New Orleans

We stayed 2 nights, so we really only had the one day to run around and sight see.  As we have all been there before, we weren't in a rush so it was a relaxed day.   Of course we stopped in for breakfast.  My friend commented that it was crappy coffee and over priced funnel cakes.   I still enjoyed it.

Here is a pic out the window while waiting for the elevator.  the 3 windows all the way to the right was our 1 bedroom apartment.  It was really nice.  They had several buildings tied together to make the hotel.  It was pretty cool.

Look down the hallway.

Tommy doing a photoshoot at the pool.  It was in a courtyard between buildings that made up the hotel.

The night before it was dark when we arrived and I thought this area was enclosed and it had low LED colored lighting and looked pretty cool.  I never looked up until the next morning to realize it was outside.

Shot of Jackson Square.  We didn't stray too far from here all day, as the building to the right of the church is a museum we spent 3 hours in, then had lunch nearby.

After the late afternoon swim, Lucy and I headed over to Latitude 29, a full on legit tiki bar in the quarter we had been wanting to check out for the past 8 years...

Midweek, it was slow, which was nice as we had the bar mostly to ourselves and a couple on their honeymoon.   They were nice to talk too, as we chatted alot with the bartender as well.

I forgot which drink this was, but it was good, lol.   We had a few each and called it a night....

Next day, we only drove about 3.5 hours to her cousin's near Mobile, visited with them overnight and then headed home the following day, getting home a day ahead of schedule as the car was acting up and Naya wanted to go to her sailing lessons.

Only after I got home and looked at the car again, I realized my mistake with the coil and fixed it.   It has been running good since.....and I fixed the blend door motor (had to pull the whole dash out, what a PITA).

End of the Summer trip

 I have been lax in filling out the last part of our GMCless trip.   But in typical hooptie fashion, there was some motoring excitement.

Not sure if I mentioned the AC deciding to take a powder after out New Mexico shakedown cruise, but an Achilles heel of the Panther platform (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car), is the AC blend door motor.   It went and we were stuck on FULL heat...  I found pulling the fuses and cycling the engine on and off would reset it for a drive or two.  I hoped it would get us home....

Before we left Texas, Lucy's sister went with us to a state park a couple hours away Mother Neff State Park .  It was ONLY 102 out and we made her poor pregnant sister go on several hiking trails.  They weren't very long and she was a trooper.  On the longest loop, I left her and Naya as it was near the road and Lucy and went back and got the car.   It was a small park, but had alot going on.   The picture above is a 30 ft tower built by the CCC.   There were a few other CCC structures in the park as well.   Part of the park was closed from a recent flood earlier in the year, but the part we saw was pretty nice.

Jeannie and Lucy on the trail

Lucy taking a break on the CCC stone table.

A limestone outcropping used by indigenous people thousands of years ago for shelter.

A nest of Daddy Long Leg Spiders the size of a large platter.

Naya about to poke a bunch of spiders with a stick.   She was disappointed they didn't jump all over her.

We drove back and had dinner and packed up for the trip home....

The next morning all systems were go and we got a reasonable start out of Austin.  I stopped and filled up with gas at the edge of town and off down US 290 to Houston we went.   About an hour in the check engine light started blinking and the car was running like crap.  I had Lucy look up what it meant and it said to stop or damage the engine.   I pulled into the next auto parts store and had them pull the codes.

Misfire on cylinder 6.  Ok, new plug and coil (individual coils) and off to the local park a block away.

98 degrees outside, I wanted some shade!   It didn't take long to repair, but it didn't make any difference.

I was a little stressed and it showed, 90 miles from her families house and about 600 from our destination for the evening and we had reservations bought and paid for....It was here I made a critical error.   I trusted someone else and did not verify.  The guy at the parts store told me #6 and proceeded to point to #7 cyl.....In the process of being at the parts store, he looked it up (I was starting to, then my Mom called on the phone with a question and then was further distracted by Naya asking me a question and never checked myself)....

