Epic Candy Shop

Day 2: Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Austin, Texas

State Fact of the Day:

Texas- In 1836, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and other famous heroes died at the Alamo fighting for independence.

We've actually been to the Alamo on one of our other cross country trips, but not this time. It's pretty small.

I wanted to mention, my tenses are all messed up because I'm writing stuff as it's happening, after it's happened, and sometimes even before. I'm not even going to try to make everything uniform. We'll just go with the flow together, alright?

Alex saw "Santa Claus driving a truck from Nebraska" and decided that if he ever looks like Santa, he will dress up in a suit.

We drove over the Mississippi on a bridge and a raised highway over a bayou. Which is pretty much just a French English name for a wetland, if you didn't know.

Alex also really confused me by playing a police siren on his phone, and then laughed at me for looking for a police car.

In Rayne, the frog capital of the world, we found the world's largest gummy bears. We also found the world's largest gummy worms, vintage gum, bertie bott's beans, chocolate frogs, maple bacon lollipops, tin cases of gum, and so much more. It was an amazing candy shop.

They also had a case that showed the different versions of Candy Land. The one we have is the 1984 version. There were six versions.

I got a maple bacon lollipop and a tin case of Dubble Bubble. Alex got a Wrecking Ball (jaw breaker) and a gummy gator. Bella got a swirl lollipop, rainbow twizzlers, and a jolly rancher. Parents got a tin case of tootsie pops, Horehound old fashioned hard candies, "the satisfaction of watching us enjoy ourselves," and pictures.

Passing through Lake Charles (Louisiana) we are officially 1/3 of the way to Phoenix. Not long after, we hit the Texas border. At the visitor center, Bella got about a million brochures for ranches in Texas "for the animals" and thus entertained herself for a good while in the car looking at them.

After grabbing some Hondurian food for linner (lunch/dinner) we headed over to Katy Branch Library right outside of Houston. The teen librarian I interned under and volunteered for at Millhopper Library in Gainesville moved and got a job in Texas, and we were able to visit him at his new library for a little under an hour.

As a whole, I don't care much for Texas. But I've found that I really like Austin. Even though I've only been here 2 hours. We met some really awesome couch surfers to house us tonight... And they're just the nicest people. We've all spent a while talking to each other and we took a walk together as well. We saw a little of Austin's 6th street, got to check out a little lot of food trucks, and tried a ice cream cookie that was very tasty. It was super cool that the lot used tumbled glass as a kind of gravel. Hearing about the different festivals and seeing the atmosphere here, I really wish I could spend some more time here or come for a festival or something because Austin seems like such a fun place to be. Just 1 night is not really enough. Hopefully I'll be back someday. :)

I'm really tired now, after 8 hours of driving and stopping in different places and seeing cool things so I'm going to bed soon! I know I didn't do the little bit of Austin that I saw justice, but I did my best. Excited for the new day!

See ya someday!