The hurricane, aliens and a dead armadillo

So some things you can plan for and some things you can't. We planned to arrive in Houston, Texas on the evening of Sunday, August 3 and we made our timeline--but we didn't plan for Tropical Storm Eduaord. We planned a 2-3 in Houston to visit my Aunt Fay and Uncle Clyde, and cousins Barry and Clyde, Jr. that we cut short due to the approach of Eduaord. Eduaord is due to make landfull tomorrow and Houston and Galveston are its current targets. It looks like it won't be a bad storm, but having been through coastal hurricanes before, the threat of flooding was enough to make us seek higher ground. I originally planned to get to Lafayette, LA, thinking this would be far enough east to avoid the impact of Eduaord, but decided to go a bit north instead. Tonight, Willis and I are in DeRidder, LA. We'll see what tomorrow brings--if the hurricane does, indeed, continue west and we avoid the worst of it, we'll head southeast down to New Orleans. And I tell you, it's beginning to feel like home--the smell of the low-country marshes, the sound of the cicadas and bullfrogs, the humid air that hangs heavy like a blanket over my shoulders...

My brave Uncle Clyde insisted on showing us around today, with the storm not due to hit until tomorrow, so we headed out to Galveston. We visited the Moody Aquarium, the seawall, and took a quick spin to see the beautiful old homes before heading back to Houston.

Enroute from the Grand Canyon to Houston, we spent a day with my cousin Susan and her family in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We visited the Los Alamos Historical Museum, which had fascinating information about the Manhatten Project and Los Alamos's history. We climbed into cavates (small, human-carved caves in the cliffs) in Bandelier National Monument and imagined what life was like for the native American people who lived here long ago.

We left Susan's lovely home on one of the five mesas that make up most of the residential area of Los Alamos, and headed due south to Roswell, NM to visit the UFO Museum and learn about the 1947 Roswell Incident. Do you believe? I believe!! UFOs, aliens, crop circles...bring 'em on!

And now you may be wondering how the dead armadillo of the title plays into our travels...after crossing the border into Texas, armadillo roadkills were a dime a dozen. At one roadside stop, we found a kind of mummified one that had been out in the hot sun for a long time. So I stuffed it into a plastic bags and threw it into the car as our souvenier of Texas! So when y'all come to Beaufort to visit us, just look for the mummified armadillo on the front porch and you'll know you've found us!

Recent photos here (no dead armadillos!)