Fall Flashback
Whoops we forgot to write a blog post for many months - heres a recap of where we have been!
Southern Mississippi, in front of Saturn V rocket at the INFINITY Space Center!
Week 24-25 (Nov 2 - 16): 1,000 miles
We last left off in November in Savannah, Georgia. Our next destination was further south to visit Grace’s grandparents in Florida.
We had lots of family time with both sets of Grace’s grandparents and were shocked by how warm it was in November! It was so nice to spend this extra time with family, thanks for having us! Florida is a long state, so driving up, down, and out of it added an extra 1,000 miles to the trip - epic!
Week 26 (Nov 16 - 23): 400 miles
We arrived in New Orleans on Saturday, November 16th. We dropped our bags at our cute Airbnb and prepared for our first night out in the city! We had an amazing dinner in the French Quarter, watched big bands perform down the street, and watched live music in a couple of bars on Bourbon Street. Sunday, we did lots of sightseeing, inclusive of eating gumbo and beignets. For brevity's sake, we will skip forward, but overall, we had an amazing time in New Orleans. The food was the best we had on the entire roadtrip, the music and art scenes were awesome, and the people were so nice! It would be fun to come back with a group of friends in the future.
After a week in NOLA, we headed off for Texas to see Brian’s family for Thanksgiving!
Week 27 (Nov 23 - 29): 400 miles
We planned a brief stay in Houston with Brian’s cousins, Matt and Cat, before continuing south to West Columbia - where Brian’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary live.
Once we arrived in Houston and dropped off our bags at Cat’s apartment, we were whisked away to meet Matt and their friends for a delicious TexMex dinner. It was a great welcome to Texas - the margaritas were worlds better than the last margs we had in South Carolina!
The next day, we met Brian’s parents, Mary and Gary, in the Texans’ parking lot for some pre-football tailgating. We had a great time at the football game and even had the chance to sit in row 1 at the 50-yard line—what an experience! Even though the Texans didn’t win, it was an action-packed game.
We then headed south to West Columbia, TX, to stay at Mary and Gary’s house for Thanksgiving. It was so fun having everyone together for the holiday; the Pattersons were fantastic hosts! We headed down to the river for some wakeboarding and boat fun where everyone got to show off their wakeboarding skills, or lack there of. During our stay at their house, we had to plan logistics for the next few weeks. Grace and Brian would go back to CA to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family, and then Brian would fly home to Massachusetts to stay with his family for the rest of December. We packed our usual bags, in addition to three large moving boxes to bring back camping gear we wouldn’t need in the winter, and headed out for the airport! Oh, and we left our car with Mary and Gary to take care of while we were gone - thank you!
Week 28-33 (Nov 30 - Jan 13): 0 miles
We both went home to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with our respective families, and Brian and his family took a big trip to Türkiye to see his brother and sister-in-law, Will and Anna. So, saying we traveled 0 miles is a little untrue, but it wasn’t a part of the roadtrip, so it doesn’t add to our count!
Brian had a great time in Türkiye with his family. They visited Istanbul for New Years and then flew to Adana where Will and Ana live. They road tripped to Cappadocia, a small town in central Türkiye that is famous for cave homes and hot air balloons. They even made it to North Cyprus for a weekend!
On January 13th, we were reunited in Houston, TX when Grace flew back from CA, and Brian flew in from Türkiye. We were graciously picked up by Matt, Cat, Mary, and Gary, and we spent another few days with the family down in West Columbia, TX, before preparing to set out on the road again. Huge shout out to the Patterson family for helping us out so much on this logistically challenging portion of the roadtrip!
