Saturday, April 27, 2013

Houston Storm #1

Zach made a big mistake last night. He set an alarm with the intention of waking himself up a little early this morning so he could be productive.. except, in typical Zach fashion, the alarm went off and he pressed the snooze button. Unfortunately for him, there was no way that I was going to be awake and let him go back to sleep, after all he was the reason I was awake in the first place. So, I got him out of bed and we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather we were lucky to have this morning and go for a walk around Bear park.

Zach's excited walking face

We then had some breakfast at whataburger, since Zach's been dying to eat some biscuits and gravy. We stopped by IKEA to pick up an extra support leg for our bed, since we've determined that IKEA makes beds for little tiny Swedish people.

We then made our way home when it began to sprinkle. We hung around the house a bit before we got hit with our first true Houston storm. At first we were like, cool, lets sit outside on the balcony and watch the storm go by. Until the two loudest lightning thuds we've both ever heard hit, and then we recoiled like little babies inside our apartment. Then, we decided to take little films. Enjoy.

Note the "is that hail? there's hail coming down!" "Okay, now it's time to get in"


While it was storming, I decided to entertain myself and watch a documentary about a 3 Michelin star sushi restaurant in Tokyo, called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It was an incredibly inspiring movie with some delicious snapshots of sushi. I couldn't finish watching the movie until I began to crave sushi. The storm began to subside and Zach and I agreed to go pick some up. On our way out, we saw a lady that was covered in mud  crossing one of the small bridges inside our apartment community. She was trying to rescue some kittens that had been caught under the bridge when it began to flood. Zach tried to help her, but he couldn't get the kitty out. Luckily the water began to drain and we hoped the mom would be able to get her kitten.

We left to get sushi, and it began to rain heavily again. The roads were a mess with traffic lights out, flooded streets and broken branches. We got close to the restaurant when we realized going out was a terrible idea. We placed our order and had to go to the bank to get some cash since the storm was affecting their credit card machine. As soon as we stepped out into the swamped parking lot, lightning striked. Zach and I both jumped. It scared the crap out of us, and even launched two car alarms off. We drove to the ATM which was close by, and I had to withdraw money under a little awning, the whole process took 20 seconds. Here's what I looked like after:



We picked up the sushi and headed home. We promised to never do that again.. even though it was soo worth it.






Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Bed and Breakfast … not the Bates Motel

I believe back home in Friendsville, TN it is widely believed that staying at a bed and breakfast is an open invitation for your host to quietly sneak in and peacefully dispatch you in the night and I am happy to say that we did it twice and well… we’re still blogging. Although we were surprised to see our room was separated by a sheet wall at our first B&B it was a nice cozy home to stay in with service you cannot find at a hotel.

Look Mom, Dad...Trees!

Dow is someone you will hear about frequently in our blog. Dow was our second airbnb host located here in Houston. Here is a link to his airbnb page https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/689301. If you are ever in Houston or any surrounding area do not look at a hotel, motel, tent, house, or anything without checking with Dow first. As most of you know we have never been to or know anyone in Houston… until Dow.

Again I love it back home, but the perception of a big city consists of cold, rude, and of course criminal people.  Dow rattled the cages of every misconception I had of big city people. He opened his home, parking spot, car, and most importantly his time to us. Things that I would expect my family to do for me if I came over to their house for a few days Dow did it without hesitation or adding it to the bill.

Dow's "Now Famous" Breakfast Tacos

Babe will be the first to say one of the most important things to me is service and the integrity of your word.  I consider Dow a close friend that will be there for us in the future and we will be there for him. So again if you are in Houston or just passing through contact Dow and tell him Zach and Babe sent you. I promise you will not regret the decision and will make you question ever staying or paying for a hotel again. In the words of Dow "mi casa es su casa".

No food left behind!

Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Drive Part 2

HOUSTON, We have takeoff.
We woke up early this morning, 6:45am, to be able to have breakfast and reload the car while still making it to Houston before 3pm. As I stated previously, Zach apparently didn't really expect me to assist in the re-packaging/installing of the roof rack. I was responsible for passing him contents of the carrier, and re-packing our carry-ons. I thought I would include this funny picture of Zach wearing a makeshift apron, as it had rained the night before in New Orleans.


