April 2010

From Mexico back to New Mexico to the family for Easter, with a few stops on the way. Easter was a very nice get together with the whole family, the weather was nice and spring was in the air. Once we left New Mexico heading south towards Texas, we could really see and feel the spring as you will see in our photo's. Texas is an enormously big State and we only got to see the southern part as we hugged the beautiful coastline. Our first encounter with alligators was in Texas and it will proof not to be the last.

We picked Houston as the only bigger city in Texas we wanted to stop at for a few days, we had a good time on and around Houston and saw a lot.

Hash, New Mexico, chilli capital of the world. This is a trailer full of chilli'sdrying, which than will be bundeled and sold for spices.

Whilst in Magdalena, Darren, Ian, his brother David and wife Kay and mom went to have a look at the Trinity site, it is only about an hours drive away.

Hanging the eggs on the Easter tree, a tradition in the Jenness family and lots of fun.

Easter breakfast with the whole family after the egg hunt.

Walking off our Yummy breakie.

After Easter, we said good bye to the family and went straight south through the cute town of Carizozzo towards Alamagordo.

Ian's mon, brother and his wife live in Alamagordo we visited them there, and had a look at the house that David and Kay are building which is coming along very nicely and looks amazing.

White Sands National monument, just south of Alamagordo, windswept dunes, made out of gypsum which cover 275 miles of park and create a dazzling white landscape.

Unbelievable but true this is sand not snow!

Carlsbad caverns, the cavern formations are a wonderland of stalactites and fantastical geological features. We took a 2 mile subterranean walk from the mouth of the cavern to a huge underground chamber.

First sight of blooming cacti, we saw lots more and they were spectacular. The desert had, had a lot of rain over the last 12 months which helped the cacti bloom.

Texas produces a lot of oil and on our long day drives we saw many and more ja-knikkers(oil pumps). They are everywhere and not just in the fields sometimes in town too.

On the Texas, Mexican border the United States had build a dirt road on which patrol cars drive looking for foot prints of illegal immigrants.

Corpus Christi, Texas, military airplane carrier which was open to the public and we went on a tour.

Padre Island National seashore, protected windswept dunes just south of Corpus Chrisit know for it's birds and turtles.

In this part of the world you are allowed to drive on the beach and there are even "road-condition" signs.

In a lot of the campgrounds we stay they have pool tables and I am getting closer and closer to giving Darren a run for his money!

Birds on Padre Island.

more birds, on Padre Island....

and more birds, spring is a great time here.

At our camp ground in Rockport we had a great big pond and in it was a "resident" alligator!.

Wildflowers. Not only had it been a wet year it was still wet, we had lots of rain and very high humidity sometimes up to 90% that takes getting used too.

First real sighting of an alligator.

Palicido were we camped the night was straight on the gulf of Mexico , Darren caught us a black dog (name of this fish) for dinner.

Galveston Island just south of Houston, were hurricane Ike in 2008 destroyed big parts of the Island. We visited the Ocean star a real life drilling island with all information and equipment for drilling. We enjoyed the educational part as we were a little sceptical about all the rigs you see from shore in the Gulf of Mexico. Who were we to know that a disaster was just looming around the corner.

This was one of the many houses left on the beach of Galveston, after the hurricane had been through and the building was still sitting there as if it happened yesterday. Lots of people did not have insurance or are still waiting to be paid.

Visiting NASA, Darren in front of the crew of the Apollo 13, with it's most famous astronout Neil Armstrong.

Policing the streets of Houston.

Houston in all it's glory, even though it is a big city it is extremely clean and friendly, with lots of activities on offer.

Amongst the many things we did in Houston was a visit to the zoo and they had this adorable bear blobbed out in the shade hidding from the heat.

All in all it has been a great month with a little more time spend in Houston than we wanted because one of my teeth needed to be taken care off. The weather has really hit us hard as we have been spoiled last year with dry heat and now we are trying to adjust to humid heat, quite a difference.

We have made a rough plan for the next few months; we will be heading up through Louisiana to Mississipi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin into Michigan and across the border to Canada.

Along the Canadian/USA border to the east in the months of July and August to spend autumn in the Eastern part of the States and from there make our way down to Florida for the winter.

April 2010

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