| Odessa, Texas July 10th to July 15th |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Our next stop after the hidious humidity of Dallas was Odessa, Texas, where James lived during many of his formative years. There, we saw places that still held importance to him and spent a lot of time with Vivian's (James' stepmom) family. We stayed with Mary, Vivian's mother, and had a good time just visiting and enjoying the DRY heat (it's so much better without that nasty moisture). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dara (James' stepsister), James, LaCrishna (other stepsister), and Brody (Crish's 4 month-old son). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Brody (left) with Dara (below left) and his mom, Crish (below right). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The happy family: Crish, Brody, and Ray. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| At first, James just acted like he was going to mash in Brody's soft spot (left), but then he started to play nice (right). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Brody with his great-aunt Kathy (left) and his great-grandma Mary (right). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Left: The house where James lived during high school. It's still standing, so he couldn't have done too much damage. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Right: This is where James used to go off-roading. He might have done some damage here, but it probably wasn't to the dirt. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Debbie (Viv's sister), TJ (Debbie's grandson), Brody, and Mary having a good old time after dinner (it was chicken fried steak... yummy.... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TJ and Liz (wife of one of Vivian's nephews). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The guys were enjoying the weather: Ray, James, and Lynn (Kathy's husband). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On our last night in Odessa, Mary took us out to eat, so we had someone take our picture to commemmorate our fun stay with her. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Yay! Back on the road! (At this point, we were still excited about traveling.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Two ever-present images in Texas: The pumpjack (right) and the oil derrick (below). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||