Paradise?....maybe

Our first full day on the Gulf and it is hot and humid. We are having a slow morning with plans to do nothing except relax and walk through the park to see where we are. There are 49 sites, maybe 25% full. A Citation C Van is from BC and we stop to visit with Kathleen from Powell River and Marilyn from Ontario traveling for the winter like us. They are actually planning to move to the Comox Valley next year after they finish traveling.

Had a quiet afternoon getting caught up with my blog and sorting through my new Tombow brushes. I even managed to do one journal page but still have a lot of empty pages..almost 3 states worth. We had New Orleans style long grain rice, prawns and some of Ralph's Market hot sausages all seasoned with Tony Chachares creole seasoning. Hot and spicy and very good.

 

Have to share two pictures of our brave little granddaughter Faryn getting her ears pierced for the first time. Computers and iPads sure make being away a lot easier.

 

A proud little girl....her spirit shines through those big blue eyes.

Just before the sun sets we are visited by an egret hunting in the reeds just outside our door. Not sure what it is hunting for but it is successful and it is so close we can see his meal working its way down his throat. We are in for the night with the air conditioner on. It is overcast and still very warm. Thunderstorms are predicted for overnight.

So far Paradise has been heat, humidity and a few big mosquitoes that have successfully fed on me:(

 

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Parking Lot to Paradise

This is our last day in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans corridor. Spent the morning in the Bass Pro store. It is not as big as the original one in Missouri but I enjoyed it more because of its Louisiana theme. Live Oak moss everywhere, crocodiles, and snapping turtles along with the regular animals and birds. Plus add all the Christmas decorations now too and you have visual overload.

Had a really good bowl of clam chowder and headed back to the RV. We are pretty much putting in time waiting for my art supply parcel to be delivered. It is on track for a 3:00 delivery to the Gonzales post office for the second time. Email from FedEx of its arrival and so we are back out on a crazy busy Friday afternoon. We do our shopping, fuel up and prepare to leave for Grand Isle in the morning. We have appreciated Cabelas letting us stay in their parking lot while we did day trip touring of this area but after a week we are tired of city life and ready to get back to the small towns we enjoy.

We are hooked up, sani chores completed but when we pull out of the lot Bob realizes our trailer breaks aren't working. We are not going anywhere until this problem is solved. Luckily Bob had been watching carefully when the diesel shop was trying to find the problem with the exhaust brake. He found a wire that wasn't connected properly. We are very relieved because we would have been sitting for another two days til they opened on Monday. These are some of the things that keep the stress locked tightly in Bobs neck.

Our GPS zig zags us across a couple of highways til we are finally on Hwy 1 which will take us all the way to Grand Isle. We have crossed the 'Missipi' possibly for the last time. To follow it completely to the end would mean pulling the RV through New Orleans. It was bad enough with just the truck so we will settle for knowing it is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico just a stones throw to the east from where we are camped.

 

 

We are in Cajun country, Thibodaux, Lafourche, a town called Cut Off and to Leeville where the toll raised-highway begins. We are traveling along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and Bayou Lafourche. Everything, both old and new, is built right on the edge of the water. Huge trawlers pull up to the shore where there will be a deck or platform to provide a small bit of land to call home. At places you will see a mail box sitting by itself among the reeds waiting for its resident to return from fishing. The waterway is the life to all these fishing communities that both live and work on the bayou. There are beautiful homes and sugar plantations set back from the highway and across the road you see an old shack where someone is fishing from their porch. It's the weekend and communities are out doing Saturday morning things like anywhere. People are standing in the intersections collecting money for their Relay for Life, we come to a stop because a sheriff in front of us puts on his lights, stops, gets out and picks up a garbage can that has blown into the road. We continue through town only to be stopped by another sheriff that is controlling traffic at an intersection for what we think may be a funeral ....there are throngs of people and an old white Cadillac hearse parked by the side of the road.

A beautiful cemetary

The toll highway and bridge.....$9.25 for our 'dually' and extra axles ....only charged one way like our small island ferries:)

We arrive at Grand Isle, our Gulf of Mexico paradise for at least the next couple of weeks. It's been more than 3 months since we left home and I think this may be the place for us to recoup and get the travel juices revitalized. The literal and 'figurative' end of the road is a State Park, $20 a night for full hookups, modern bathrooms and showers and even free laundry facilities and wifi.

 

 

It is hot, humid and we are exhausted. We manage a BBQ steak with our comfort food pack of veggies and some wine. We sit outside in the dark, damp, warm evening watching the almost full moon rise in the east where the Missipi is flowing to its end.

 

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New Orleans and the French Quarter

We drove the 60 miles into New Orleans this morning to see the "Big Easy". I think I can understand the excitement people have for this city. It has a cosmopolitan feel to it. I'm not sure I could even begin to describe the ambiance of the streets. It is busy, busy even on a weekday morning. The streets are all one-way and the right hand sides are taken up by trucks making non-stop deliveries to the more than 1500 restaurants. Even found one of Emeril Lagasse's.

Famous Bourbon Street

My painted version using watercolours and my tombow brush for shading ....

