminded us many times!). When the barrels are no longer usable, they are chopped up into wood chips for cooking and sold in the extensive on-island gift shop.

Anyway, after aging for 3 years, the mash is then strained, mixed with vinegar and more salt from the island, and placed into another barrel where is it stirred intermittently for the next 28 days:

And then, finally, it is bottled and sent all over the world!

We got to walk through a wall of windows into the bottling plant; they were bottling the jalapeño variety that day. Yay!

The original Tabasco flavor is the only one that goes through the aging and everything, by the way.

After all that, we visited the gift shop where we could sample a bunch of products. They had all the Tabasco flavors, of course, but also some products made with Tabasco, including chili and ice cream. Brian tried some Tabasco cola, and I think the pictures tell the whole story:

We also learned that the word tabasco is actually from a Native American word meaning “land of hot and humid,” which quite aptly describes the climate on Avery Island. Check out the steam on Brian’s glasses and the camera lens from this photo snapped on our way out of the chilly, air-conditioned gift shop into the Tabasco-like outdoor climate:

Now, that was a lot of fun for one day, but it wasn’t over yet!!

The dude who invented Tabasco, Edmund McIlhenny, has spawned generations of family members who remain heavily involved in Tabasco sauce production. They select the best pepper plants and still own the company and live on the island and everything. But seeing how they are all zillionaires due to the wild success of Tabasco, it’s no wonder that some of the McIlhennys have chosen a slightly different path. One such McIlhenny was Edmund’s son Edward, who ran the company from 1898-1949. He did a good job of managing Tabasco, but he also pursued his other passions as a naturalist and conservationist, and he established Jungle Gardens on Avery Island as a refuge for the snowy egret (the refuge helped pull the snowy egret back from the brink of extinction). Jungle Gardens also contains many interesting exotic plants, a nearly 1000-year-old Buddha statue, and a lot (and I mean A LOT) of these:

YAY! I love an alligator. They are so cute! These are just little ones, too, so they are not very scary, although I’m sure they could hurt you if they felt like moving, which they did not because it was nine million degrees out. We didn’t see any snowy egrets because they had already migrated south, but we saw some other exciting birds:

And some really large bamboo:

After all that, we finally headed north toward Jackson, Mississippi. We have family events going on for the next few days, then we’ll be regrouping. Stay tuned!

We made a couple of exciting stops on our way from Houston, Texas, to New Iberia, La.

First, we stopped at the Fire Museum of Texas in Beaumont, Texas, because it has this:

That is the world’s third largest fire hydrant (it’s 24 feet tall).

We continued on I-10 to Louisiana!

We then visited the Frog Capital of the World, Rayne, La.

We had dinner at Prejean’s in Lafayette before heading down to our Days Inn in New Iberia. We have some exciting things planned for the next few days, but we may not have internet until after the weekend… so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us. We’ll be back!

We’re in Houston for a couple of days as Brian learns the color of his parachute. We had just a driving day yesterday, but we did see a few fun things on the trip!

This armadillo is in Schertz, Texas, in front of a flea market site:

We visited Seguin, Texas, home of the world’s second-largest pecan:

I realize that sign says it’s the world’s largest, but apparently there is a bigger one in Missouri. At some point, I imagine we will go verify that!!

We also made a stop here:

Buc-ee’s is just about the best highway stop I’ve ever seen in my life (and that is saying something!). We were enticed by a large billboard a few miles before the exit that said it contained restrooms so amazing “you have to pee them to believe!!!!” And as gross as that sounds, they actually were totally amazing restrooms. Plus, Buc-ee’s has a huge selection of Texas-themed gift items, specialty foods, homemade treats… it’s awesome.

We also passed both a watermelon-shaped water tower and a giant Playmate Igloo cooler, but for various reasons, we have no photographic evidence of either. Next time!

We’re heading out of Houston tomorrow, and internet access may be limited for a few days. We’ll check in when we can!

Remember how I said someone told us last night that the power would be back on in two hours? Yeah. That didn’t happen. In fact, the power didn’t come on until after we checked out today. Sooo we both had a pretty rough night and kind of a rough morning, too, as the power outage also meant there was neither hot water for showers nor any food available at the park restaurant today. Sheesh, guys! The other issue is that Big Bend was about eleventy billion degrees out today, and of course we were out in the hottest part of the day, so all that made things a bit challenging. However, we still managed to enjoy some truly beautiful things!

