Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 9 years and 9 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

It’s just before midnight (CDT) and we’re finally in our hotel room in the museum/medical district south of downtown Houston. It was a very long driving day, but let’s back up a little …

Our family summer vacation started back on Saturday and we spent that first day over at LEGOLAND Florida, checking out the waterpark. It was a pretty hot afternoon so it was nice to cool off on the water slides, wave pool, and play areas. The rest of the weekend was just for relaxing and packing for the upcoming trip.

On Monday evening, we surprised my daughter by taking her to the Katy Perry concert at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, which was quite the experience for all of us. I learned that Capital Cities has some decent songs other than “Safe and Sound”  like “Kangaroo Court” and Katy Perry puts on a pretty entertaining show. My daughter had a blast.

We hit the road on Tuesday morning, driving to my in-laws’ up on the Florida panhandle, the first stop on our trip. The plan was to leave our dog with them while we drove to Texas and back, so we spent Wednesday visiting with my daughter’s grandparents, going blueberry picking at Triple J Farms, and then making a bunch of blueberry-related foods (muffins, waffles, pie, plain blueberries, etc.).

Today, Wednesday, the real road trip began. With the truck re-packed and our pup acclimated to his new home for the week, we struck out west for Texas. We stopped in NOLA for a late lunch at Katie’s Restaurant where my daughter and wife shared a muffaletta as big as their collective heads (but I was less than impressed with my BBQ pork and shrimp poboy … too greasy). After another brief stop in the French Quarter to get beignets at Cafe Du Monde and see the mighty Mississippi, we were back on I-10 heading west.

And that’s when the traffic got bad: four hours later, we had only gone 134 miles, stuck in a backup due to two major accidents. We crossed the Texas border after sunset and drove through some heavy rain as we passed the flaming refineries along the highway. We had originally planned on having dinner in Houston but since it was getting pretty late and we just wanted to get there we ended up grabbing a quick bite at a truck stop when we stopped to refuel. We finally arrived at our hotel around 11:30pm CDT and crashed in our room.

One of our road trip traditions is finding the quirky roadside stops close to our route. This trip we used the Roadside America app for iOS, which turned out to be a lot of fun. On our way to Houston we stopped to see:

• Derailed Diner (Robertsdale, AL)
• Big Blue Paper Clip (Spanish Fort, AL)
• U.S.S Alabama Battleship (Mobile, AL)
• Dedeaux Clan Giant Rocking Chair (Gulfport, MS)
• Frog Statue (Rayne, LA)

Tomorrow, we’re tourists in Texas!