We had a delicious, overpriced little breakfast. They had an immune booster smoothie that I was very interested in, since apparently you cannot be in the same car as an individual, with windows closed for 10 hours without getting sick. Lucky for us, Michele stocked us with some extra soft Kleenexes. The drive to Texas was different, since we drove over a 2 lane bridge from New Orleans all the way to the Texas Border. Obviously Zach became very frustrated with people who didn't grasp the concept that the left lane is for passing even though there were signs every 2 miles.
We were very excited to make it to Texas, since the drive seemed never ending on the straight, non-mountainous, non-curvy interstates.


We stopped in Orange, TX to fill up on gas. I was greeted by a sign on the door that stated: "We reserve to refuse service". Apparently, it's a-okay in Texas to discriminate! We drove for another hour and a half before arriving in Houston. We were greeted by the loop, or what Zach likes to refer to as the rollercoaster.
We have counted 8 lanes of traffic going in one direction so far. 



Zach's non-exaggerated posture while entering Houston. Country boy's going to have to get used to this insanity. I can't believe I'm going to have to learn to drive in this city. Let me take this opportunity to reiterate how much I hate the DMV in Blount County...

We had to make our way to our first apartment tour in the Heights. They were only able to show us one of the units we were interested in, a nice 2 bedroom. It's in our budget, and the area looks nice, but we aren't IN LOVE with it yet. Our host, Dow, keeps telling us to follow our gut.

So far, we really like Houston. It's surprisingly green. Traffic is intense, but not as intimidating as we expected, and we don't feel like we're constantly at risk of getting shot. Lets hope this positive image continues.





Friday, March 15, 2013

The Drive Part 1

Today was the day. We woke up early to say goodbye to Monty, before he left for work. Zach went back to sleep for a couple of hours, since he still wasn't feeling well. I stayed up and packed us some snacks, sandwiches, cooked breakfast, and hung out with Michelle and the kids. Eventually, I had to ninja kick Zach out of bed so we could get started on our adventure. We ran about an hour late, due to having to squish our last minute items in the car, and having to get Zach out of bed. Here's a few fun pictures of our car.



Please don't judge us for the case of Yuengling in our car. After living in Providence, RI for a year and half with no access to that delicious brew, I was wise enough to see if it is available in Texas, and sadly it is not. Thus, we thought it was critical to bring a case, that we will cherish and drink slowly.
Eventually we hit the road. We got to drive by Sweetwater, and attempted to surprise Monty at work. Apparently driving by with a large container on top of a vehicle that looks like it is going to burst from the inside looked a little suspicious, and we were spotted. Fail. It was nice to get to see Zach's dad before we took off. 


Our drive, I should say Zach's drive was going to be pretty intense. We had 9 hours ahead of us before our stop for the night in New Orleans, only 599 miles (964 km for my Canadian/Brazilian friends). 


We were able to get out Tennessee rather smoothly, but hit some traffic and strong winds once we crossed into Georgia. We were pretty worried about the carrier top holding up, since it was locked around Zach's roof, and not a rack. Luckily, we were only in Georgia for a short period before crossing into Alabama, where we had our first stop to fill up on car fuel, and human fuel (caffeine). A gentleman from Alabama spoke to me while I at the gas station, and I swear I didn't understand a word that came out of his mouth. I realized the southern accent just becomes more incomprehensible the more south you go. We also hit a little traffic in Alabama as well, as Zach liked to joke: "We were able to able to hit lunch traffic twice", since we had gone back an hour in Alabama.
On the bright side, we were making pretty good time, and made it to Mississippi by 4 p.m. Look, I am not here to offend anyone, but Zach and I both agree that Mississippi has got to be one of the most hoody/ghetto/rundown states we have ever seen. We had to stop again for gas, and Zach chose a Shell gas station, as he thought it was more reputable than Jim Bob's Local Gas Station. Boy were we so wrong. The screens didn't work as they had been busted in, the handles were duck tapped, and I was followed around the store as I decided what we wanted to snack on. Apparently... I am very suspicious looking.
Fortunately, we got out of Mississippi as soon as we could, and made it to Louisiana. Our drive into New Orleans was something special. If you ever get to drive through, I highly recommend it. We had to drive over a bridge that never seemed to end, and felt like we were driving into the clouds. I have to add that Zach may have been a little nervous, and that it was fun to watch.


