From New Orleans we drove another crazy, long drive to get to Dallas, Texas for church Sunday morning. We did make it though and finally got to see Shady Grove, a church that we've heard a lot about from all of our friends we know who go there. It was another refreshing service with blunt teaching straight from the Bible and really good worship. Afterward we got to see some old friends and of course had the wonderful experience, for not the first time, of being introduced as Matti's sister to everyone. What can I say, I have a famous brother... I also got too see my friend Xaundelle who I had the pleasure of being roommates with in France four years ago. As always, Xaundelle was a wonderful host and invited us over to her house for lunch. We had an awesome time hanging out with her and her family the whole evening and they made us the best mushroom and spinach enchiladas I've ever had.
The next morning we had to stop at a local beach in Dallas for a little resting before we hit the road for our long trek to Arizona. The water was pretty murky, but the park was empty, now that everyone is back in school, and we had a good, relaxing break. By the time we left Dallas it was 97 degrees F and once again in our non-air conditioned RV, it was pretty unbearable. So how do you survive Texas heat? Drink a slushi the size of your head of course!
We also stopped for some authentic Texan BBQ before we crossed into New Mexico. It was pretty fabulous, but I'm definitely starting to miss being able to by anything fresh or green at a restaurant. You would think that after his "What are grits?" moment, Alex would've learned not to ask. But no, he asked the waitress what brisket is and we got another you're-obviously-not-from-the-south-look.
There's not much to say about New Mexico. It's pretty flat in most places and there's just a lot of open land. We did attempt to find Route 66 and found out that it's the South's best kept secret. Honestly, it's not on any map and if you google it, you're directed to Amazon where you have to pay 11.95$ to buy a map of Route 66. We would occasionally see a sign pointing to Historic Route 66, but they didn't really lead you anywhere. It took us forever to finally figure out that the Route is literally right next to the highway and intertwines with it, sometimes even overlapping. 
Now I'd just like to say that the movie Cars creates a completely unrealistic picture of Route 66. I was expecting to find all these cute 50s style diners and gas stations and actually what it looks like is more like this... Abandoned, run-down buildings... Huge disappointment! Some parts of it are actually completely overrun and the only way to spot it is that there's an occasional abandoned, old car chillin in the middle of a grass field. Lame...
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