So back on the road and it's still running like crap, but at least I know what the issue is, and running on 7 cyl won't kill the car and we still had a long way to go so off we went.   Along the way I called a friend who lives in Houston and has one of the cars,  He offered his garage and tools, but it was 2PM as we approached town and he didn't get off work until 5 so we pressed on......

The car wasn't horrible at highway speed and the MPG didn't suffer much.  The biggest issue was the computer cut off the AC due to the misfire.   So it was a HOT ride and my daughter got to experience life in the 70s when we used to drive for 3 days to Florida with no AC in the car.  

Terrible weather and a big traffic backup didn't help.  Post hurricane Rita in 2005, I worked for FEMA in Sulphur, LA . This came in VERY handy, as I routed us around the traffic backup on US90 and saved us a good 45 min of sitting in traffic.  It was still thick through town as others also knew this way, but much much less time than staying on I10.... After that it was clear sailing for the last 3 or 4 hours.

By the time we got to New Orleans around 9PM (drove took us 12 hours), I was in a bad mood couldn't wait to check in and park the car.  We got there after dark and got checked in, took showers, ate some food and had a cocktail and relaxed.   Lucy and I went out to Bourbon St. (we were in the French quarter about 2 blocks off it) and had a nice but short evening as it was past 10 when we left the room and we were whipped from the car ride......

Alright, Alright, Alright.

 So we got back to Round Rock on Thursday night at dusk.  Naya was still driving and I told her it was time for deer to start jumping into traffic and be super vigilant.  She was and we got to the house without much issue.  Lucy's sister and my BIL went out and got dinner and brought it back.  We feasted and had cocktails and generally hung out the rest of the evening.

This pic is here for the header and will make more sense in a bit.  Bear with me :)

Friday was baby shower prep day. My amazing sister-in-law was doing all the food for the shower and it was over the top.  I helped with a number of items, then got a break in the afternoon and hit a couple of local liquor stores, looking to build on my rum collection.  The rest of the day,  we went over to Lucy's aunt's who lives pretty close by for lunch.  

Saturday was the baby shower and it was really nice and my Sis & Bro in Law knocked it out of the park with a great event.   I was released around 1:30 PM as I had a friend in town.

As you may know I have an affinity for the last of the dinosaurs so to speak.  The '91-'96 General Motors full body on frame station wagons.   The frame and suspension on them can be dated back to the 1950s technology and by the 90s it was fully sorted and a great machine.   I have been involved in the community since 2007 and have personally owned 14 of these wagons and one Cadillac Fleetwood (shared driveline and many other parts).   Along the way I have met a number of characters.   One is Mike and he lives only 15 minutes from my in-laws in Round Rock.   Every year there are a couple wagon gatherings around the US.  As it turned out the day of the baby shower there was an event in upstate NY (the original Wagonfest).  It was there in 2010 that I met Chris.  I had known him from the wagon online forum but finally got to meet him (along with a host of others) that year.  Anyway, I kept up with Chris over the years (and bought a wagon, and said Cadillac from him).  He saw that I posted I would be hanging out with Mike in Texas and he hatched a plan.  

In the BTDT realm going from South Carolina to NY in July he'd made the trip a few times and was ready for new adventure.  His sister just moved to Alabama and I was a convenient excuse lol.

He bombed down from Montgomery, AL on Friday and got in town around 8PM.  I went over and fetched him and we went for Tex-Mex, then dropped him back at his hotel.  On the way to dinner I made a wrong turn and drove by the round rock.

I was surprised and told Chris that Mike would show it to him tomorrow (he did) as he showed it to me as well on an earlier trip (Mike is a great tour guide BTW).

I got done with the shower the next afternoon and headed over to his hotel and we waited for Mike to call as he promised sightseeing.   We had a few beers in the room and then Mike called and we headed over to his place.

Well both of these guys are OCD about their rides and it was fun to watch, two long time friends (online) meet for the first time as I have known both for over a decade.  It was a bit of the mutual admiration society as they both have impeccable rides (both wagons and other cars).  Chris had many performance modifications and here is Mike taking them all in for the first time.

After a few minutes we hopped into Mikes Suburban and went for a ride around town for a couple hours.  I have been to the Austin area about 10 times now, and I have to say EVERYWHERE Mike took us, I had never been to before (aside from the Round Rock, lol).