 

 

We barely fit between curbs and trucks but we drive every street in The Quarter to say we've seen it. We are happier seeing Louisiana and its people from the small town perspective. New Orleans is busy with construction and renewal and shows very little remains from Hurricane Katrina. But a few blocks from the tourist areas are streets with houses still boarded up, whether empty or not we don't know. They are colourful places that attract my eye for a photo but often times we feel that it is not our place to take pictures of people's misfortune. These streets are not being renovated even after 5 years. Driving was a challenge and between trying to know where we were and were we were going I didn't get a chance to take many pictures.

Streets have different days designated for washing, this was Thursday mornings street shampoo, suds and all:)Today we have reached 7000 miles travelled since we left home 3 months ago. The majority of these miles have not been on straight flat interstates and they are starting to take a toll on our "driver". Bob is carrying all the responsibility in his neck and shoulders and even with muscle cream and painful pressure point massage he is still suffering. It is definitely time to get away from this busy urban area and hopefully spend some quality relaxing time in the sun on the gulf beaches, walking, not driving.The driver needs a much deserved rest, even the co-pilot too:). The problem with the truck has not been determined for sure. We stopped at a Cummins dealer to buy more fuel filters. They recommended a dealer in Baton Rouge that would have a code reader to diagnose why the engine light came on and the truck started 'missing'.

Another seafood lunch....Red Snapper, mine with shrimp creole sauce, Bobs with creamy crab. It was very good but not quite as good or the ambiance of Middendorfs yesterday.Still don't know what Cajun Fried turkey is but I mean to find out before Thanksgiving next Thursday. Maybe we need one to have down at Grand Isle.We head for the barn glad to have satisfied the need to see Nawlins.....

Who Dat? A saying from the old Minstrel days more than a hundred years ago in The New Orleans area. It is now used as a fan chant for the New Orleans Saints or as a noun for a Saints fan.

"Who Dat, Who Dat, who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?

 

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Manchac, Middendorfs and catfish

We woke to a cold windy morning. We head out to go exploring within a 30/40 mile radius of our home base. We'd driven about 30 miles when the truck started to make strange noises. We pulled into a Home Depot parking lot to have a look. We always carry spare filters with us so Bob changes the fuel filter right there. As we are not familiar with all the different fuel stations we don't know if we're always getting good quality diesel. A sheriff stops to see if we are OK as Bob is half under the hood. As we are now getting accustomed to, we tell our story, where we're from, where we're going etc.,he wishes us well, gives us directions to the local Dodge dealer and tells us to call 911 and ask for the sheriff if we need anything.

The Dodge dealer can't help us, too busy, so we call Coys in Gonzales where we were 2 days ago. As we start our drive back, old Bertha seems to be running better so we decide to continue on our drive. So glad we did as the truck seemed fine and the engine light eventually went out too.
We are driving along highway 61 which is "sort of" by the Mississippi River. There are fields of sugar cane along the highway with huge oil refineries in the background.

We have spent so much of our time traveling through small communities, making a point of by-passing larger cities. Now we are in this busy, non stop corridor between Baron Rouge and New Orleans. The interesting thing about being here is it gives you a real good look at life in this part of the south. We find "crackling" for Bob at a corner gas station that is made at a local shop. Tried to buy it there but they didn't sell retail.

We are now heading into the waterways between Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain traveling on the elevated Hwy 55, the old Hwy 51 with the Amtrak rail line to our right. Ahead of us we see the two roadways coming close together at a town called Manchac. Over the bridge is an old and well known restaurant called Middendorfs. So many places we have discovered were told to us by the ladies at the Welcome Center the day we first entered Louisiana. The parking lot at the restaurant is filled with vehicles from Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Florida and now even BC:). Our waitress recommended the seafood platter to share with a bowl of shrimp gumbo. We had prawns, oysters, the best Catfish:), and a stuffed crab shell, which Bob got to eat all by himself. It was all delicious, good fresh bread, seafood cocktail and tartar sauce. It turns out our waitress is from Venice La. where we plan to go to finish our Mississippi River trip. She is pleased to think we are going there. She tells us that the people are friendly, the shrimp off the trawlers are cheap, but they are still recovering from Katrina. Buras and Venice were the first places that the eye of Katrina first touched land on Aug 29, 2005.
We are truly getting into Bayou country. We have our trip into New Orleans to do and then we will be going further south. An air boat trip into the swamps is on our agenda. I am trying to get over my disgust of alligators. It is difficult. Can't even go to the bathroom without a reminder, lol...this the door handle in the ladies room!

We wind our way home through small communities, many set on waterways. A mixture of the old shacks set right on the bayou and huge brick homes situated on acres of beautiful cleared land shaded by huge live oaks hanging with the moss beards

Also another thing unique to Louisiana is the fact that so much of the southern state is situated below sea level so graves are often set above ground with concrete crypts. Anyone that ever saw Easy Rider would remember the cemetary scene in New Orleans among the graves.

Back to our camp at our new home at Cabelas, lol...we are still so full from our lunch that dinner is not on the menu for tonight. A great way to spend a cold day. The sun was shining and brought some warmth with it. The wind did die down but temperatures only peaked at 57deg (13/14 C). I know that is quite balmy for a November day but we are 'southerners' now and need warmer temps, :)
Tomorrow it's going to warm up by 10 degrees and then another 10 degrees the next day. Life is good.

