Moving East (09-20-22)

 Once we were done Jeeping in Colorado, we headed east.

We had a specific destination in mind- New Orleans.  We have been there several times and didn’t necessarily need to go back, but I had a reason.  

I am a diehard New England Patriots football fan, but also a diehard Tom Brady fan, and (Tom) The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were playing the New Orleans Saints on a day we could get there, so we bought tickets and headed in that direction.

 

Our first stop was a repeat visit to our friends Tom and Dianne, on our way out of Colorado.  I was so excited about the fresh veggies from their garden that they were willing to share, that I didn’t get any pictures of Tom and Dianne.  Oh well…we will be back.

Leaving them, it was Labor Day weekend and we snagged a spot at Santa Rosa State Park in New Mexico. We were surprised there was availability at this park on Labor Day weekend, but when we got there and realized the nearby lake is at 7% capacity, we understood why. Instead of swimming, we headed to “The Blue Hole”. 

This is a very small lake- 80 ft in diameter at the surface, and 80 ft deep-its one of the most popular scuba diving destinations in the U.S.  It is a natural artesian well, fed by a spring, with the water cycling out every 6 hours.The water was stunningly beautiful but at 60 degrees I didn’t feel like plunging in,  so we observed for a while and then left to explore the rest of the town.

Our next stop on our way to Louisiana was at our friends’ house in Abilene TX.  Wil is a fraternity brother of Paul’s and we stop and see them whenever we are nearby.  After a terrific dinner our first night, we left them for the day so they could work, and headed to Frontier Texas, a local museum showcasing what the Texas frontier was like, back in the day.

I thought it was interesting that this area was a frontier more than once. Very early on, native Americans peacefully lived in this area, until the Comanche Indians, who had the advantage of access to horses, and the expert ability to ride them, invaded the area and took it over.

It wasn’t long before businessmen from the east discovered that Buffalo hides were valuable and hunted them almost to extinction.  From 40 million strong the buffalo numbers were decimated and they came close to extinction.

The museum had some interesting holographic images of people who told their personal story, that made the history lesson more interesting.

After leaving Wil and Gayle, we spent one night on the road before arriving at Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville LA, for a week.  We have been here once before and I have to say- Betty’s is a unique experience.  Unfortunately for us, this time around, Betty was on vacation, so not there, and in fact, we were the only guests in the RV Park.  Betty did call us twice to make sure we were having a good time. Her friend Brenda filled in for her,and we had a great time getting to know her, and her dog, Hitch.

After a month of being busy in Colorado, we were ready for some “down” time and found it difficult to get moving every morning. We did manage to do a few things in the week we were in Abbeville, but not many-

The most important thing we wanted to do is head to Buck and Johnny’s for a rip-roaring Zydeco breakfast.  The music was awesome, but the service was terrible –so slow that we never got a chance to dance before they closed.  Next time, we will be the first ones in the door.

Our other major outing was to Rip Van Winkle gardens.  This property was originally the home of Joseph Jefferson, who, it is said, played the role of Rip Van Winkle over 5000 times (in the early 1800s), so its no surprise that the gardens are named Rip Van Winkle Gardens.

The property was eventually sold to John Bayless, who soon sold the salt mine beneath the land and lake (to Diamond Crystal), and built a new, expensive home along the banks of the lake.  In 1980 a Texaco drilling rig, located on the lake, pierced the caverns of the salt mine, flooding the entire mine. The resulting vortex swallowed the entire lake, 65 acres of land, 5 barges, 2 drilling rigs, and Bayless’s brand new house.  All that remains of the house is the chimney. Remarkably, no one died.

Paul had heard the story of the vortex, so it was pretty neat to be here and see where it happened, first hand.  When I did a web search, pictures and videos showed up of the actual disaster, but there were no clear pictures worth sharing (google Lake Peigneur disaster). 

The gardens themselves were ok, and included the original house,  but it was clear that we were past peak growing season here.

Pretty much the only other thing we did all week was go out to dinner at a restaurant that had live music.  I had the most relaxing time that I have had in a long time at a restaurant. I told the waitress we were not in a rush and she paced the meal perfectly.

I laughed at the menu, because on one side of it, there was literally nothing I was willing to eat.

But after a beer or two, I did try alligator bites, and determined that they tasted “like chicken”.

There was a one man band, playing music I enjoyed, so the whole night was a “win”.

And then we arrived in New Orleans.

As soon as we bought our tickets to the “Saints” game, we booked an RV park.  It’s only one mile from the Superdome, and we have stayed there before, so we were happy to be walking distance from both the superdome, and Bourbon Street.

We have surprisingly discovered that we are over Bourbon Street, but we did walk to a restaurant on St. Peter’s street called The Gumbo Shop- we both had Jambalaya that was delicious. 

We met several people at the RV park who were also there for the game (mostly Saints fans) and we were happy to hear that they planned to walk to the game as well. Even still, we did a test walk the day before, just to make sure.  It took us 18 minutes to get to the stadium.

I knew this was probably (hopefully?  he needs to retire) the last time I would see Tom Brady play, so we paid to get decent seats.

To our surprise, a “hockey” style fight broke out during the game.  Although not physically involved, I could see from the sidelines, that TB12 was definitely part of the fracas.  

The team, and Brady, didn’t play their best, but they ended with a win, which is mostly what counts, so I was happy.

I promised the couple in this picture that I would share the photo on my blog…..Although they were the ONLY ones standing, and several people behind them had asked them to sit down, they refused, continuing to block everyone’s view.

As far as our trek eastward, the term “in for a penny, in for a pound” came to mind. Our good friends Mike and Julie are spending the summer in North Carolina, a “mere” 800 mile drive from New Orleans, so, yep, we decided to beeline there to spend a week with them before heading back west. 

