Road sign

along the highway you see a lot of signs for food. some just to let you know about their restaurant, sometimes even 30 miles ahead, or more. or less. or like above "worth every calorie". since i goto the gym, where all the machines count each calorie you have burned (although i know they are not accurate, and you probably usually burn a little less than they say), i sometimes think in calories too. many restaurants list how many calories each of their dishes contains, so then i all i think is; ooh, for just that cookie i have to bike 30 minutes! or run 3 miles.... not always, but sometimes it helps not having the cookie... :)

the coffee place in the hospital also lists the calories of all their pastries, and many of the muffins, brownies and (giant) cookies are easily 400 calories, some even 600-700!! just a muffin... nowadays i only get their coffee, and just watch all the calories i dont have to bike off.. ;)

Ancient cottonwoods

while we drove around in texas last december, we saw quite some cottonwood trees. so very pretty! just this weekend i went through the photos and tried to make a selection that i can make into a photoook someday (the actual doing is the problem. the plan is there since a while, but at least now i started). its frustrating how fast you forget details of a trip!! yes, it was all pretty and impressive, but then you see some photos again and cannot even remember exactly where it was. or maybe thats just my problem.....

anyways. these trees had a sign warning you that you should not come too close as the trees were very old and limbs could fall off any moment.....

Pretty tree!

today i was going through the pictures of our road trip in december, and found this one. it was in dalles, texas, at a cemetery. the trees were so pretty, and i didnt know how to take a picture of them. but tim did, i saw today, and now you can see that as well...

In Austin

on a wall in austin, texas, where we were last december. i thought this was a really cool graffiti.

in the subway today i saw a lot of men with "some flowers". normally you never see that. funny.... perhaps tomorrow all the valentine's candy is on sale? (the shops were full with chocolate etc). maybe i should check..... :D
as a valentine's gesture, the mayor of boston decided that parking was free today, so that everyone who wants to go out for dinner can do so without having to think about paying for parking.... although that didnt make parking in the center of boston any easier, i guess, especially since there are still huge piles of snow that are also taking up some spaces..... 

Cool car

while on the highway in texas we saw this old and shiny car. as we were in a bit of a traffic jam it was easy to take a picture. but that was also too bad, a it would have been cooler without a car in front.....

all the snow here in boston has vanished! tonight is supposed to be pretty cold though... lets see...

Hi dear!!

yesterday we saw a lot of live deer, so cute!! very different from the day before, when we saw many alongside the road, hit by cars... i guess that explains why most people around here have a big car with a huge cattleguard in front (we dont know the actual term, but you get what i mean, i hope). we saw some elk too, yesterday!

and so many cows, literally in the middle of nowhere, im really curious how that all works, does the farmer visit them.. or? 

and another thought that cannot leave my mind; i once read that the entire world population (thats 6 billion people, right?)  fits in the state of texas... but... then the density would be like new york city.....  the remoteness we are driving through also made me realize something else, and although so very logic, it was a revelation to me.. ;) once the entire world was as remote as the places we drove through the past few days.... i am just not used to such emptiness and keep wondering how people can live there....

well, today is a beautifully sunny day! (the first, so far we started out grey every day), and we are up for another long drive, further west and north...

Rural America

this morning we woke up early in alpine, texas. had breakfast at the hotel (not too bad), and drove to fort davis, which was much less interesting than i thought (once there was a fort, but now only the foundations were still present). the road towards it however was beautiful. then we drove on the interstate for a bit (80 mph, even faster than yesterday!), then we got onto road 54 from Van Horn to the highest peak of texas in the guadelupe mountains. that road was deserted (we maybe met 4 cars in total?), and almost entirely straight. so... tim decided i should drive. now, mind you, i never drove in my entire life.... so it was a little scary. even with a road with just a few curves and no other cars.... but i drove, for 10 miles or so, hahhahaha.

eventually we entered new mexico; the first sights were not too pretty, and the desert was pretty flat. most roads were rather empty again, and distances between towns were huge! at some point we were high up in the mountains, full of snow, after which we entered the desert again. what an amazing change in landscapes in just several hours of driving!! during dinner we looked at the photos i took, and its crazy how fast you forget (even during a 1day drive), what you all saw.... its good to keep a blog for just that reason... :) we are now in socorro, judging from the hotel prices clearly less touristic than alpine, we got a room for just 42 dollars.

above one of the first pictures i took this morning. the landscape there was so yellow and deserted. the windmill is so very typical too. i knew it ofcourse from the movies, but during our time in texas i have seen many of them... wikipedia tells me they are part of a domestic water system....

today we gained another hour (2 now since we left boston), as we are in the mountain time zone.... but to me it feels like midnight, clearly time to sleep to get up early on the last day of 2012!

