On our trip out we ate a lot of healthy things but on our trip back we did not eat as healthy. Like, not very many fruits and vegetables. And we had treats. I had vanilla frozen yogurt with mango boba. Daddy said he thinks we should eat this every day for breakfast but I think this was just a joke because it would make too many sugar bugs on our teeth.
We are going to eat dinner with Gigi and Poppa tonight. I will also get to see my doggies and I can’t wait to hug everyone! I’ve been doing my school work on the road and have been away from my class. I am excited to see my friends too.
We wanted to see the raisin factory and eat some raisins but they aren’t open on the weekends. That’s too bad but there are other places to stop so I’m not too sad about it.
We sampled cheeses and then we bought some cheese curds and beet chips.
Daddy fed some chickens. He sprinkled the food into their trough.
This was a seven story tree house.
It took me a while but I got brave and fed the chickens and roosters too. As soon as they hear someone put a quarter in the food machine they poke their heads out to get fed.
I rode the mechanical teeter-totter.
This is not a real horse but it is the same size as one. Mama taught me how to use the stirrup to get on and off BY MYSELF.
This is how STOP signs used to look, the little circles reflected.
This was a fun little house. Daddy says he thinks he can build something like this. But he has to build a chicken coop and a bookshelf first. He has a lot to build.
There was an antique bee smoker for sale for $45. Mama and I are going to watch a video on bees when we get home and I will learn what a bee smoker is.
My Great great grandparents built a building here for their oil business. Dentists and other people also were in the building. My Gigi learned to ride a bike in the parking lot. It was at 1731 Beech Street in the 1950s. Now it is a park and the building is all gone.
This is where my great great grandparents once lived. This was before they moved to Lido Isle. My Gigi says the house looks much different now.
This was my Gigi’s first house after she was born. She lived here and then one other house before she moved to Lido Isle. It looks much different now too.
This is our last night in a hotel. We stayed in a really nice one. I really liked the decorations.
This is where we checked in. See the big cowgirl? This town is Bakersfield and they have Cowboys and Cowgirls here. This is where my Gigi was born. She has a pair of cowgirl boots.
I really liked these soft blue walls in the dinner area.
The wallpaper in the hallways made us feel dizzy!
I’m wearing my new scorpion socks and feeling pretty good about that.
This is what we could see from our room. At night there was a loud birthday party and I watched it from the window. I told Mommy I would like to have my birthday there. In the morning they cleaned it all up and got ready for a wedding. The colors were bright blue and gold. It was so pretty to watch.
This is what the wallpaper looks like up close. These are oil rigs. My Gigi’s family had oil rigs here a long time ago. Oil comes from old dinosaurs underground.
This sink was a little too high for me to reach so I found a way to use it. My parents were surprised to find me in this spot.
This is a ghost town. That means a lot of people used to be here and there were buildings and a lot going on but then everyone left except maybe ghosts.
I have moved on from drawing houses to drawing pictures of: Mommy + Daddy getting married, outer space, trains trying to go up mountains, and ocean creatures under the water.
I like to draw picture after picture of the same thing before moving on to another topic. So, this afternoon we had to stop for more art supplies. I got some pens that have different smells. (Good smells)
I got to go to a wildlife park. It was a surprise.
I saw Rocky Mountain goats, Dall Sheep, American Burros, Alaskan Tundra Wolves, Arctic Wolves, White Bison, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, and Black Bears. You can open your window but not in the bear or wolf areas.
Then I watched a bird show where I saw hawks, owls, falcons, and other raptors. I actually have a friend in my class with a brother named Falcon. The birds flew right over my head. It was not scary. They don’t want to bother people.
At the end of the show, there was a bird who would take your dollar and put it in the donation box. The wildlife park workers never punish the animals. They only give them treats when they put the dollar in there or they fly to the right spot. If they don’t do it, it’s ok but they won’t get the treat!
I petted 8 different goats and hugged some too. I wish I had a little goat to cuddle up and sleep with at night. I have a very tall loft bed that Daddy and Grandpa built and I think a goat would enjoy jumping up there.
