More pictures again!

Even more pix!

More pictures!

Here are more photos relating to March 24th blog below!

BruuuumBruuumBruuum...still movin' !!

Lucky us! We arrived on the Louisiana/N’awlins scene in time for all the pre-Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras celebrations. Almost every township in LA has a Mardi Gras parade presented by a “Krewe” which is a group of rowdy party people who put on a parade. We spent three hours, and collected a million beads (now strung all over the RV), at the Krewe of Dionysus in Slidell, LA. The floats were unbelievable for a relatively small town endeavor and, of course, everyone – on or off the floats – is drinking so the atmosphere is very celebratory and “easy”….which is probably where the “big easy” term comes from……see pix! We also went on a bayou boat trip and did manage to see 3 alligators….one was about 10 feet long…….see pix. Unlike crocodiles and contrary to the bad rap they get, alligators are somewhat frightened of big things, like big people. So adults are somewhat safe; cats, dogs, and small children are not. We also saw several tree snakes, turtles, herons and egrets. The bayou waters are very muddy until summer when they turn almost black from the leaves and detritus that drop into the water. Lots of people live along the bayous….some in million dollar homes, others in beat-up hunting cabins. Many of these dwellings were torn apart by Katrina....see pix. Speaking of Katrina, we took a N’awlins city tour and saw some ot the Katrina devastation……see pix. Rescue boats went around making homes as to height of water & occupants found……see pix. Another highlight was the cemeteries….everybody is buried above ground within family mausoleums/tombs in pine coffins and as the coffins and bodies deteriorate they drop to the bottom. As more people in the family die, the tomb is opened and yet another coffin/body is inserted. If there is not “room” in the tomb upon a death, then the body is put into “waiting” caskets along the perimeter of the cemetery….see pix and note all the names on the tomb!

Anyway, we still survive, together and intact.…..however, we have had a few narrow escapes thus far! We took small (and beat-up) country roads on the way to New Orleans and decided to visit the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island, which is kinda fun but not worth bottoming out the rear of the coach, tow bar, and front bumper of the Jeep. “We’ll just go right up over that little hill back to the road”; you know, the one that goes steeply downhill on the other side……we were fine until we got to the bottom! We ended up blocking the road but a very patient and nice truck driver helped us get ourselves together again. We’re learning that whatever you get yourself into, it’s very nice to be able to get yourself out of………without having to unhook the Jeep while blocking the road. Anyway, not much harm done other than a bruised ego or two.

A notable comment about the major highways around New Orleans…..they simply assume all residents know where they are going so there are no postings on the freeways. Now, our RV park was on the north shore of Lake Ponchetrain about 20 crow-fly miles from the French Quarter – and, there is this wonderful toll causeway that splits the lake in half conveniently near the RV park on the north side and New Orleans proper on the south. It was a straight shot onto the causeway from the RV park but not so from the NO side. I can’t tell you how joyful it was to realize we missed it each time. The first time arriving in the rain with the RV, adding approximately 50 miles ($15 in gas miles) to the trip around the east side of the lake to get to the RV park. The second time at 1:30AM after a rousing good time in the French Quarter when we had to drive an extra 70 miles around the west side of the lake because we missed again, the damn causeway!

Gee, how much can one run on about N’awlins? Such a diverse city…..in customs, nightlife, culture and - despite of Katrina – architecture. We ate good food, drank good beer and went to several bars to listen to music. A 50 year+ gentleman in a hat, zoot suit and orange/white shoes who has been leader of the R&B/blues band at the Blues Club for 31 years sang Sybil a love song……see pix with Peter. If you want to hear it give her a call, 520-603-4330, it’s too dirty bad to print here!

We traveled on to Hattiesburg and stayed over night at a real classy place, the Grapes of Wrath Trailer Park (Sybil named it…..what a dump!) on our way to Pensacola/Panama City in the FL panhandle where we stayed for 8 days in a beautiful state park, Topsail Preserve/Gregory E. Moore RV Park near Destin. We toured the area and were able to bike or walk to the white, white sand beaches everyday. We spent a day at the Pensacola Naval Air Museum….fascinating history of naval flight but no Blue Angel practices….alas, they don’t start the public viewing until April. We drove on to Natchez, MS and stayed in an RV park across the river in Vidalia, LA and although it is rather nice (right on the Mississippi with a great long river walk), it had a sign welcoming the Red Neck Adventure Squirrel Hunt……we saw lots of rednecks but not one squirrel…….see pix!

