Crochet Me Crazy

Well, we have made full circle and are BACK at the same hotel in San Antonio, TX again! It feels like I have traveled the globe since my last post. (The good news is that I finished the 93 squares I needed to finish a vest I'm making for a Christmas gift!) Anyway, we left Friday, July 1 and drove the 8 hour drive to Hot Springs, AR. We got to the place we were staying at about 10 pm and then stayed up past midnight visiting with a couple of Jeff's friends from high school. They had kids around the same age as ours so the kids had a good time while we visited. We slept in their travel trailer. The next day, after we resisted much peer pressure to go to the lake instead, we went to a park called Gulpha Gorge to go repelling. Jeff learned to repell himself there and had promised Michael he would take him. Jeff has been wanting to take Michael repelling for years....I never dreamed I would do it too! I always said I wouldn't because I am scared of heights! Well, it wasn't a very high spot but all 4 of us did it, even Alison, and it was fun! It was a good place to get the hang of it before we try going off someplace higher. It was hot as all get out though.... no relief from the heat there! We must all be immune to Poison Ivy because those woods were full of it. We were all trapsing through there. No one broke out in anything itchy. We rushed back from there to get ready for the reunion party. Alison was amazingly outgoing! If you know Alison, you know how attatched at the hip she usually is to me. Especially anytime she is around a lot of people or strangers. She didn't even wait for us when we got out of the car! She took off ahead of us and we only saw flashes of yellow (her outfit) as she ran around and played all day. There were lots of other kids there. We left there to go see another of Jeff's high school friend's dad who is a parapalegic. We went home and ended up getting to bed real late again. The next day we were leaving. We went to visit the Mid-America museum on our way to Murpheesborough, AR. I carried Brindy around in my "dog purse" for 4-5 hours while we were at the museum! She is SUCH a GOOD Dog!!! I couldn't leave her in the truck because of the heat so I had no choice but to take her in. No one even knew I had her...she just quietly layed in there. She even rode the virtual reality roller coaster with us and saw a lazer light show! What a dog! The museum was a really neat place to take your kids! The kids had a blast. It's a hands on museum. I would have to say it is a much better museum that the children's museum we have here in Houston. We drove from there to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murphreesborough, AR and set up camp. This state park has the only public diamond mine in the world. We actually paid money to go out into a huge plowed field of dirt and dig for hours in the hot sun. The heat index was in excess of 100 degrees! We were troopers though....by golly, since we made it this far we were gonna give it our best shot to find diamonds!! You really start to feel kinda stupid after a few hours...then we look up and see there are lots of others doing the same thing! Young and old! Well, we didn't find diamonds....matter of fact, we didn't find anything except dirt and blisters on our hands. Seriously though, apparently there really are diamonds there. They average 1 diamond find a day. It was really interesting reading about some of the big finds. There were no finds while we were there. I think it is because they are having a drought and it was so dry. The ground was so hard it was very hard to dig. They say the best time is after a rain. Maybe we'll try again in the fall when its not so hot. We are quite the rock hounds, though. I can't count the times we have hauled home all our rock and fossils finds. They have a little water park there, too. The next day I took the kids to the water park while Jeff finished packing up the camper. We didn't end up leaving until around 4 pm! We had at least an 8 hour drive to San Antonio......the drive turned into 12 hours! We were both so tired. I started driving for Jeff right after Dallas. I don't usually drive much when we're pulling the camper but he needed to get a nap so we could make it the whole way. I had only been driving for about 30 minutes when the tire on the camper blew out...or off, I should say. When I pulled over, there was nothing left but the lug nut holes on the rim. The rim was completely demolished. This was at about 12:45 am....this is the 2nd time we've had a blow out on the camper in the middle of the night in the dark! We had just passed a long section of construction with no shoulders...thank you, Jesus, that we made it past all that before it happened! Jeff had it changed pretty quickly and we were back on our way... and a long way it was! We didn't end up getting to our hotel in San Antonio until 4:30 in the morning. Then we still had to unhook and park the camper and haul all our junk in from the back of the truck. We were exhausted. Michael stayed awake the whole trip...Alison snoozed most of the time. We collapsed. We had decided to stay at a different hotel than our usual LaQuinta Inn and Suites. Right after I got up the next day and took Brindy outside, I got a call from the office letting us know that the dog had to go. Apparently, they have adopted a new pet policy since our last stay there. They no longer allow pets on the property at all. That meant we were going to have to pack up all of our junk AGAIN! No peace --- I had planned on resting up today! I washed a couple of loads of clothes and Jeff got back from work around 3:00. We loaded up and headed for our trusty ol' LaQuinta Inn and Suites. Jeff and I took a badly needed nap. Tomorrow, the kids and I are driving to Blanco to spend the day at the river and visit friends.
We'll be here two more nights. We have reservations at Pedernales Falls State Park Friday and Saturday night. I'll be posting pictures of this weeks trip in our photo album and will post more later on the remainder of our trip. I'm going to bed now!