I fed a frozen fish to a river otter. Some kids didn’t like to touch the fish but I just picked it right up. We didn’t get a picture of that.
Then I saw this guy and I felt shy but I still got my picture taken. Last year I didn’t like seeing characters at all. I know it is a man or a woman inside of a costume.
So this is where I went today. It is very special. Not a lot of people get to go here. You have to make an appointment.
Buddy Holly sat in this exact chair! I sat here and listened to his music on some very old equipment. It sounded very good! See his GOLD record here???
This is some of the equipment.
This was Buddy Holly’s amp. It was OK to touch it.
This was the microphone.
This was the solo vox that was used in the song Sugar Shack, by the Fireballs. It sounded like a toy.
This is a famous picture of Buddy Holly and some of the Crickets. They are sitting on the couch.
Here I am sitting on the exact same couch!!!! Even the things on the shelf are in the same spot. I am sitting with David Bigham. He was a backup singer for Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Waylon Jennings. David gave me some mints.
Here are some pictures of David when he was a little bit younger. He is in the lower left here in all three of these pictures below. David signed a picture for me and wrote my name on it!
This was my Daddy’s favorite place we went to on our trip. He was SO excited!
It is really funny to me that his name was Billy the Kid because a kid is a baby goat. I told Daddy I’m going to call him Billy the Child! This is where he is buried. His tombstone is locked down to the ground and then there’s a big cage around the space because people try to steal.
We drove by a big orange house on wheels that was in our lane a little bit. Then there were two big other things that we couldn’t pass. They finally went another way.
We saw these sorts of things too.
The clouds were so fluffy. I learned they are called cumulus clouds.
We ate vegetable and cheese pizza. The salad bar was empty so we couldn’t have salad.
The weather got a little scary. We were close by where some tornadoes touched down but we didn’t see them. The sky was very, very dark and we saw lightning. Eventually all the dark parts of the sky were behind our car and the weather was better.
Tomorrow we are going to get out of the car more often. It was a long drive today and our car is very full. Mama and Daddy stopped twice more for metal yard art and it is all in the back seat with me.
We couldn’t do a swamp tour today because of the thunder and lightning.
We decided to go to the big warehouse where they store all of the floats for Mardi Gras. Artists work on them all year round. The floats are really big!
Mama and I want to get matching crawfish ball gowns now!
I haven’t ever seen anything like it! The thunder is roaring and the lightening is bright and crackling. Daddy is walking to a conference and he is going to get SOAKED!
Mama and I cuddled and watched a few shows together.
2) ride the trolley. CHECK.
All of the windows were open. I could see everything!
3) go out to dinner. CHECK.
New things I tried: fresh muddled strawberry lemonade, rosemary grits, fried green tomato, and crawfish cakes. Things I ate that were not new: crab cakes and Mac & cheese. Our waitress was so nice. She asked me my name and said she LoVEd my hair. When I left, she called me beautiful and I gave her a high-five!
4) hear Cajun or jazz music. CHECK.
This was good and we sat close. I put money in their tip bucket and when they were packing out, one musician told me how much he liked my hair!
We took a cab home. The windows were open. We saw music on the corners when we stopped. I liked that a lot.
I love to eat outside on our wrap around balcony because I can see all the people walking around. Some of them yell and shout and some even sing. Also, the trolley stops right on the corner and I like to watch people get on the trolley.
For dinner tonight I got to eat some local foods. My favorites were the blackened ahi tuna and the cole slaw. My friend Brent makes blackened fish too.
I also ate some of my butterfly lollipop. Even though I DID eat some bugs today at the Bug Museum, this lollipop is NOT made from butterflies! I learned today that colorful butterflies are actually poisonous.
We went to an insect museum today. I got to pet hissing cockroaches and eat mealworms and crickets. This museum didn’t have milk but they had Nesquick, which I had never tried before.
Guess what?? I got my JoJo to try some bugs too!!!
We watched a movie about the Civil War. I learned that both the good guys and the bad guys built trenches to hide.
