Vacation Part 1-Ashton Timms

This blog post is part one of eight . These parts are all from the vacation my family took in the first two weeks of June. The exact dates were June 4th-June13th. We started off the trip by traveling to Gulf Port, Mississippi. We had a long night of driving and arrived by about 5am. Our travel route was altered due to the Memphis bridge being closed down at the time so we went through Missouri. Me, my mom, and my dad all took turns driving while the other one slept. After arriving in GulfPort we parked at a local beach where people sleep in their cars. We had reservations at 8am that morning so we didn’t see any sense in trying to find a hotel for 3 hours of sleep. Me, my sister, and my mother actually only slept until about 6am. We then got up and walked up and down the beach and watched the sunrise. Around almost 7:45 we started driving to this place called the Institute for Marine Mammal studies. It was basically like a mini sea world without the rides. We swam with dolphins and snorkeling with stingrays and sharks. We even kissed sea lions! We watched lots of shows and explored the park. Around 4:00pm we got in the car and started driving to Orange, Texas. Once arriving in Orange, Texas we got a hotel room. The next morning we had booked a swamp tour at 10:00am on the Texas, Louisiana border. We saw lots of gators, eagles, and cranes up close and personal. After the tour we went and ate at a Mexican restaurant that had this burrito challenge. If you could eat a 50lb burrito in 30 minutes with only 2 people then your meal was free. My family didn’t take on the challenge but we got to witness another family try. They sadly only ate about half in the time frame but it was still impressive!  After being in Orange, Texas we headed up to Houston, Texas. We ate at a French cafe called La Madeliné and tried lots of unique tarts and treats. We met with a cousin while we were there that I have never met before and that was lots of fun. Around 7:00pm we headed out of Houston and towards San Antonio. However we actually only made it about 30 minutes out of Houston because it started raining and it flooded so bad my family was stuck in traffic for 3 hours and the water was up to the bottom of our door frames in a Chrysler minivan. Then we got a hotel and rested until we woke up for the next adventure.