New Orleans outskirts are rough. I don't know if if its poor maintenance, low-income population, or Katrina damage but we were definitely a little worried. After a bit of a drive, we arrived at our first Airbnb stop. We were staying in a small apartment, with 5 other people. Zach and I were a bit confused, as we hadn't read the description of the location accurately, and we were greeted to a room divided by a curtain.


We kid you not. On the brightside, the host was wonderful and the neighbourhood was nice. I introduced Zach to his first Tunisian food experience, and he enjoyed it. Now we our off to bed, where we will probably pass out and hopefully not wake up until our alarm rings in the morning. Wish us luck at putting the roof car top back together!


Thursday, March 14, 2013

The Packing Chronicles

Zach spent most of the day today at his Papaw's, putting together his new computer. I on the other hand, was lucky enough to be responsible for packing our life into the car, and doing 5+ loads of laundry. After moving so much, you think I would be more organized... Here's a picture of the madness.


Fortunately for me, Zach's mom was there to keep me sane. She also recommended that I use space bags. I was a little apprehensive at first, I thought they were just a silly QVC item, that didn't work... boy was I wrong. This is my face after I finished stuffing all our clothes into 16 space bags (please note: that I fit the large plastic container behind me, a large garbage bag, a large cardboard box, and half of that red suitcase).


HAPPINESS.
May I add, that we also fit our IKEA duvet, sheets and 2 pillows into ONE of those large bags. I swear, they should use me as one of their promoters, I am sincerely in love with those bags.
Moving on, eventually Zach came home after getting space bags, buying snacks for the trip and attempting to fill a non-existent hole in our tire (Valvoline failed). Things really became fun then, as we had to finally attempt to put things into the car. Fortunately, Zach's parents kindly bought us a HUGE vinyl carrier top since Zach's little cobalt could only hold so much. The men got to work, while the women watched. I have no idea how we are going to unload and reload this bag once we are in New Orleans, I hope Zach doesn't expect me to be able to help.


We had a lovely dinner with Zach's parents. Monty grilled some scrumptious burgers that we picked up over the weekend. Pretty much everything is the car, minus our carry-ons. We hope to wake up early and hit the road, but Zach has a cold so we have to make sure he's feeling good enough to drive 9+ hours. We'll post more once we get to New Orleans!


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

T-2 days for take-off

We went to the Foothills Parkway in the Smoky Mountains today. Zach wanted to get a last look at the mountains before we leave. Not a final goodbye but just a see you later. It was really sunny and warm, so it was a perfect day to go. I'm sure that Houston's got its beauties... but its going to be pretty flat in comparison.



We are t-2 days prior to departing for New Orleans. We have yet to pack anything. Yesterday, we went out to dinner, and the movies with Zach's family. We watched a terrible movie, Dead Man Down, that we definitely wouldn't recommend to anyone. We had a lovely time though, until we got stuck in a ditch. It had been raining all day, and we got stuck in the mud while Zach tried to turn around in a cul-de-sac (or in Zach's terms: an unfinished dead end road). It only took 45 minutes for a tow truck to come to the rescue. We are now down 100$ and a pair of my shoes. On the bright side, the car wasn't damaged, it was just Zach's take on modern day muddin'.

Tomorrow we are going to Zach's papaw's house early in the morning, for what we assume is homemade biscuits and gravy. In return, Zach will be building his papaw's new computer, while I watch, trying to manage my nerves over the 234792374 things we have to do before Friday.

Here's a link to our photo album, with a few more pictures from the outing.