There was a LOT of cannon balling so the people in the towns made caves to hide in so they wouldn’t get hurt and they slept in those caves. It was hot. Daddy explained exactly how the cannonballs work.
This was a really big fight and the good guys won.
I noticed a lot of people exercising here. It seems like a nice place to run.
We stopped for dinner and when we ordered veggie patty sandwiches the lady said “you must be from Arkansas!”
Their oven was broken so they couldn’t toast bread and then Daddy helped a worker put the broken oven in someone’s pickup truck. Because Daddy did that, they gave him a cookie!!
This was a special place to go. A lot of good musicians played music here a long time ago.
I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and told Mama that was *not* Elvis singing, that it sounded like Buddy Holly. She say he does sound kind of the same in that song and she was proud of me for noticing that.
The tour was only for kids who were above the age of 5! 😮 I was very well-behaved though. There were no other kids at Sun Studios. Just me.
The best part is that I got to hold a microphone that Elvis used!!! Daddy lowered it for me so it was just my height. This microphone was different than the one Daddy has in his office. He lets me use that one too, even though it’s more delicate. This one was made of metal.
“So Graceland was where there was a man named Memphis [Elvis]. He lived there. They had music there. And they called him the King of Rock and Roll. I liked riding the MUNI [the shuttle bus from the center to the home]”
I ordered a grilled cheese at a restaurant that used to be a pastor’s house. It was very good. The owners were surprised that we drove this far, that we live so far away from here.
“So turkey vultures are birds that eat animals that are already dead. Like things that got bumped by cars. I named my turkey vulture Mariposa. I sleep with this Turkey Vulture.”
In downtown Little Rock there is a park with tunnels and a tall slide and it even had a spot where you could run through the water. It is hot here today.
Today we went to a museum at a school where students with dark skin were not allowed to go to school with students with light skin. This was when Gigi and Poppa were little. It was a long time ago.
That was a bad rule and then they didn’t have that rule anymore but it was still really hard for those kids to go to this school because the students with light skin were very mean.
I learned about some of these old bad rules from my teacher. She taught me about Rosa Parks.
The school was very pretty and big. It was made of bricks.
The television was on in the breakfast room at our hotel. The lady was talking about all the ways lightening can get you and there were a LOT! It was a little scary.
I learned that you should go inside or get in your car. Don’t touch metal things. Don’t golf.
I met someone new at the park, a boy who was 7. I was pretty shy at first. Mama helped me introduce myself. We played tag and eventually I got him! This park was really clean and nice.
I ordered myself a shrimp tempura bento box for dinner and I really liked the edamame and the bean sprouts. I told mama I would like her to put both in my lunch and some marmalade too. I learned about marmalade when I saw the movie about Paddington Bear. I saw that movie two times. Once with my Gigi and once with my JoJo.
Mama made a joke about me having ants in my pants earlier today and I can laugh about it now.
This restaurant had zoo animals and a play area inside so we stopped here for yogurt.
I made a friend, Kylie. She is 2 days younger than me and was at this restaurant with her Great Grandma.
I ran around and played a lot with her. I told Kylie all about the ants and how they bit me. She knew about them already though. The same thing happened to her before.
I found a nest of them and I watched them. They are called Fire Ants.
They crawled in my shirt and in my pants and bit me. They don’t just bite one time like a bee. They bite over and over and over. I screamed and yelled and Mama had to pinch them off of me.
“So the president was in his car and a man shooted a little metal sharp thing and it killed him because he was a bad guy. The one that did it went in jail and then another guy killed that guy who hurted the president and he went in jail too.”
I have been singing a song I made up called “Stinky Bells” (to the tune of Jingle Bells) for a very long time so we stopped to look at an old art project made of stamps.
The best part was running in the empty parking lot. I saw a real rabbit standing in the street.
I liked the glasses but I was really too tired to go here and so I kept telling Mama and Daddy. I also showed them by lying down whenever they stopped to look at things.
I like art projects. I got to try using spray paint all by myself. At home only Mama uses the spray paint.
