Victory Lap

Written on 6/24/16:

We are a mere 5 days into our road trip to Boston and have already had a whirlwind of experiences. We got our stuff moved into storage, handed off keys to our renters and our beloved friend Melissa who is keeping track of things at home for us,  and had our last days of work and too many goodbye/one last time kind of events with friends. We've got a great community in Austin and since a few others are moving away this summer too it felt especially bittersweet, though I assume we will be back in town in 2017. It will be a new chapter.

One last hang on the porch at the Miller's house in Austin

On our way out (literally, just as we were getting in the fully packed car on Monday evening), E.J. caught me completely off guard by getting down on one knee, pulling out a beautiful ring and proposing to me. I said yes, and our already very exciting trip started off on an even more exciting note. He told me he wanted this trip to see so many family and friends on our way out of the country to be a "Victory Lap". And so it is.

Engagement Whataburger Shake

On Monday night, we drove just past Houston under the very auspicious "Strawberry Moon" and stayed in a La Quinta in Baytown, TX. On Tuesday, we headed to New Orleans where we stayed in an adorable Airbnb in Treme, sweated our asses off riding bikes up to MidCity for a late lunch and beers, caught some jazz in a backyard wine garden at Bacchanal, and ended the night at Buffa's (with an oyster and shrimp poboy at Verti Marte of course).

Wednesday we hauled ourselves about 9 hours East to Macon, GA where we admired the enormous old houses and marveled at how much it must cost to keep them up (many for sale), debated whether or not we were charmed or creeped out by our Airbnb host in his enormous mansion with rooms named after Southern Writers, and ate incredible fried chicken and biscuits at the H&H surrounded by Allman Bros memorabilia.

Bacchanal in NOLA

AirBNB in New Orleans

And as of Thursday afternoon, we've been hanging in Savannah in The Thunderbird Inn. My parents are here as well (for a conference and vacation) and we had an incredible meal at The Grey last night, toured the Mercer Williams House this morning, then ate fried seafood and hung out in the Bonaventure Cemetery. E.J. is suffering my McCray tourist tendencies (I take after my dad) and my desire to see the sights because.....he's my future husband and he loves me! I think he might even let me go to Leopold's ice cream tonight too. Sigh. What a good egg.

Tomorrow we are headed to Alexandria to meet up with some old friends and continue our trek North.

Hanging in Forsyth Park in Savannah

Savannah sights

Bonaventure Cemetary

test test

Well, we're gearing up to kick off our big trip. Lalo y Mago will be the name of the blog from here on out, documenting our travels first road tripping to Boston and then flying out and spending (theoretically) the second half of 2016 in South America. A year and a half ago, we learned that Lalo is a spanish nickname for Eduardo and that Mago is the spanish nickname equivalent of Maggie so here we are.
Our plan as laid out right now, is to start off in Quito, Ecuador and work our way south through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, probably Argentina and maybe Uruguay. Our hope is to see a part of the world neither of us has explored and learn conversational Spanish to take back to our careers and lives in the States. We just bought a Samsung Chromebook for a lightweight and inexpensive mode of blogging and emailing folks back home. Here goes!