Texarkanassouri day

Wednesday morning (this would be the 29th), we packed up and went to the Co-op for breakfast...our last bit-o-time with Sara... said our goodbyes and hit the road for Katy/Houston. Anjali Aunty was at work when we arrived, but she had cooked a really nice meal for us (so yummy!) and then we went to see at least a couple of the Houston sights in the few hours we had there. Our first stop was the Mahatma Gandhi district where we checked out all the Indian stores and enjoyed a Maaza each. Then we found a couple book stores, and somehow ended up near Rice University, but we made it out of that side of town before there was TOO much traffic... :D

We had a really nice evening with Anjali Aunty and her son. After another super yummy dinner, we looked through a bunch of old family photos because Aparna wanted to collect some old memories along our way, and there were some precious pics of her as a baby!  :) 

Thursday was a really long day because we had to drive from Houston to Branson, MO, meaning we took on most of the height of Texas and the ENTIRE length of Arkansas...whose current governor, I couldn't help but notice looks a lot like Bill Clinton....I don't get it... But the state itself is really pretty! It's super green and the Ozarks are gorgeous. And apparently, Arkansas has the only diamond mine that the public can visit, dig, and keep whatever diamonds they find! But since we had so far to go that day, we didn't really have time to stop, so I'll be going back some day to entertain that adventure as well.

We finally hit Branson after 9:00pm, checked into our Worldmark room, and I cooked rice and watched fireflies while Aparna went for a swim in what she claims was a very bug-ridden pool. In the morning, we really didn't linger for any longer than it took to gawk at all the confederate flag merchandise in the store fronts and research our next stop (a KOA campsite in Omaha) (which was really just supposed to be a convenient stopping point to get to the Badlands the next day...not because of anything IN Omaha). So we were on our way shortly.  :D