South and SouthWest

Atlanta

After spending time with Liz’s mom in North Carolina, we went on to Atlanta. Johannes was giving a talk at Georgia State University about his newest book, so Mom and the kids decided to explore Atlanta. 

We walked to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park from our hotel. Once there, we meandered across the park, admiring the poems written by children that adorned the area. 

In the museum, we explored the exhibits before heading to a small theater that played a short film surrounding MLK. The images portrayed in the movie were very provocative and will stick with me for a long time.  

We signed up for a tour of MLK's childhood home as our final activity before heading back to our hotel. The man who led the tour gave a unique lens to MLK's childhood years. It was amazing and inspiring to see the place where MLK grew up! 

We were all really glad that we had decided to go to the museum and go on the tour! It was an incredible, interesting, moving experience and it remained in our minds for many days to come. 

New Orleans, here we come!

Biloxi, MS

We finally made it far enough south that we hit summer.

New Orleans, LA

We headed onto New Orleans in the striking approach over Lake Pontchartrain (listening to "New Orleans is Sinking" by the Tragically hip). We settled into a beautiful house by City Park right along the bayou. We loved sitting outside in the warm soft air and walking to Cafe Du Mond for morning beignets and bird watching below trees covered with Spanish moss. 

We rode the trolley downtown for a tour of the iconic French Quarter and met up with Liz’s cousin Ben for our wander. After checking out the French Market (alligator heads and original art), we sampled a number of street music shows. The highlight for Trev was the serendipitous bass lesson!

We ate mufallettas, popcorn shrimp, iconic pizza, crawfish stuffed beignets, and fabulous gelato. We are definitely country mice so we loved the quiet of our mid city location next to the park. But it was a fabulous 36 hours in NOLA!

Houston, TX

First stop in Houston was visiting our friends who were lovely hosts, showing us the finest of Texas BBQ and warm southern hospitality. Thanks to Jen, Kirby, Will, and Lincoln!

The Houston space center was amazing!We went on a trolley ride and met MECO (Main Engine Cutoff Operation), the alligator. We also learned about ARTEMIS, a mission to the dark side of the moon. It was a wonderful trip and definitely worth it!

Austin, TX

After our wonderful stay in Houston (thanks, Jen and Kirby!), we continued on to Austin. We rented bikes for part of the day and biked along the river. It was a great way to see Austin and we really enjoyed it. 

After that, we headed back to our hotel and relaxed for a little bit before heading on to our next great adventure: a cat cafe called Purr-fecto Cat Lounge! Liz took the kids for a half hour to hang out with all the cats. We were so glad that Johannes had discovered such a place and it was an awesome first cat cafe experience. 

Another great highlight was dinner that night. While Johannes met up with a colleague, Liz and the kids walked to a great vegetarian restaurant, much to the delight of the two vegetarians in the family. It was delicious food and we even got dessert afterward from an Amy's Ice Cream near our rental. 

Next up: National Parks! 

In the meantime, we wish you a lovely holidays season from Surprise Arizona!. 

Going to Carolina...

From Washington, D.C. we headed west and south, ending up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, home of Moravian stars and the best ginger cookies ever made. Most importantly for us, Liz's mom lives in Winston Salem. We had a busy and productive week of doing administrative tasks, everything from enrolling the kids in home school to sorting the piles of mail that Brooke has been helping manage (all the behind-the-scenes work to make this year happen).  However, we also did some fun things. Decorating a gingerbread house was a particularly fun activity. 

Johannes found a local guitar store and managed to get some work done on his instrumental companion, including a treatment advertised as a "spa for your guitah." Liz loved joining her mom’s watercolor class. We played basketball every day under Carolina blue skies. 

We also watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in the most amazing movie theater (the seats reclined AND were heated!), and had a pre-Christmas with Gramma (Kindles for the win for our little readers!) 

Then we headed into the mountains for a reunion with one of Liz’s med school friends Steve and his family, Olivia, Wesley, and Emily. So fun reconnecting after so many years and Liz and Jo were convinced to explore enneagrams. A hike to a waterfall in Pisgah forest was a good antidote to drives through really windy roads in the Smoky Mountains. 

Our final North Carolina stop was with Liz's Aunt and Uncle in their mountain cabin, Treetops. Bac and Don took good care of us and allowed Jo to give a talk via zoom at Saint Mary's University, and Liz to join a work meeting.  They fed us well and were a supportive audience as we worked on our family musical revue.

Some sights along the drive led to some challenging but important conversations. 

Next stop: Atlanta.

Family, Friends, and Familiar places - New York City and Washington D.C.

Our plan was to head south before the snow and beat the holiday traffic and we mostly succeeded. After a few long days of driving and we ended up in New York City.

We spent a full but also relaxed 36 hours in the Big Apple, due in part to our excellent hosts (thanks, Tom and Matt).  The City Museum of New York was perfect and we highly recommend – a brief movie overview of the city's history, great displays on activism and changing technology. We rounded out the day with a lovely wander through Central Park, eating New York bagels and perusing local book stores. 

We finished with Times Square lights, a fun dinner, and a Broadway show – Into the Woods (whose songs Liz remembered entirely from seeing it 20 years ago!).

We then headed to Washington D.C. where Johannes and Liz met and lived over 15 years ago.  We had an ambitious agenda seeing sites, friends, and our "old haunts." We had a beautiful day at the National Museum of the American Indian and throwing frisbees on the Mall in the sunshine (yes, we wore t-shirts in November!) and seeing friends.

We celebrated Thanksgiving (aka "Yanksgiving") with Liz's mom who had traveled up from North Carolina. We had to visit the bookstore where we met (and may have bought a few books - can't leave a bookstore empty-handed!) and our favorite park.  The kids got to try Ethiopian food for the first time which was as delicious and fun as we remembered and we learned a bit about modern art at the Hirshorn. It is beautiful to be on the Mall at night.

The highlight of our trip were the people.  We had a big dinner party (thanks, Anne!) with two of Liz's college friends and their families - so special to see all our kids hanging out together.

We had brunch with Liz's aunt and uncle before heading out of town. It was a successful launch to the road trip part of our big year - family, friends and adventures in food and culture.