So Round Rock was part of the Chisolm trail.   

Round Rock was a crossing and watering place.  Apparently you can see wagon wheel ruts worn into the rocks here (I didn't go check, but Mike says there are there so I'm sure they are).

Different view of the Rock.

NW of town Mike took us up in the start of Hill Country to see this view of Downtown Austin he knew of (used to work nearby here and very cool).  I was close to the 360 bridge if you know where that is.

Shortly after this we slipped on down to the Oasis and took in the view from the top of the cliff of Lake Travis. It was HOT.

From there we checked out Mount Bonnell

Looking toward Downtown

Interesting info about the Escarpment that is the edge of Hill Country

More backstory on Mount Bonnell.

From here the day shifted into Dazed and Confused mode.   Personally it's shocking, but I have never seen the film, but now that Mike has taken me to half a dozen set locations around town,  I feel obligated.

He started by showing us a few landmarks  (including a diner that Janis Joplin got started singing at) Including the building from the pool hall scenes and some paint dumping.

How it looks in the movie

How it looks now 

Warehouse for paint scene

Scene from Movie

From here we headed back to Mike's to pick up the Wagons for the night.

Mike's wagon and Chris' in the back at Mikes house.  Mike's is very close to stock except for wheels and a few touches and SUPER clean.

Heading out for more Dazed and Confused locations in Chris's very customized Buick Roadmaster.  He bought this wagon from Georgia and it was rode hard and hung up wet with high mileage but a straight rust free body.  He had another wagon that was rusty with a beautiful interior.  He swapped the red nice insides into a green wagon and calls it the Santa edition (or similar).  Now before you vomit in your mouth, we have a mutual friend who bought and sold over 750 (not a typo) of these wagons over a ten year period and he had one that was special ordered in this color combo so this is now one of two, lol.

Also notice the instrument cluster from a 4th gen Z28 Camaro and the cowl hood.  I won't even get into what's he's done under the hood and with the suspension, etc.   There is ALOT of love and $$$ into this car.

So a big part of the allure for a really long drive to hang out with Mike and I was Top Notch Hamburgers.   This place is a time warp.   It is truly the early 1970s on this property.

I guess they shot a lot of the film here.  Anyway the owner is a car guy and has kept it as a time capsule (but the prices are not 1970s lol.)  and has many car shows.   Unfortunately, this was an off weekend, so only a handful of cars showed up.

The Caddy, is just like the one Chris sold me, identical color and options, but not the same car.  It was bought by our mutual friend Bill 'The Verb' Crovo in New Hampshire.  Well how did it end up in Austin you ask?   Well Billy bought a Corvette in Houston and this other Impala/B/body Ohana whose parents live outside of Austin bought it.  I'm a relative new comer to the family only being involved since 2007.

If you like the Caddy its for sale lol, lmk I'll hook you up with John the owner.

This awesome lens filter is actually Top Notch french fry grease on my lens.  I took the shot, realized and cleaned it up.  I kinda like it ha ha.

Chris, John, and Mike living the good life at Top Notch.

Apparently Top Notch is a good place to invite people to the Moon Tower.   Guess where we went next?

Well we eventually got there but first Mike drove us all over downtown Austin, past the Capitol building, down 6th street.  Cops pulled up on us and complimented the cars and asked if we were a club lol.   

We then stopped off at the Doug Sahm Hill Path, although Mike called it by a colloquial name I don't recall.  It was a big mound but offered up a cool view of downtown.

The big finally was the Moon Tower.  Mike kept talking about the party at the Moon Tower.  As I haven't seen the film I had no idea WTF he was talking about but it sounded cool.  We drove up there and well, it was a 165 ft tower with lights.   Essentially a street light, but over 100 years old, before street lights were a thing, 

I took pictures, but I needed space, so only have this download of John's pic of the ass of his Caddy and a post I put on his feed.

We were there for all of 5 min and the police rolled through.    I guess they thought we might climb the tower .   Anyway, that was the end of our tour and we headed back.  We followed Mike for a spirited drive up the tollway back to Round Rock.  I bid Chris a fair adieu, and headed back to the barn as I knew he had 700 miles in front of him tomorrow .

