Duck's Deductions: Road Trip 2019

Day 2 dawned nice and beautiful and we hit the road once again. I was super happy because I kept seeing signs like the one below.

PASCAGOULA!!!!! No, that was not our next destination, just a town that we drove through, but it still made me super excited because it is such a great name! PASCAGOULA! PASCAGOULA! PASCAGOULA! Okay, I should explain why I love that name so much...it is all Hart of Dixie's fault. In season three, they mention Pascagoula and the name just stuck as being awesome! Not a great explanation, but it is what it is. This trip also taught me that Pascagoula is located in Mississippi, not Alabama. Who knew?!?!?

In Mississippi, we made sure to stop at Exit 2 because there is a lunar lander exhibit at the Welcome Center. Right next to the Welcome Center is the Infinity Science Center, so we pulled into the parking lot to take a quick peek and saw the Apollo 19 Saturn V first stage rocket. That turned out to be a good thing, because we couldn't even find the lunar exhibit at the Welcome Center!!!! And it shouldn't be that hard to find because it is 30 feet tall!!!! There was some construction/work going on in part of the lot, and I think that is where the exhibit is located. :( :( :( :( :(

Apollo 19 Saturn V first stage rocket

We needed to keep driving, so we decided to try and find the lunar exhibit again when we went back through the other way. Next up - Louisiana!

Louisiana was fun to drive through in the fact that it was mostly bridges over swamp land. Not so fun to drive in because drivers didn't understand the concept of "KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS". People just loved to sit in the fast lane. UGH!

Yep, another bridge!

This is basically the view from I-10 throughout the state.

Another not-so-great thing about Louisiana is they don't believe in restrooms, which is completely unfortunate! People have to pee and it doesn't help when you are mostly surrounded by water!!! In the famous words of Ian Malcom, "When you gotta go, you gotta go!". The good news is we survived Louisiana and made it to Texas where we promptly found a rest area.

Welcome to Texas!

Being from the Midwest, I'm used to real easy rest areas: you get off the interstate, there is a simple buildings with bathrooms, and you get back on the interstate. Easy, right? Well that is not how it is done in the South. You might get off easily, but have a hundred doors to chose from and most lead to a small room with like three stalls, so basically lots of wasted space. Or you might get off and drive miles back into the woods before actually finding the restrooms. Or you might not have good restrooms off the interstate (that would be you Louisiana). Or you might have beautiful walking trails behind your rest area. Yep, that's right!

Wow, that's a large alligator snapping turtle!

The beautiful walking trail at the rest area...looks like a great walk, but so weird that it is at the rest area!

Okay, I think that is enough talk about bathrooms for now...so we continued our drive on I-10 towards our destination - Houston!!! Part of the reason for this road trip was to pick up states. I needed Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas and Natalie just needed Mississippi and Louisiana. However, we wanted an actual reason to go to Texas, not just make a random stop in the state. When we were looking into things to do in Texas, we saw that the Rodeo was going to be in Houston, which sealed the destination and reason!

I do love flat wide open spaces!

Rodeo Houston is about a month long event and we were attending the first night. It takes place at NRG Stadium (where the Texans play), so technically we picked up a football stadium. We got cheap seats, so we were HIGH up in the stadium, but it was a fun experience!!! My favorite parts of the rodeo are barrel racing and bull riding, of course! I would also have to say that Mutton Busting is great to watch. Little kids in full protective gear are put on sheep and have to ride the sheep as far as possible. It might be child endangerment because a few of them got rolled over on by the sheep! Another great part of Mutton Busting is the kids were asked what they wanted to be when they grow up:

"I want to be a Princess or a doctor" - one little girl said. Good choices, good choices!
The best response was by a little boy, "I want to be a normal human." Don't we all kid, don't we all.