Here are our mountain friends from last night in the sunlight:

Here’s the view from a trail we took near the park lodge:

Here we are by the sign that we saw driving in last night:

Here are Mule Ears Peaks (one of my favorites of the day):

Here is Santa Elena Canyon:

We saw some horses cooling off in the muddy water there:

We even walked up to get a closer view of the canyon (and as I mentioned, it was hot hot hot, so this was quite an achievement):

We also saw this totally cute lizard:

… and some desert on our way out of the park:

Driving out towards Marathon, Texas, we saw some vultures perched on some posts along the road:

We’re back in Fort Stockton tonight at the charming Days Inn where we spent the night last week. (Seriously, it’s a really nice Days Inn.) We are going to sleep in air conditioning, take hot showers in the morning, and enjoy this free wireless internet!! We continue our journey east tomorrow!

Our first stop this morning was at a big pile of trash. Check it out!

But of course that’s not just any pile of trash. That pile of trash is part of the world’s largest roadrunner!!!

He’s a bit strange since he just hangs out at a rest stop all day with no plaque or anything. I don’t know a thing about his story. But he’s pretty great, obviously!

We then headed back into Texas!

As we drove east on I-10, we waved to Mexico. (I-10 follows the Mexico-U.S. border, so everything you’re seeing in the distance below is Mexico.) Hi, Mexico!

On our way back to Marfa, we encountered our UFO again. This time, it was grounded!

We stopped for dinner at Pizza Foundation in Marfa (again, delicious) and then headed south toward Big Bend… and then things really got interesting.

I had made a reservation at the park lodge (a first for us as we usually stay in a town outside of a national park) since our time in Big Bend will be limited, but since I’ve never been to this park before, I didn’t really know much about where things were located and the like. I assumed we would just find out from the park ranger at the entrance station when we arrived, but I started to get worried when we weren’t on our way until fairly late.

And then the storm started.

It was a completely crazy storm with bouts of intense rain and very bright, very strong lightning everywhere. It was really dark (except when the lightning flashed), so we would just get these occasional glimpses of the huge mountains or whatever was going on right next to us. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it’s just an unsettling experience to be in unfamiliar terrain in the middle of absolutely nowhere with really tall rocks right next to you that you can only see when the super bright lightning that is flashing in every direction around you — particularly when you don’t really know where you’re going or anything. We started to get scared that the park lodge would be closed when/if we ever arrived and we wouldn’t be able to get in… and of course there was no way to call since we didn’t have any cell service and there were no towns or people anywhere!!

Anyway, we did make it to the park, which was a big relief, but it was probably around 9pm at that point, so the entrance station was unmanned. We had to just hope for some signage to help us find the lodge. Yikes! Fortunately, there was a clearly marked sign eventually, and the road took us over some sharp switchbacks, and we saw a huge sign warning us about being in BEAR AND MOUNTAIN LION COUNTRY USE EXTREME CAUTION OMG!!!!!! I think that was when Brian informed me I would no longer be allowed to make in-park reservations.

Thankfully, we did find the lodge. Unfortunately, it was pretty dark and nothing really looked open. Luckily, someone was bringing trash out from the main building (the lodge here is kind of a mini-complex with a few different buildings with guestrooms, a restaurant, store, etc.), so I jumped out of the car to ask how we could get into our room. She directed me to a bulletin board that had an envelope pinned to it with my name on it. Seriously?? I would NEVER have known about that! The envelope contained our key and a little map to show us how to get to the room. Then, on our way to the building where our room was, we noticed the power go out in the adjacent building. We hoped it was just people turning off their lights for the night, but (spoiler alert) of course it wasn’t.

The rain had stopped at this point and we just saw occasional flashes of heat lightning; the clouds were moving by very quickly, but when the moon wasn’t covered by them, it was really bright. We were finally starting to relax at this point since we had a key and a room and everything and we had survived the drive and the storm, so we decided to hang out in the parking lot of the lodge and take a few pictures of the stunning moonlit landscape…

While we were hanging out there, a couple of other lodge guests came by to chat about the power situation. Apparently something had been damaged by the storm out by El Paso (!) and everything was completely off. One guy told us they were expecting to have it back on in two hours. Sooooo we got out our flashlights and got our stuff into our room without really being able to see very much. What an evening!!

Guess what we did today?

We went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta!!

