The Saint Louis Arch

PIERCE MADE IT UP!!!!
...and he's glad he went :)

New Orleans

THANK YOU MAX, ZACK, AARON, and JESSICA!!!
We have been very blessed by the people that we have met on this trip. There are so many amazing people out there that have been so kind and generous to us, and none more so then the people we met in the wonderful city of New Orleans.
...Our adventure began by rolling into town and going straight to the French Quarter. We started walking around and then decided to give our landlord's sister a call who owns a restaurant in town (or so we thought). It ended up that the New Orleans location had closed the previous year, but she was in Houma (about a hour from the city) so we planned on hooking up with her the following day. But, in the meantime Lee told us to go check out a bar called the Bridge Lounge that is located around the corner from where the restaurant used to be and to ask for Max. We found the bar quickly and walked up just as they were opening. We walked in and asked for Max and told him that Lee sent us, these were the magic words, from that second on we were treated like family.
We bellied up to the bar, explained to Max how we knew Lee and next thing you know we are all riding our bikes down to the riverfront to go to GulfAid, a spur of the moment concert that was set up to benefit those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf. We had a terrific time watching authentic New Orleans music and street entertainers, as well as eating great southern food and to top it off, listening to Lenny Kravitz wail.
Max was then gracious enough to invite us to stay at his house for the evening which was a godsend because it was about 85 outside and we would have been in the van.
...end day one...

Hot Springs National Park

My wonderful husband Pierce was very disappointed to find out that Hot Springs National Park actually has no hot springs, at least not ones that you can just jump into and soak in. Back at the turn of the century (20th that is) all of the natural hot springs water was directed into the town of Hot Springs and bath houses. These bath houses/spas were places that one could go to relax in, or a place to go in order to "cure" whatever one may be ailing from. The limestone in the spring water is said to have healing properties. So, even though we could not wade around in the hot springs, there were a couple of fountains in town that had the hot spring water spouting from them, and there were even places to fill up your own water jugs with the "medicinal" water. We definitely made sure to do that, mmmmm!

Arkansas

Trees seem to be everywhere in Arkansas, not just in people's yards, or lining the highways, but draped over every hillside. There were many places when we would look out the windows and all we saw were trees, trees and more trees. We would turn the bend and low and behold, more trees. As a matter of fact there seems to be forest upon forest of trees around this nation of ours. Even a lot of Arizona is covered in trees. It is amazing to think that there is still "global warming" with all of these plants hard at work.

Marfa City Building

Biking in Marfa

Marfa Water Tower