Texan desert

this morning we left san antonio and took highway 90. after i had done some reading online last night, i had high expectations. and... we were not disappointed; it was beautiful. so much desert!! and such an ever-changing landscape. here and there a teeny tiny town, with many abandoned buildings... the nature was a whole lot better, whenever there seemed to be some humans around, there was also a lot of old crap; from cars to barns to entire houses....  the roads were perfect and there were not too many cars. we stopped here and there to take some pictures, and i also took a lot while driving. i just had to think of those cowboys in the early days, going through this empty, so very empty country!! at least at this time of the year its not soaring hot, as im sure it will be during summer.... (we didnt wear our jackets, but it was a little chilly when outside). we passed creek after creek, but all the riverbeds were empty...

eventually we stopped in alpine, which is surrounded by several hotels (luckily for us, several were pretty full already!), and also by an interesting mountain landscape...

ah, along the way we also got checked by the border patrol (along the road we saw 2 inspection stations, i guess because we were close to mexico), but everything was fine after showing our passports...

now its time to sleep again, seeing so much beauty is tiring... ; ) we havent fully decided how to drive tomorrow, and we still havent left texas......

Concrete jungle

we left mckinney this morning. it was chilly (but definitely less cold than yesterday), grey and a bit rainy. this is somewhere along the highway; arent the signs a bit abundant? motels, hotels, and food, food and more food (mostly mexican, pancakes or burgers). along the highway you certainly dont have to worry finding something to eat or a place to sleep, just the signs might be confusing.... the parts of texas we saw today were just flat. not always unpretty; stretches of empty (farm)land, mixed with (too many) outlet malls, superstores, apartment complexes, and stuff like above. i preferred the empty stretches of land...

eventually we ended up in austin, and the sun had come out!! we could even walk around without jacket, quite a change from this morning... we learned a bit about the history of texas, cowboys and austin, saw the capitol (the largest in the country), had lunch and drove on to san antonio. quite the tourist city! we walked along the river, together with many, many other people. it was fun, but in my opinion it actually was an ugly version of the dutch city utrecht, which also has many restaurants lined along its canals. now we are in a motel a little outside of the city, tired and curious about tomorrow, when we will continue on highway 90 towards el paso. from what ive read, this must be a very interesting route! lets see how far we will get... unlike yesterday we did not yet book a hotel and will just see where we will end up....

Freeeeeeeezing Texas

last night i could not get blogger to work... but... we are in texas! we got up at 4 in the morning, had a cab waiting at 5, a delayed flight that eventually left at 8, and landed in dallas somewhere in the afternoon, where we were greeted by freaking cold weather, and snow. more snow than in boston, not a lot, as you can see above, but enough for lots of kids to have fun... :)

as you might remember, we were in texas last year may for a wedding, so now we had to witness the result of that; a cute little baby boy! i just wish it wasnt so cold here.... grrr...

we did some touristy stuff too, we saw the memorial for john f kennedy, who was shot in dallas. it is a really nice memorial. we walked around a bit more, but while last time it was too hot to walk around (nobody was walking except us), now it was too cold, haha. tomorrow we drive further; at the very moment we are still deciding where to.... lets see.... :)

ah, i learned something too; if you want tea around here, you have to specifiy you want hot tea, otherwise you will get iced tea (bleeeghhh!), and some places dont even have the hot version....

Real Texan

 

this man was one of the few walking beings we saw in downtown dallas, when we were in texas. it didnt happen to us, but i heard from several people that walking in dallas is an anomaly. if you do so, it can very well happen that a cop comes up to you to ask whether everything is OK, whether your car is broke down or whether you lost your way... :)

here are some more photos from texas, also from the wedding celebration, which was the reason we went there...