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to come out to New Mexico when we were at Balmorhea and Brian overheard some Speedo-wearing guy there telling some other random people about how he was going to go to the Balloon Fiesta. As it turns out, Brian had quite the fascination with hot air balloons as a child and has always dreamed of going to the Balloon Fiesta (the largest balloon festival in the world)! Who knew? And the timing all worked out perfectly, so we went today. Yay!!

The Balloon Fiesta is a big deal, y’all. We had to get up at 4am (not kidding) and drive to a random shopping mall parking lot, leave Pearl, and board Albuquerque School District yellow school buses (notably the second time in just a few months we’ve been inside a school bus), which eventually took us to the Balloon Fiesta Park. Oh, and did I mention it was really, really cold? Because it was. And also it was pitch black.

However, just a few minutes after we arrived at the park, Dawn Patrol began!!

Dawn Patrol

The Dawn Patrol began at Balloon Fiesta in 1978, when two California balloonists developed position lighting systems that allowed them to fly at night. Dawn Patrol pilots take off before sunrise and fly until it is light enough to see landing sites. Fellow balloonists appreciate the Dawn Patrol because they can watch the balloons and get an early idea of wind speeds and directions different altitudes.

There was a little break after Dawn Patrol while we all waited for the sun to come up and whatnot, so we went and got funnel cakes and hot chocolate for breakfast, browsed the souvenir tents, and tried not to freeze (with little success). We didn’t have to wait very long before Mass Ascension began – about 600 hot air balloons all inflating and rising together over about two hours. It was truly amazing! We had some gray and cloudy skies, but the weather didn’t diminish the experience at all.

Here is a snippet of the many, many videos I took on my iPhone during the ascension.

But wait!! Believe it or not, that’s not all. After we got out of the park (which, incidentally, took around two hours from field to Pearl’s door — come on, Albuquerque International Balloon Festival), we drove to White Sands National Monument! And we saw a giant pistachio on the way!

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at White Sands, it was raining (?!) (not the first time we have brought rain to the desert), plus we were exhausted from our early morning and everything, so we didn’t spend a lot of time there. It was a beautiful and interesting landscape in spite of the rain, though.

We had initially toyed with the idea of sledding down the sides of the dunes (which is one of the main activities to do at White Sands), but the rain made that less appealing. It didn’t stop these little girls, though!

White Sands is one of the few national parks where you can pretty much go wherever you want. There are a couple of trails, but you are more than welcome to walk all over the dunes and touch things and kick sand around and stuff.

By the time we finished up there, we were both pretty much about to collapse, so we got set up as quickly as we could at the Ramada in Las Cruces, N.M. (which is very nice — much nicer than how we usually roll). Tomorrow, we head back to Texas!

We began our day in Marfa!

We didn’t stay long today, though. But we’d like to come back since Marfa is chock-full of really interesting looking art galleries and the like. We also had a deeeeelicious breakfast this morning at Cochineal. I mean, what was that about? I was really not expecting that level of awesome in the culinary department in rural west Texas. Good job, Cochineal!

Anyway, we continued on our merry way down the road.

Wait a minute. What is that?

OMG A UFO!!!!!!!!!

Oh. Just kidding. It’s a weather blimp. But we are in UFO country over here, so you have to keep your eyes peeled!

So, after Marfa, we drove through a little town called Valentine, and then we happened upon a Prada store. Alas, it was closed.

More desert landscape followed:

Then we drove through El Paso. And I have to ask, El Paso, what is your deal? Why are you SO HUGE and sprawled and spread out and full of soooo many strip clubs and strip malls?

And then…

Wait, what? Yes! We decided to go to New Mexico! We have our reasons! You’ll see. We weren’t even deterred by this!

First of all, we went to Hatch, New Mexico. Hatch is the home of the famous hatch chiles that show up in late summer and immediately being making everything more delicious. The tiny little town hosts a big chile festival in September.

We were a bit late for the festival, obviously, but there were still lots of chile stands lining the road into town.

We also got to see the famous chiles growing in the field!!

As if all that awesomeness weren’t enough, Hatch is also home to Sparky’s, which not only has delicious food but is also a roadside-attraction aficionado’s dream, with statues of Uncle Sam, some weird cartoon family holding burgers and root beer, a metal robot and pig, etc:

After Hatch, we shot straight up to Albuquerque’s charming Sandia Peak Inn (by the way, I think this is the only hotel we’ve patronized on Route 66 in all our travels). We enjoyed seeing the lovely harvest moon on our way!

Why the heck are we in Albuquerque, you ask? You’ll just have to come back tomorrow to find out!