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Exploring without the RV

I am excited to go to the post office to pick up my art supply parcel from Dick Blick after having to wait 3 days due to the Veterans Day holiday. Sad to say they had returned it after a week thinking it was a mistake because they had no information about 'the general delivery' parcel. Short story, Dick Blick is resending my parcel without having received the returned one. Great customer service. Ladies at the post office are very sorry for my inconvenience and will be sure to hold onto the next one for you "Miss Karen". Hopefully it will arrive by Friday. Saturday we are waiting for our Jambalaya delivery and then we are heading to Nawlins. We are both apprehensive about the big city but feel we must see it.

We are going exploring just looking at life in the Gonzales area which is pretty much a city? of about 10000 people on the highway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We are on the hunt for drinking water. People here don't buy it in bulk only in gallon jugs. Our search takes us into Walmarts and finally find it at Albertsons, a store we are familiar with from Arizona.

Dennam Springs is a town of antiques. One store we go into to see what a jambalaya pot looks like, the owner tells us that any Saturday morning you can find Jambalaya cooking going on in the parking lots of grocery stores for fund raising for schools and sports. He has a wide assortment of spices and sauces but the one that appeals to me is "Slap Ya Mama". Love all the names:).

The French influence is everywhere. A funny example hit me today when I was looking at all the purple and gold things you can buy that support the Louisiana State University football team, the "Tigers". Tshirts say "LSU Geaux Tigers"... French for go? Yup!....Geauxing Places, in a travel shop window. Wineaux in a wine shop.

The last few days since coming into Lousiana we have seen Community Coffee in the Welcome Centers, the grocery stores and stand alone shops. Although there are Starbucks, this coffee seems to be the coffee of the south. We are in Albertsons and a young fellow is making a fresh pot that is free for customers. While we wait for a cup,,a woman, a retired school teacher, tells us that the coffee is of the south and that it provides support funding to the local schools. She also tells us that Ralph's Market has it on sale for $3.50 for a 12 ounce bag, half the price of Starbucks. We load up on dark roast.

Today the wind has picked up as we head back to the RV. Temperatures are going down to near freezing tonight and tomorrow night. People are excited for the cold snap and are bringing out the warm clothes, bringing in the pets and delicate plants.

Back at the RV we have a quiet hour, an easy dinner of gulf prawns, Cajun seasoned, and some coleslaw.

We always spend the evening and often the morning making our plans. We have decided we will follow the Mississippi to its end in Venice, La. If you are unfamiliar with the south part of Louisiana it will be hard to imagine what we are doing, but as we started the journey at the head waters in Lake Itasca it is only fitting that we finish the The Great River Road at the very, very end, to the Gulf.

 

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Remembrance/Veterans Day

A shower day, laundry day, 5 loads, but now everything from jackets, clothes to bedding and towels are clean. Bob has found a diesel place that has been recommended as the 'best in the state'.....our exhaust brake has not been working for a month but we also haven't had many mountain passes to deal with so it hasn't been a priority. If you are ever in Gonzales, La, and need diesel work done on your vehicle 'Coy's Diesel' is the place to go. They looked after us immediately, not even knowing what the problem was. After about 4 phone calls to the manufacturer in Chilliwack and 2 test drives they feel the problem is solved. We are only charged for an hours labour.
Our next stop before home is a grocery store, also recommended, called Ralph's Market. We are shopping for Louisiana meats, sausages, spices, anything local. We ask an employee that is in the meat department about all the different sausages they have. A few names are familiar from the ladies in the Welcome Center.

Jack turns out to be a walking encyclopedia of Cajun, Creole cooking as he worked with Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans. We are introduced to Andouille, Boudin, and several other sausages, gulf shrimp and even rib eye steaks. Turns out we have bought a few of the appropriate spices. We now know the difference between Jambalaya, and Jumbalaya.....
The store looks run down but is in the throes of renovations. Who knew we would meet a chef that has worked with Lagasse? He still lives in New Orleans and commutes to a different lifestyle. So often we have met busy people who don't hesitate to stop and spend time with us.

Bob is getting hands on information

Gulf shrimp.

Ralph's has a chef?....that creates a huge batch of Jambalaya every Saturday morning to sell in their three local stores. When we told him we were camped at Cabelas he said either he or an employee would do a drive through Cabelas and bring us a pot for our lunch on their way to the other stores.
Our mundane chore day ended with a dinner of our own halibut cooked with Cajun spices and coleslaw to cool the palate along with a few glasses of wine.
We met more welcoming people today and have more contacts of people to see and places to go. It just continues to make each day a wonderful adventure. I'm so glad I have persevered with this blog because I can't imagine remembering all our days without a written journal.
Tomorrow I get my art supplies. I am excited and again hope I will get the time to paint. I have to be the one that makes the time.

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Chore day

Trying a different method of posting hoping to make adding pictures simpler.

The peace sign from our gentle soul....wearing my old kayaking buff...not part of my travel blog but a favourite picture.

 

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