Also Texas

endless rows of power masts, flat fields (like the netherlands!), and sizzling heat.... that was my impression of texas (or at least the tiny part we saw of it). 

they told me the current heat was just the beginning of a few more months of even more heat. unbelievable! but... everywhere airconditioning. and most places the airconditioning was set to very cool... so while outside you were meting away, inside i was cold!! it seemed like a perpetuum mobile of heat; all the airconditioners cooling down the buildings to frigid temperatures, thereby expelling heat on the streets, making outside even more unbearable than it already was...

and i realize there it still sooo little i saw of the US! texas so far has been the furthest south and west i have been so far. funny; often people from europe complain that americans "do europe" in a few days, hopping from one capital to the other. how can you see europe? and what is europe?! all those countries are so very different! but the same goes for the us, in fact; i defenitely need to "do more us of a!"

Downtown Dallas

on saturday we went to Dallas, Texas. it was hot, hot, hot! i guess it was over 35 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and we had an afternoon to check out dallas... we first went to the dallas museum of art, which had free entrance (jeejjj!), and was very big and pretty. as all american museums we visited so far; they all are spacious, architecturally interesting, and with a lot of european art. they all have quite some dutch painters, a rodin or 2 (this one had even more), some monets.... then some ancient art, and some contemporary art. we always get lost and dont understand the walkway and/or the map of the museum... but its always very enjoyable (and usually free; or at least on the day we choose to go.. ;) )

after that we decided to walk the streets of dallas. that was pretty toasty! the streets were deserted, on a saturday afternoon! and we could not find any shops... so that was kind of disappointing...

Self portrait

today the entire day was wasted on coming back to boston... got back late and now im tired and defenitely i want to post more texas-pics. above you can see that we surely behaved like real tourists in texas... so, for now a self portrait, as that was a while ago as well! good night!

oooh, we did have a perfect breakfast in a real pancake house in texas with the bride who had her birthday today, her husband, his mom and his brother, that was great and yumyum...

The Bride

This is Shannon, Tim's friend of 11 years. Today we went to her wedding reception for which we flew from Boston to Texas. It was a very Texan wedding party, on a real ranch with a meadow, orchard and what-not. There was lots of good food (including a brisket) and drinks, and the owner of the estate showed us around. He is in construction and built the entire farm and adjacent buildings himself. He has a jeep from WWII, and other toys rich Texans play with, like a fishing boat, model trains, and hunting gear. The temperature was also quite Texan (sizzling!), so afterwards we went to cool off in the pool. If only the water was a little colder.....  but all in all, it was a hoot and a half!

(this time tim wrote... and i took the picture....)

Skating rink!

we went roller blading tonight! in a real american skate center. i only knew those from the movies, and the big bang theory (look at howard's purple pants!!). for only 7.50 we could skate as long as we wanted, including skate rental. i remember i used to love roller blading.... so much that at one point i was that good that i could skate real hard and then hit the wall.... i went on with it until i broke my arm... 

anyways... i thought roller blading is similar to biking; something they say you will never forget how to do. that wasnt quite the case! i felt very insecure and unstable on those things (and mind you; they were real roller blades, not inline skates), but after a while i kind of new again how to do it... and it was cool! going round and round... and just the entire ambiance.... the music, the lowly lit skating rink, all the kids going really fast. i felt like a real american!! :D

and so i was sure roller blading was an american invention. but information at the skating rink told us that it was actually an unknown dutchman in the 1700s that wanted to go iceskating in summer, and thus put some wheels under his shoes... oh, what would the world be without the dutch?! ;)

above; thats me...  :)

In Texas

we arrived in dallas today. stupid, this morning, at the airport i had to ask tim where we were flying to; i did not even know! i knew it was texas, but.... anyways... we went from boston to newark, and from there to texas. then we got into a car and this is what i saw.... lots and lots of highway. and you can go very fast there, much faster than around boston!

and now im tired... its hot here too. real hot. sizzling it said on the weather forecast in the plane. i thought it was funny, but it really is sizzling.... ah well.. airconditioning is everywhere and right now im a little cold, even though its 10 pm and outside its 28 degrees celsius...