Long overdue, and totally worth it.

Sorry it's been a while, and I will post past random pics soon, but today I'm here to tell you about the adventure that Claudia and I went on today.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning at 7am, I'm going to pick up Claudia and head to Huntsville State Park, about 60 miles north of Houston. I get my pack ready, including two bottles of iced coffee (and a power bar in case we're lost in the woods)...



I put on my cap and get ready to head out...

Just in case you needed to see me outfitted in 105 degree Houston adventure clothing...

As we made our way up north, we took a wrong exit at first... but we found a great mailbox. Where can I find a pink tractor mailbox? Would the home owner's association have an issue with this?

As we pull off the highway, a slight detour to the Sam Houston Statue. About a year ago (there's a blog) I passed this statue on the freeway and was frightened by A. the enormity of it and B. that there is a huge statue on the side of the highway.

It was too early, and the gift shop was closed... but just in case we needed to know (and this WAS tempting...).

On the short walk to the statue, there was this. It was slightly confusing, as it looked like it was some kind of performance area? There was what looked like a seating area, a large head statue, and an area in front of him for performances.

Huh?

You then walk up behind Mr. Houston. Claudia thought she might be able to see up his jacket...

There are bricks around the statue (I assume from folks that donated to help build it) and below is my wonderful, liberal friend, jumping on GB Sr's brick.

It really is on the side of the highway... no guardrail. And although it was nice to receive a few honks from the passing vehicles, it was still slightly unnerving.

I hope from this picture you can see the Mr. Houston is about 3 stories tall. (it's me in the foreground)

We are then off to Huntsville State Park. It was beautiful! We drove in, paid our $4 each for admission, and then saw:

The entire purpose of today's visit was that Claudia had found the park a week earlier, and saw that you could rent canoes. I've never been in a canoe, but I thought it would be a REALLY FUN adventure...

But "gators"??? And I can't feed them? What?? At this point, I think that if I fall in the water, isn't that feeding them, even though it's not intentional??

So, we pay $20 for an hour in a metal canoe. By the way - Claudia hasn't been in a canoe since camp at age 8... and we have no clue what we're doing. But we're excited!

It was an adventure just getting INTO the canoe... but once in, and the appropriate "we made it" pictures were taken, we were off.

As we try to figure out the paddling situation (I'm facing her in the canoe), and we continue to (literally) go in circles... we become more and more confused as to how this is supposed to work.

Then, as we watch the other canoers get in... we realize, I AM FACING THE WRONG DIRECTION IN THE BOAT.

I made the scary and (gator) death defying turn around in the canoe... and we were off!

We boated all around the lake... it was really pretty! Lilly pads, jumping fish, fathers and sons...


And us.... the city girls...

It was really great... and to my ULTIMATE surprise... we didn't fall in.

After making it 45 minutes on the lake, and truly becoming professional canoers (we even raced the 8 year old boy and his father in what we created was the race for the gold medal in canoe paddling).

As we pulled back to the dock, we realized that if we had actually known what we were doing - most of the fun we had would have been spoiled.

We got back to Baby Truck and realized it was time for brunch... and THE place to go when you're "out of town" is Cracker Barrel!

With the farm decorations and amazing home cooked food, we were in heaven.

We even got in a game of checkers after lunch. I am not sure it gets better than this.