There were cars sticking up out of the ground and it is ok to paint them!!! My fingers have paint stuck on them and baby wipes won’t take it off. I also got a little spot on my jacket but it’s ok. Sometimes art is messy.
Because we always see yard art like this where we live and we always want to buy some but it costs lots of money. We were so excited and Daddy turned the car fast!
This place had a lot of ones we liked but we couldn’t fit the big flamingos in our car. So we got some little metal chicks, a sign, a traffic light bird house, and a bunny. These cost less money than the ones near our house.
We might stop here on our way back again because we want a big heart with wings.
You have to be careful here because the art is sharp and rusty.
I love to stay in the hotels that have breakfast. When I wake up, I ask right away if we slept in too much and missed breakfast. One time we did miss it so now I make sure we are all up early enough.
I like to eat a waffle and scrambled eggs. Daddy and I make the waffles together. Mama and I noticed that there usually isn’t any fruit.
All of the other waffles have been a circle but this one is not.
We ate dinner at a very big and yellow place tonight. Outside was a big alligator, and a big cow.
Inside there were a lot of people. We sat at a long table with people we didn’t know. One family prayed a long prayer out loud before they ate. I watched them and listened to all of it. I heard them say in their prayer they were going to drive to Oklahoma.
On the walls I saw animal heads. I know they were dead. I think that this hurt the animals. I asked Daddy about it. He said we could talk more about it after we got in the car. Every time I tilted my head backwards I could see a big moose head on the wall. It was hard to keep my bottom on my chair when I put my head back. I never saw a moose up close before.
All by myself I said “May I please have a loaded baked potato with no bacon and a glass of milk?” A loaded baked potato is a potato that comes with toppings you can sprinkle on all by yourself!! But they put the cheese shreds in the SAME cup as the bacon bits so it was really hard to take out just the cheese. Mama was a little bit mad that they put them in the same cup.
This restaurant had a fudge bakery with lots of different colors and flavors of fudge. I got to taste one type. I picked cookies n’ cream. I didn’t know what fudge was before I tried it tonight. It was very sweet!
We sat in a big rocking chair and listened to a man play a whole bunch of instruments just by himself. His hands and his feet were moving. It was kind of stinky there because people were blowing cigarettes in this part.
We left that area and I got to try shooting targets after paying a dollar. I hadn’t ever tried this before either and I really, really liked it.
There were three dinosaur statues here but since two were behind little fences this was the only one I could get on. It was too tall so Mama placed me on top.
Daddy climbed up too. He had to take off his shoes to do it. It was really hard for him because his jeans got washed and dried on hot at our last hotel.
A quick pit stop so I could wash the bugs off of our car. I am eating prunes, figs, hummus, carrots, pretzels, and oranges. We saw this pink school across the street.
She doesn’t drink water, her water comes from food. She eats mostly seeds. She pees crystals.
Lots of animals try and eat her. Her protections are that she can jump high, taller than Daddy, she can move fast, and her hearing is very good. She can even hear an owl getting close to her.
I met a Ranger today who told me about a Kangaroo Rat he saw in his backyard.
We did NOT see any Kangaroo Rats at the sand dunes today.
We tried to sled in the Great Sand Dunes National Park but the wind made the sand blow so hard it felt like needles on my skin. I do NOT want to move here.
We looked at this town that doesn’t have anybody in it and that’s why it’s a called ghost town. The big picture is of the post office. It is closed. My post office is small but this one was very little.
A long time ago a man and his wife used dynamite to blow out holes in a big rock. They turned it into their house. It was all inside a big rock so it was just like a cave. No one lives in it now but you can take a tour in it like we did.
They also have a little zoo with pigs, sheep, goats, zebra, bison, Watusi, camels, turkeys, emu, ostrich, and RACOONS! The RACOONS were sleeping.
Some animals ate from my hand. Other ones pushed their heads into the feed bucket!! The ostrich did that really fast! Some animals you have to put carrots into a pipe and it goes to their bowl. My favorite animal was the Bison.
This was the microphone.