Yo Yos (06/22/21)

 
These days it seems like Paul and I are yanked in one direction, then yanked back in another, before we have had time to take a breath. Such was the case with our trip to Massachusetts.

We limped into Massachusetts in early June, having broken a leaf spring on the trailer somewhere between Virginia and Mass. I am always grateful that Paul is so handy that he can diagnose and fix many issues with our vehicles.  He ordered the part we needed and had it shipped to the RV park.

Our with plans were to spend time with our son, and family and friends. However, soon after we got there, Paul’s mom in El Paso started having some issues we needed to deal with. Not being sure if we could do it from afar, we made plans to head back to Texas, just to be safe (she has since improved to the point that we don’t have to rush back). 

We gave ourselves a few days to cram in as many visits as we could, and we did pretty well.

We saw our photo-shy son a couple of times, my brother and his wife, my sister, aunt, and my childhood friends….whew. All in a few days.

After we started the trek back, his mom started doing better so we slowed the pace down a bit.

One of the RV Parks we found along the way was Dixie Caverns RV. We only spent one night there but we arrived early enough to take a tour of the cavern.

Although we have seen plenty of caverns in our travels, this one was pretty darn good.

We took a southern route, partly because RV spots would be easier to come by, but also to go through Florida, so that we could stop and say hi to our friends Mike and Julie. We never have a bad time with them and a bonus this time around is that we met their long time friends Deb and Rick.

All too soon we were on our way again, but our next stop was another happy one for me.  A few years ago we spent some time at Myrtle Beach and I fell in love with the idea of swimming in the ocean without going numb-having grown up in the northeast, I only knew about frigid water temperatures. Although Myrtle Beach wasn’t on our route, Gulf Shores, AL was.

The state park we stayed in also has bikes that you can borrow- so we did that early in the day before it got too hot.  We didn’t go very far, only about 5 miles, but it was fun, anyway.

Once we were done with our ride we headed for the beach, where I spent most of the afternoon in the water.

Continuing our slow trek westward, our next stop was New Orleans. We elected to stay at the French Quarter RV Resort- a very pricy resort but it comes with some perks.  Our site has a private outdoor bar, complete with TV, and we can walk to Bourbon Street from here.

Announcing to our family and friends that we were headed to NOLA produced a frenzy of emails, texts and phone calls. Did we know that there was a potential tropical storm headed that way? Yep, we did. That’s probably why the RV park had availability on short notice. We kept an eye on the weather, knowing we might have to hunker down. We did get a fair amount of rain, but very little wind, as the storm shifted east. It was just enough to make it fun sitting outside watching the weather channel.

Knowing the storm was coming, we spent our first night in NOLA on Bourbon Street, looking for live music and Hurricanes (the drink).

Pat O’Brien’s was our first stop (for a decent Hurricane) before heading to other venues for the live music. We found several bars with music we enjoyed, so we had a great evening flitting around from bar to bar. Apparently Bourbon Street just recently reopened, so some of the venues were short on entertainment.

The next day we figured we’d better walk off some of those drinks. so we headed to the waterfront, about a mile or so away. Along the way we stopped at Musical Legends Park for some food and live music. 

We had a lunch of typical New Orleans fare- a frozen Hurricane, Jambalaya, and beignets. I guess we didn’t really walk off the previous night’s drinks.

Next stop: Texas.

New Orleans, LA

The Natchez Trace Pkwy was an easy ride, and probably would have been fun for us to explore, if it hadn’t rained all day the day we were driving it. We did stop at one museum along the way, but that was about it. We also took one wrong turn which was a big mistake. Most of the museums, trails, and scenic views require you to turn into a parking area that isn’t totally visible from the main road. No problem, except, after we made this particular turn into the road to the parking lot there was a sign that said “No RV Turn around”. It would have been more effective if the sign had been visible before the turn off. 30 minutes and many frayed nerves later, Paul finished his 20 point turn and we got out of there. That pretty much soured us on taking any more turns off the main road. We did spend the night at the free campground on the Pkwy and it worked out awesome for us. It was our first FREE night, with no fee! Once we arrived at New Orleans, we were immediately happy with our decision to pay more to stay within walking distance of the French Quarter. The RV Park is the nicest one we’ve been in, with great sites for parking, a great hot tub and pool, and we were greeted by a guy wearing a SUIT! Hahaha. More upscale than we needed but it served our purpose well. Our first night we decided to walk to the French Quarter, just to check it out. Many hours later we staggered back home. We tried a “Hurricane” which is one of the strongest drinks around. Bourbon Street is one of my new favorite places. Similar in spirit to Duval Street in Key West. So much music coming from so many venues! People everywhere, walking down the street with drinks in their hands, wandering from one club to the next. Its so Alive! The weather was perfect for it- in the high 70s. The next day, during the daylight hours we walked to the river front- almost took the ferry over to Algiers, but decided at the last minute to not do it. We walked Canal street, ate lunch at a restaurant in the French Quarter, and headed home to rest up for night time. This time our plan was to walk down to Frenchman Street where most of the Jazz music is played. I don’t know, maybe we were just in the wrong mood, but it was so quiet there, we lost interest after a while, and headed back to Bourbon Street, for another lively evening. Halloween in New Orleans is similar to Mardi Gras, but on a smaller scale. The buildings are decorated, the bars are decorated, there are parades, music, you name it. Eminem performed last night and tonight KISS is performing live downtown. Yesterday we moved to our new park, just outside the city- we’ll take their shuttle into town, then have to take a cab back. We washed the Everest yesterday- took us a loooong time. I have no idea how it got so dirty! Most RV parks won’t let you wash the RV, so we took advantage of the fact that this one does. Today is Halloween so we are headed into town for an early dinner, hopefully we’ll be in time to see the parade…..