John Wise

We’ve traveled from the desert over the Great Plains into the Great Lakes region before taking in the New England states down along the Chesapeake Bay and then dropping into Appalachia, the South, and now Bayou country. From a Sod House in Kansas to the White House in D.C. to this floating house in Louisiana.  While one is moving through these environments, it’s hard to register just how dramatic the shift in the landscape and cultures has been.

A bit of fatigue has started setting in and the thought of returning to our bed becomes more appealing. One thing that has become abundantly clear while we’ve been out here is that we want to see it all over again and visit the points in between that we have yet to explore. Before I veer too far out of the moment analyzing this journey, I suppose I should continue with the day at hand.

This was our first encounter with Brahman cattle, and we were struck by how incredibly beautiful these animals are. If they weren’t so enormous, I’d want to jump into their pasture and go ruffle those floppy ears and snuggle their furry, soft-looking necks.

To my untrained eye, I initially thought these were pink flamingos, but it turns out that they are roseate spoonbills. Well, that’s even more exotic in my book of experiences. Whoever heard of spoonbills anyway?

Our backdrop is the Gulf of Mexico, which is pretty exciting to us. We’ve encountered the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, Great Lakes Erie, Ontario, Champlain, the Atlantic, Chesapeake Bay, and now the Gulf Coast. We are feeling inspired to drive over to California so we can include the Pacific as part of the journey, but I’d bet a dollar that when we get back to Arizona, we will stay put for a minute.

The Gulf of Mexico without us blocking the majority of the view.

We’ve been walking along the shore for quite some time by now, and the bag in Caroline’s hands is evidence of just how many shells we’ve collected.

Finding seashells here is not a problem.

I asked, and asked again, of Caroline if she was 100% certain she really wanted to use these public toilet facilities. She had to go while my knowledge of what the inside of those toilets looked like would forever be shrouded in blissful ignorance.

It doesn’t look venomous, and I can’t hear a rattle or it hissing at me, so how about you go and pick it up? Caroline did not oblige me, so we can only claim to have seen a snake on this trip as opposed to handling one. Maybe after we join the Pentecostals of Appalachia, we’ll learn just how to deal with these serpents and how to speak in tongues. There is so much to experience in America.

I’m fairly certain this is part of the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge.

And people say Australia is full of loathsome creatures bent on killing you? What’s up with this state of Louisiana with gators, 14-pound beaver rats, snakes, and now this floating island of fire ants? I had this vision that if I stuck a stick into this nest, the ants, realizing they were not connected back to dry land, would swarm over me like hellfire on their trek back to safety, even if it meant sacrificing the host as they would bite me a million times on their escape. I left them alone instead.

Live oak trees wearing Spanish moss because everything looks better with a fluffy beard.

This is not a strip club; nope, it’s a blurry refinery in eastern Texas photographed while driving fast on Interstate 10. We wanted to stay in Weimar, Texas, because Weimar, but with no lodging, we had to drive on, ending up in Flatonia, Texas, where not only did we get a room, we had some yummy barbecue at Joel’s Bar-B-Q. We have driven close to 7,500 miles since we left home nearly three weeks ago.