7 Quick Takes 52: Travels: Lone Star Leg

1. After eight months when I barely left Starkville MS, we're on the road twice in March. We spent last week in Texas, visiting family and friends - and managed to take no photos. I am the world's worst photo taker in both senses of the phrase, which is ironic given the time I spent working as an archivist. So here's a quick word picture -  Texas: it's like where you live, but bigger. Unless you live in Texas.

2. My mother-in-law was eager to tell us about the new Aldi open in Lake Dallas. I wasn't really interested in shopping there, since I've been going to Aldi in England for several years, and I was trying not to come back with a stuffed car. Then, I happened to read a recommendation for their moisturizer on the UK blog Shoestring Cottage blog. It didn't seem likely they'd have it in the US, but it was worth a look. So off we went... and the moment I stepped in the door, I was facing all the European foods I get in the UK. For some reason, I didn't think Aldi in the US would have German food. So I danced around the store, buying up chocolate (which went to the back of the cupboard for after Lent), cookies (which didn't), and German muesli (no added sugar - hurrah). Oh, and the face cream was there too - at $3.60 a pot, a fraction of the cost of other Q10/ retinol creams.

3. I could waltz round because there were only two other shoppers there. A phenomenon we noted this trip was that there's no one in the supermarkets. We decided - and a friend confirmed - that people in the Dallas area must just eat out all the time.

4. In addition to Aldi, I got a thrift store score. Friends took us to Thrift Giant, which was. And it happened to be 50 percent off everything day, so the place was heaving (unlike the supermarkets). I snapped up a skirt that looked to be good quality for $1.50. When I checked the label (Dahlia Collection), I found it was a British company, and skirts on their website sell for up to 60 pounds ( $75). That and the German muesli made the trip worthwhile.

5. We took two days to make the eight and a half hour drive there and back because we thought we wouldn't survive with a toddler who hates journeys longer than about twenty minutes. Plus, we're old and tire easily. On the way back, we finally spent a night in Vicksburg and visited the battlefield, which is a national park.
How to make your husband choke on his hotel breakfast: Ask, "So which side won, apart from the Americans?"
It turned out to be a trick question, because technically the Confederates won all the battles since every attempt to take Vicksburg by force failed. The Union won the siege when the Confederates surrendered.
Talking of tricks, the park weirdly turned out to be a Union memorial, funded by donations from the north, with huge monuments to the northern troops and a few markers signalling the Confederate battle lines.

Whoa. I want this toy.

6. The other fruit of our trip: Well, we had to keep the toddler occupied somehow, so he got many more hours of Youtube than he ever gets at home. As a result, he still can't pronounce his own name, but he can utter "Maisy Mouse" with perfect enunciation.

7. Now I'm trying to catch up before we leave for Boston/Cambridge next week to visit our eldest. Temperatures there are currently still dipping into the 30s, which sounds a heck of a lot better to me than the almost 90-degree day we had here this week.

For more Quick Takes around the US, and maybe across the world, visit Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.