We drove across the river to Natchez, MS and guess what we witnessed……yet another Mardi Gras, this time from the second floor of Blues & Biscuits Restaurant……..see pix. Natchez has many stately antebellum mansions and we toured “Melrose”. We were surprised to see how elaborate the interior and exterior were, but how modest the furnishings. Natchez is also the location of one of the largest slave trading sites before the war, referred to then and now as “Forks of The Road”. When the slaves were emancipated, many of them stayed on right at the site and built homes. The area is still a black community with government project-type brick houses….see pix. Matter of fact, there are still many shanty-like homes in the poorer areas…….see pix. A big highlight was our 50 mile drive to Vicksburg where we toured the site of the June 1865 Civil War Battle with Grant being commander in chief of the Union army, and Pemberton being that for the Confederates, just weeks before the end of the war………see pix.

Then we were off to Montgomery, AL. via the famous Natchez Trace which we talked about in a previous blog……….see pix of Sybil and how fierce the conditions were for the foot and horse travelers, both white traders and Indians. Montgomery is only about 170 miles from Destin but it was one of longest and more expensive days of the trip. Sybil didn’t get the ignition key in the Jeep quite into “accessory” so the steering locked the front tires into a slight right turn position. Peter kept saying the RV was pulling to the left but it was very windy so nothing was really wrong, right? We stopped after about 100 miles to stretch and found we had literally dragged the poor Jeep so the left front tire was totally bald and the left side and rear of the Jeep covered with smelly little black specks….ooooops…..a $230 mistake…new tire and alignment……….proving yet again that RVing is not for the faint of heart or money!

More later, of course….the saga continues!

Best,

Peter & Sybil

Addendum to 2/13/09

Pictures of the St. John Evangelist Cathedral in Lafayette, Sybil with Jeep at Port Aransas, Peter & Sybil & the GHW Bush Library, Peter on the beach at Port Aransas, rice fields with crawfish traps (see arrow)....a great symbiotic thing!

Still At It!

Help! We’re in Lafayette, LA and they’re trying to kill us…seriously, it’s some kind of southern plot against the rest of the US. Luckily, however we’ve armed ourselves with statins, Aciphex & Mylanta so they’re not going to get us! Check out the picture of our dinner last night, and breakfast & lunch looked exactly the same. The good news with dinner, at a popular place called Mulate, was the great Cajun band and dancing. We met some of the locals and had a rousing good time doing the two-step……very fun indeed, as the picture indicates.

But we have lots to report before we even hit Louisiana:

Before we left the Texas Hill Country we self-toured the LBJ Ranch, now a state park, and his Library which nicely chronicled his life from his youth at the ranch to the end of his own term. A large part of the library was dedicated to Kennedy’s assassination and LBJ’s following time in office, the Viet Nam war, our space efforts, and Lady Bird. After 5 presidential libraries, we are finding most of them to be very comprehensive and remarkable in their use of modern technology to project the often tumultuous issues facing the presidential office. Plan to spend a minimum of 4-5 hours per library if you go!

We took the short drive to Austin for 3 nights. There are several nightclub areas in Austin but the venues (lots of variety) don’t start up until about 10PM and run until 3AM before the town empties out. However, after a super Italian bistro dinner, we did find a place - the Club Continental - where they were playing just the best swing dance music and we watched some very talented dancers……you know, like the guys tossing the gals off their knees or over their shoulders – the good old jump & jive days of the 40’s & 50’s! We took one whole day to drive up to College Station (100 miles from Austin and the home of Texas A&M) to visit the GHW Bush Library. It’s yet another elaborate compound of information about his term in office but doesn’t have the same completeness about it that other presidential libraries have had.

Upon leaving Austin we took the very short drive to San Antonio where we stayed for 4 nights. We were in an RV park 5 miles from downtown SA right on the bus line. If you are over 62 and go to the transit office, they take your picture and you get a great souvenir, a free plastic all-over-town ½ price bus/trolley pass good for 4 years, yes, years – just what we need! Anyway, SA is a really wonderful town, the Riverwalk (8 miles of it) probably being the star attraction. The main portion is circular, maybe 1.5 miles, and is lined with restaurants & boutique hotels, ferns, flowers…..really pretty. We went up to the top of the Tower of America to get a bird’s eye view of SA…..it’s huge! SA also has a mission road with 6 fairly intact missions, San Jose being the most renovated (see pictures). And one cannot forget the Alamo! Right in what is now downtown and full of history that we had forgotten about over the years. One of the best SA things...the bus we took from the RV park into town had a seat dedicated to Rosa Parks (see picture)!!