East Bound back to Texas

 Today we headed back to Round Rock, TX.  Lucy's sister had a baby shower on Saturday, so we were conscripted to help get ready for it, etc.  

We got out of the hotel by about 10ish as we lose an hour at the state line and had about 450 miles to put down. 

Even before we went out, I had planned to take a different route back as different scenery is always nice.   That and after that 30 miles of torn up road, it was an easy choice.  The first bit was the same as the way in up to where you see the fork off to Andrews, TX in the upper left (that was the crappy road).  For whatever reason, I also wanted to avoid San Angelo, TX so I had to keep adding waypoints into the map to keep my preferred routing.  Sure it added about 20 miles to the trip, but so what, new places to see!

I drove until we got to Snyder, TX (where waypoint dot on the map in the middle is).  We stopped for Dairy Queen and since Naya didn't want anything, she gets to drive!.   She drove the next 4.5 hours back to the house in Round Rock.   It was good practice, some small towns, hills, and LOTS of wide open roads with 75mph speed limits.   There was one section of passing zone where I told her to get on it, to pass a slow truck ahead.  She kept rolling it and I looked over and she was going about 93 or 94, so I told her, "Let's hold this speed until we pass".  She was comfortable with it and we got around the truck without much issue.  Before anyone says anything, it was us and the truck and no one coming the other way on a laser straight section of road.   

I took exactly one photo all day but did see some cool things.  The windmills are very impressive up close.  We also saw HUGE solar farms that went on for miles, lots of cows and hay.   Our longest stop was at the DQ.  We still had sandwiches and just ate as we drove and stopped for gas and potty breaks a few times.  

We arrived back at the house around 7 or 8 pm (was about 8..5 hour drive), and Lucy's sister went and got us fried chicken for dinner.

Friday was family time and prepping for the shower...

Coral Reef Mountains

 I did promise more pics from Carlsbad Caverns, but they are on the video camera and some work has to be done with the raw files.  They will get posted at a later date and back dated to fill into the time line better.

One nice thing about heading west is it is easier to get up earlier.  New Mexico is on mountain time or 2 hours behind us.  Yesterday was a long day with the cavern tour, picnic, and bat watching.  We barely made it the local grocers before they closed at 10PM.   I chose a Latin one as they usually have a hot food counter, but we were waaaay late for that.  The only prepared food they had was $5 sushi.....in the desert....after it had been sitting out how long?   Even Naya the sushi monster said hell no.   Back to frozen dinners again (thankful for the microwave!)     We did buy some hot sauces and stuff and headed back to the room.

Next morning we got a later start.  Lucy and I shut down the breakfast getting there 15 min before it was over.  They were nice and made sure we had everything we wanted before the cleared it out.  Got Naya rustled up and shoved some food in her and off we went.

Back down the same road, but past the Caverns heading toward El Paso.

Back in 1988, I took four days to drive from Florida to Los Angeles with my friend.  Three of those days, I drove in the state of Texas.   This sign indicates that 3rd day from here to El Paso to get back on I-10.  We drove from Carlsbad, toured the Caverns and made it to Phoenix that night.  We were on a mission.

Tommy ready for his photo shoot!

Add one more to the handstand, state sign collection.

Texas Tommy!  We are pretty much right under his feet in this picture.

I crossed the road to get the incoming view.

This park is only about 15-20 minutes from the Caverns.  I remembered this and added a third night to our stay so we could check it out, as I didn't get to stop here back in '88.

I learned quite a bit on the visit to this park.   The Gaudalupe Mountains  are a lot larger than what is in the park (Carlsbad Caverns is part of the same range), but it holds the highest peak in Texas at over 8500'.    The mountains are limestone coral reef from the Permian age that formed during the break up of Pangea!   The reef was a giant horseshoe and the area encompasses all the west Texas oil fields.

My bad leg was bothering me after dropping down the big hole in the earth, so it was mostly flat paths for us today. 

