...And Ends With a Reunion

After the wedding shindigs, everyone but Marinda and Paul stayed at the house and went to church the next day for a relaxed Sunday. Gerrit and Elisabeth left bright and early to go to Washington on Monday and Mom, Dad, Grandma, and I left no-so-bright and early to start the journey to Texas.


The first day was pretty uneventful, as I recall. We basically drove for a long time, until stopping for the night in Birmingham. It was my first time in Alabama, which was fun, and I think we also clipped a little of the corner of Georgia, so I passed through 2 new states for the first time. Birmingham was a pretty interesting place. My main impression of it while driving through was that it has an unusual amount of sprawling cemeteries all over, most of which looked like they had a lot of big, interesting monuments and such. It would be interesting to explore there more, but we didn't have time.

The next day of travel, we continued on through Mississippi into Louisiana, both of which I've also never been to before. We stopped and had lunch in the French Quarter in New Orleans. It really was interesting to visit there. There are parts of New Orleans where you can still see the damage left by Katrina, but the French Quarter seems to be back to it's old self. I guess that's not surprising, since it's the tourist district. Plus, I think the hurricane didn't hit there much.

The architecture in the French Quarter really is quite unique and therefore, interesting. I loved all the intricate porches, many of which were decked out in creative ways. There were also quite a few places that seemed to boast beautiful hidden courtyards. I also really loved that most of the area still had functioning gas lanterns. I can only imagine those would be cool to see at night.

The restaurant we eventually settled for was quite beautiful, but the food was only OK, in my opinion. We at least had a pretty personable waiter who brightened up the experience. After lunch, we stopped by a few interesting shops briefly. There were several that specialized in Mardi Gras masks, which were pretty cool. Mardi Gras, on the whole, seems pretty wicked to me, but I appreciate the artistic masks that come from it.

We also just walked around the district a fair amount to enjoy a bit of the ambiance. We even passed a little market area with some live jazz music, so I felt like I got a good taste of the place. It was fun to be in a pretty iconic American area and experience the feel of it, even briefly. It seems like it would be an interesting place to spend more time, though I think I'd have to be on my guard to avoid the scandalous stuff.

We drove down through the Mississippi delta area afterwards and saw a bit some of the bayou area, which was interesting. No alligator sightings, sadly though! We ended up getting more up close and personal with bayou land in Texas. From there, we made a beeline for Houston, arriving at Layne and Kathy's house pretty late.

The next day, we were to travel on to Port Aransas for the family reunion, but we weren't in too much of a rush. So in the morning, Grandma, Kathy, Stacy, and I went to a small park/reserve in there area for some running/walking. It was a pleasant wooded area, though I must say that I am for sure not a fan of the ridiculous humidity in Texas! I did a fair amount of running to get in my trek prep mileage for the day without making everyone wait for me forever, but it nearly killed me. I was so hot! I really can't imagine living in such a place. It was downright unpleasant to be outside there.

After a very necessary shower, Grandma, Mom, Dad, and I left to go to the Houston Temple. I'd been looking forward to seeing it, knowing that it has a very different design than other temples I've seen. It was just as beautiful as I imagined, though it was surprisingly smaller than I'd envisioned. For the sake of time, we just did sealings there. I had particularly brought all the necessary cards to seal the entire Helms family, whom I've talked about before, together. I just felt that it would be best to do those sealings for a deceased family I've come to love with the living family I've always loved. It's always quite wonderful to participate in sealing ordinances with my own family members.

After the temple, we "raced" with Skye and Lance's family toward the rental houses in Port Aransas. We definitely lost that one, by quite a bit, actually. It's all because they got to use the southern causeway and we got stuck waiting for the northern ferry forever. On the bright side, though, we did get a great welcome to Port Aransas on the ferry in the form of getting to see a ton of dolphins playing around in the wake of the ferries. That was totally awesome! I've never seen a dolphin in the wild before.

We eventually made it to the houses, along with the rest of the family. We had two side-by-side summer homes, which was a nice set-up. The plan had been to go out to eat that first night, but because we all came in reasonably late, we missed the window for eating at most places on the island. So we ended up eating at Whataburger, which was still crowded late at night. Surprisingly, that place was actually quite delicious. I got their BBQ chicken tender sandwich and really enjoyed it, probably at least in part because I was quite hungry!

The next day, we started bright and early with a walk on the beach. The beach access was only about a half mile from our houses, so it was convenient and pleasant to head out there. I can't say that I'm a huge fan of the ocean overall. I think there are many things about it, especially from the zoological standpoint, that are extremely interesting, but beaches just seem pretty boring to me on the whole. That said, I do enjoy beach-going periodically, and it has been quite awhile since I've been to the ocean, so getting to enjoy it was quite nice. More nice, however, was getting the chance to talk to my Aunt Merina and Uncle Steve, whom I haven't seen since last year, along with the others like Mom and Grandma who came along. There were very few people on the beach that early (around 7 am), which made it more enjoyable. The only ones we passed were participating in a beach yoga class.

That day we went to the Texas State Aquarium, which really was very interesting. It was my favorite of the attractions we went to, by quite a margin. We saw several fun animal shows, like a dolphin show and a land animals show. They also had a number of tanks to see, filled with things like sea urchins, fish, and iridescent jellyfish. I pretty much hate encountering jellyfish in the wild, after stepping on one on the beach when I was quite little and getting a foot full of painful stingers, but I like seeing them in tanks. They really are beautiful creatures, and watching them swim and drift is a very peaceful, calming exercise to my mind. I should create a stress app where you simply watch a video of  jellyfish whenever you get tense or stressed. It would fix most of the world's problems in a jiffy!