Leaving San Antonio took us to delicious seafood gumbo & fresh shrimp land, the Texas gulf, where we stayed in Rockport/Port Aransas, about 35 north of Corpus Christi which appeared to be one long mall…..maybe we missed something? The coastline around Port Aransas is awesomely long with a pounding surf and beautiful white sand. We may go back for some R&R at the end of our 10 months.

So at that point, we took off for western LA, one long refinery until we left Lake Charles. Now Lake Charles has a choice of 4 RV parks; one upscale that was full, two that looked like a scene from Tobacco Road, and the stupid, overrated, expensive Yogi Bear Jellystone RV Park – the lesser of the available 3 evils. I awakened in the middle of the night smelling gas….it turned out to be burning petroleum towers……..surrounding us. One thing though, they are strung with lights so at night it looks like a huge city with miles and miles of little white lights! And we did have a great etouffee (shrimp, crawfish & rice) and gumbo dinners at Steamboat Bill’s.

Oh yeah....we almost forgot.....if you'd like to move to Louisiana you can get a 6 bedroom, 5 1/2 bath, 5 fireplaces turn-of-the-century home on a beautiful cultivated acre (hot tub, gazebo) in the rather nice upscale town of Rayne ("frog" in French)for $379,900 and we've included a picture for you!

We drove 65 miles to Lafayette which takes us back to the first paragraph. We planned a swamp tour today but the humid rain took care of that so maybe we’ll have to go have a fried lunch!

More later……miss you all but we are having a super time!
d a seat dedicated to Rosa Parks

TEXAS !!

OK then….., after an eventful 3 days driving we are in, what we thought at first was fake, the German town of Fredericksburg, TX…….but it turns out it’s pretty real. Some of the first immigrant Germans, feeling opportunities would abound, made their way to TX in the early 1800’s where parcels of land had been granted to them. As the immigrants got settled on their various acreage and Fredericksburg grew, the travel by horse and wagon into town was often a long day’s ride. So those farmers built tiny little limestone houses in town called “Sunday” houses to stay overnight when they came in for church or business. There are many of these still inhabited and they are really charming!

There are things to do here! We spent 4 hours at the Pacific Wartime Museum, also known as the Nimitz Museum because Chester Nimitz was born as 4th generation here…..fascinating place with great exhibits. We’ve spent some time driving around the Texas Hill Country and tasting some pretty good wines. There are many wineries in this area of TX ….grapes grow well in the limestone hills where the stones are quarried for the many stone houses in this area.

A big treat not to miss is a short drive to Luckenbach. Some guy named Hondo Grouch, a humorist and real Hill Country character bought the old 1850 town (3 old wooden buildings) and turned the PO into a general store with a bar and jammin’ room in the back. We spent 2 hours, Texas Longhorn Beer in hand, listening to these old, and not-so-old, guys singin’ & pickin’ their original songs (see pix). Hondo’s good buddies, Willie & Waylon, spent a lot of time there after Hondo purchased the “town”, hence their world-renowned song “Luckenbach, Texas”.

Ah yes, the eventful drive……… First, the water pressure at the RV park in Las Cruces has a pressure of 150 psi (45 is about normal) so no way could we hook up for water so had to rely on the few drops in the tank which we forgot to fill before we left. Then next morning we leave (sans showers or anything else that requires water), get down the road about 30 miles, gas up and our tow car – my precious Jeep Wrangler X – comes loose! Fortunately, it made a clunk against the back of the RV and Peter saw it hanging out in the side mirror and, very luckily, we were not yet on the freeway. However, we did have to travel back to an RV dealer in Las Cruces who replaced the whole tow unit……fortunately on warranty…..a total 4 hour ordeal. We arrived in Fort Stockton 290 miles later to literally freezing temperatures. We waited until 9:30A the next morning to leave to avoid the icy roads then ended up 300 miles later in the above-mentioned Fredericksburg, the Texas Hill Country, also freezing and it was only 3:30 in the afternoon! We hustled, hooking up all the stuff outside in the freezing cold, while fortifying ourselves with quick swigs of Southern Comfort. We’re headed for Austin tomorrow (Saturday) and for 3 nights will take in all that good TX music….remember “Austin City Limits?”…..it’s still there!

More later……we feel like we’ve been out here for months already!!!