Believe it or not, I thought it wasn't terribly hot.  Temps in the high 80s, but the humidity was about 40% so we weren't sweating much (but still drinking a lot of water).

This was an easy paved trail from behind the ranger station down to the ruins of Pinery Station.  It was about half a mile.   I didn't take pics but I went off the trail and walked part way down the wash (no rain around, so no worry of flash floods).

The Pinery station was part of the famous Butterfield Overland Mail Route, the first guaranteed overland mail route in US History.  The station was built in 1857, and abandoned in 1859 when the route was relocated to save time.    These two pictures are all that remains of the original structures.  You can see the wood framing on the back poking over the top.  It's holding the wall up.

Another part of Pinery Station, I think this was the store house.   Surprisingly , it is only about 100 yards off of US 62/180. 

El Capitan from some distance (near the ranger station).  We didn't drive down there as it was about 15 miles further, and the hiking trails in the area are rated very difficult (altitude changes), but you can hike up to the top.   This park does not have many roads in it, so most areas, you need to hike in to see.

Just a view of the mountains behind the ranger station.  The slopes start probably 2 miles away.

After the girls finished their Junior Ranger stuff and Naya wrote a few post cards, we hopped back into the car and headed over to the Frijole Ranch.  There was a picnic area and we had lunch.   The flies out here were pretty bad and there was now a running issue as every single time we got in the car a fly came in with us.  It was to the point of comedy now...   We had a nice lunch under a covered table.  Shade made all the difference here as the sun was blazing.

After lunch, we walked up to the ranch and poked around.   Under normal times, the house has been turned into a museum, but they were still on lockdown protocols, so we had to peek in the windows.  The house was built 1876  and the spring is right there in the yard.  They are in the process of removing the white paint to put it back to the 1876 look.   I liked this shot up the side yard for other than the metal antenna base on the right, it could have been taken 100 years ago.   When the park was established, this home was used by the first rangers living in the park.

There was another spring half a mile away and another about 2 miles.  We walked to the first one as it was blazing mid afternoon.  Saw some interesting insects and lizards and plants.  Pretty sure Lucy has more photos of all that.

We were determined to have dinner in an actual restaurant this evening, so we started back around 3PM, but first had to stop for some pictures!

At this point the teenager was getting surly and didn't want to pose for a photo or handstand saying the ground was too rocky (it was).  So a brief snap and off to Whites City.
 

White's City (population 7) is right at the junction of US 62/180 and the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns Park.  We had driven by it yesterday and I had considered getting the hotel room here (there is NOTHING else) but didn't due to the remoteness.  Was last gas until El Paso!

As you can imagine, the gift shop was there for tourists.  Roswell was only about 100 miles from here, so a fair amount of green men souvenirs were available.

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Naya managed to find the Hide and Seek World Champion as he stopped in to grab a taco.

Naya could bearly contain her excitement with all the fun we were having on this trip!

Lucy got to check off her bucket list with two more National Parks under her belt!

I was not brave enough to tempt the mighty Zoltar!  We bought a few souvenirs and headed back to town.   We gave the teenager a parent break and went in the hotel pool for about an hour and relaxed.   It was only then that I noticed there were palm trees around the pool.  They were definitely brought in and non-native.

We got dressed and decided we wanted New Mexican food and plain on Mexican food wasn't good enough.  We found a place that was a walk up counter semi-fast food place called El Charro.  There were a lot of locals eating there so that was a good indicator.   The food was on point and we enjoyed it.

  

This was the view coming out of the restaurant.  Only sunset photo I got the whole trip.  Turns out the visibility was down due to the fires in CA sending smoke to the east.

We wandered around downtown a bit to see the sights and Tommy took the opportunity to get some snaps.

This was a pretty cool mural outside of a municipal building. May have been city hall, don't recall.

Traffic this time of day was pretty non-existent, this is the heart of  the downtown area about 7:30PM.

Doc Brown had asked I pick him up some Plutonium, but the gift store was sadly closed for the night.  We then parked by the Pecos River and had a nice walk around the riverfront area for about an hour, then headed back to the room for the night.   Long drive again tomorrow!