Texas or Bust!

After dropping off Lane for his humanitarian trip, and fixing 

Rusty up at the ER, we were on our way to New Braunfels!!

Why New Braunfels, you may ask?

Because they have one of the top water parks in the United States!

I am a water park junky.

I saw an episode on Discovery Chanel about Schlitterbahn when I was 16.

I was sold and said one day I will go there! 

I had this trip ALL planned for our family a few years ago.

Hotel booked and all.

Then covid happened, and neither did this trip.

It was a kind of Summer with so many different things going on.

We couldn't figure out a time to go on vacation with everyone,
so I never planned anything.

But then I got a wild hair and threw this road trip together 

sort of last minute, knowing Lane couldn't come.

 Which was a bummer.

But it was what it was.

Long story short, we were out to dinner with Casey's cousin and his wife.

We were discussing our upcoming Summer plans and

laughed when we both had the SAME destination planned!

What. are. the. odds. of. that?!!

Only they were going to fly.

We talked them into driving their tailer with us and

we were set for an adventure!!!

 

Texas, here we come!

This was our families first time to Texas, I was pumped!

Rusty's barf bags came in handy for holding our snacks!

 

Texas is quite a haul, especially with pulling a trailer!

We spent the night in Las Cruses at the first trailer park we could find.

I am a scheduler and a planner while on vacation!

It was weird not having a plan that first night, not

knowing when we would decide to stop and sleep.

But with a trailer, you could sleep in a parking lot somewhere if needed.

This trailer park was super nice!

This picture looks like nothing special, but it was a gorgeous view of the

sun starting to set.

After eating dinner and returning to the trailer, it didn't seem like the AC was working

all that great.

We assumed it was because it was so hot while traveling it just needed extra

time to cool down.

We slept fine to wake up and hit the road again!

It was a 10 hour driving day, woof.

But we made it!!

After settling at the trailer park, we definitely knew the AC was toast.

Boy howdy, Texas is HUMID and HOTTTTT!!!
There was no way we could sleep in there.

We needed to head to dinner before everything closed.

We called a repairman along the way, but

nobody could come out until the morning to look at it. 

This place was super yummy!

I booked us a hotel at dinner because we never would have survived 

in the trailer without air!

Kind of comical, but a fun twist to our trip!

We woke up early to meet the repairman at the trailer park and get ready

for our big waterpark day!!!

Since we had arrived when it was dark, we couldn't see much.

This place was so charming!!

And GREEN!!

These cows and sweet horse were the highlight for sure!

Yay for a new AC unit!!

I think he fixed a few other things on both of our trailers!

We made it!!

I couldn't even believe I was finally here after all these years of

dreaming about this place, lol!

OKAYYYYY, 

this place is HUGE!

Basically a Disneyland on water, and I'm not joking!

There are 2 separate water parks right next to each other.

You have to take a tram to get from one to the other.

We had heard to get there EARLY, much like the rope drop to hit

the popular rides first without waiting in line.

Lines could be up to 2 hours long!

We did as we were told and got there early and did indeed hop right on

a slide.

We were thinking we would be fine the rest of the day.

After waiting an hour for the next slide we surrendered and bought the fast passes.

ALWAYS get the fast passes.

The looks on faces while we passed the long lines were worth it alone. 

  

We stuck to one side this day, the original park side.

These are mostly tube chute slides that is sourced with the

fresh water that feeds the Comal river.

They were SO fun and different than any of our waterpark slides!

I wasn't sure what to expect, so I didn't bring my phone.

I got better pictures on our 2nd day at the parks.

Lunch break.

We were pumped for our first Texas BBQ experience!

Strangely, my favorite was the smoked baked potato.

It had crack rubbed all over it, I swear!

The meat was also very tender and delicious.

Oh, but the pecan cobbler??!!!

I dream of it.

I tried to recreate it at home, nope.

I just need to go back for that alone!

How we had energy and room for more, I dunno.

But we were off to Buc-cees!

Another Texas iconic first for us!

It really does live up to all the hype.

It was a blast to roam around and find any treat you could think of!

We had been there for an hour, thinking we had found everything.

Then I came upon the soda fountains.

I am not a soda drinker... if I lived near a Buc-cees I would be an addict.

Each flavor was unbelievable!

The root beer, OH THE ROOT BEER!!!!!

Smoothest root beer I have ever tasted.

Blue cream and pineapple were a close second.

Yes, we got every flavor!

We did some damage.

Back to our crisp, cool trailer, YAY!!!

And games to close out the day.