The highlight of the aquarium, and one of the highlights of the trip, was going to the stingray petting pool. It was filled with several kinds of stingrays gliding around, and people were free to reach in and touch the graceful critters. They moved around quite fast, but in the right places, it was pretty easy to run a couple fingers along their backs as they swept by. Petting them is pretty cool, because they have an interesting velvety/rubbery texture that's very unique. While there, we also got to feed the stingrays, which was super awesome! You simply put an anchovy between two fingers and held it in the water with your arm along the wall. In time, a stingray would come and suck it right out from your hand. I was surprised by their sucking, partially because I didn't expect their mouths to be as far underneath as they actually are. Feeding them was really cool, and definitely a unique opportunity, especially considering that it was a pretty new practice at the aquarium.

That evening, we did more-or-less FHE, with Grandma sharing some family history stories and everyone generally talking and hanging around. The family reunion standard practice of most everyone doing a musical performance of some kind then commenced. Though that section always raises at least a couple grumbles, it makes Grandma happy, so we all go along with it!

The next day, we went on a pirate cruise. The boat was pretty cool, legitimately looking like an old vessel with sails, though those were never unfurled. It was actually powered with an engine, of course. It took us for a slow cruise through the channel around the island while some entertainers did a performance, mostly aimed at the kids. They still had some pretty good jokes for the benefit of the adults too. The kids got to swab the deck, sword fight, and a few other things in addition to being officially accepted as pirates. The most fun part for the adults was when they gave everyone fancy squirt guns for target practice, which basically meant shooting each other. Mom, Dad, Merina, Steve, and I were all sitting in a raised front section where only adults were allowed, so we had a pretty advantageous perch for shooting everyone else on the main deck below. We were aided by gravity in getting them, but gravity worked against them getting us. I got Sophie a bunch of times in the head, but then Lance started coming up the stairwell to our level and shot me in the back.

The best part of the pirate cruise was seeing dolphins. We crossed the ferry lane, where they really life to hang out and saw a number of them. We also observed them leaping in the front wake of some of the big ships going through. I was curious about this behavior, so I looked it up and discovered that they do it as a play activity. It's kind of like body surfing for them. The big ships make a wake that it's really easy for dolphins to cruise along for a thrill. It's an interesting behavior and was cool to see first-hand. Mom and I were also lucky enough to see 2 dolphins leap fully out of the water in an arc in tandem. It was amazing, the kind of thing you expect from trained dolphins, but not the wild ones. I think we were quite lucky to get to see it.

The next day, we did a beach day and then a campfire on the beach in the evening, which was pretty cool. Texas is chill on laws about that kind of stuff, so you could set up a fire basically wherever. We had dinner and then did s'mores. Then we did a campfire sing-a-long. I've never done a campfire on the beach, so it was a fun thing to try out. I felt like a real hipster, or a least a hippy!

For Sunday, we went to a ward nearby, but on the mainland. It was funny how our family made a good share of the commentary in Sunday School. You kind of have to wonder how things go when you aren't around, in those circumstances. Their new Stake President taught Relief Society. He's quite a young guy, but seemed pretty impressive. He opened the meeting up to questions from the sisters, which allowed for some good discussion. I thought this stake president did a great job of directing, but not overwhelming, the conversation.

The rest of Sunday was pretty low-key. We mostly just stuck around the house. I think we finished at least one of the puzzles Jan had brought. There were 4 or 5 of those, each with 500 pieces, and of varying difficulty. The last one we did was ridiculously tricky, because every piece looked largely the same, so there was a lot of trial and error. Each puzzle was a group effort, but Skye and Kathy were especially good at them. Mom also helped a lot with some of the later ones.

On Monday, Skye and Lance's family left as did Brad and Jan's. With our reduced numbers, we did some smaller excursions. We started out by visiting the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. This was a tract of wetland with some nice boardwalks, viewing towers, and telescopes available, all for free. It was honestly one of my favorite things we did. We saw A LOT of interesting birds and other wildlife, though no alligators, which disappointed me. They do apparently live there.

Among other things, we saw Spoonbills, an Ibis, and a Magnificent Frigatebird. All were very fun to see, and each had unique features. There were also coots, petrels, turtles, and frogs all around. I'm a bit of a bird-nut, so I really enjoyed getting to observe these different species in the wild. The vegetation there was also very beautiful.

Afterwards, we drove up to Rockport and checked out a marina which had a small aquarium. It was kind of interesting to see, though not as impressive as what we'd already done.

I was set to fly out of Corpus Christie Tues afternoon, so the family all came out to Corpus with me in the morning, and we visited the botanical gardens there. It was a pretty small place, but still interesting. One of the workers was nice enough to pull out a python they have just for us to see. A few, like Mom and Christian, were brave enough to get up close to it. They also had quite a few bird cages and things at that garden. We went to lunch together afterwards and then it was off to the airport for me.

My trip home was pretty awful, honestly. My first flight was significantly delayed, so I was likely to miss my connecting flight. The agent in Corpus Christie was able to book me on the latest flight from Dallas into SLC that night. It was a good thing we did that, because the Corpus flight got pushed back even farther. Even my Dallas flight ended up being delayed a bit. I guess they had some bad storms there. I didn't get home until after 1:00 AM. In SLC, I was greeted by a parking bill over $100, which was an unwelcome surprise. Basically, it wasn't a great day of travel. I was pretty tired for work the next day.

Mom and the rest of the folks that stayed through the last day had some interesting times on the beach that day, apparently. They found a Man-o-War on the beach, which is highly toxic, and can apparently kill a person at times. There was also a dead shark washed up somewhere, but they didn't actually ever find that, I believe.

Really, it was a great trip, overall. I had a lot of awesome new experiences and got to see the wedding, so though it was longer than I had originally hoped to take off, in the end, I'm glad I was able to do all I did. It was a great time to spend with a lot of my family on both sides doing interesting things.