We visited  Big Bend National Park yesterday. It is in southwestern Texas and borders on Mexico. It has mountains, desert, and the Rio Grande River.  Lots of interesting scenery and sparse wildlife (we  saw a roadrunner, a deer, and 2 coyotes). Big Bend is one of the least visited National Parks and we would probably not visit again. But was interesting to see it once.

 

 

 

 

So it’s been a few days since my last post. Let me catch you up.

The morning after our visit to the French Quarter the weather forecast included heavy winds, rain, hail, and possible tornados. Since our campground was near the edge of Lake Ponchartrain with the levee behind us we decided to ‘get out of dodge’.

An aside about levees:  The levee along the industrial canal (one of the breeches in Katrina was in that levee) ran right along the street our campground was on. At first I did not realize what it was – just looked like a concrete wall about 8 ft high, not very thick, crumbling in a few places, with some graffiti on it. A large densely populated neighborhood was just on the other side. I don’t know much about levees and I don’t know if the design of this particular levee changed when it was rebuilt after Katrina but it did not look to me like it could hold back the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. My comment to Bill: “No wonder it didn’t work”.

So, back to our travels. We left New Orleans on Saturday and headed for Texas.  We really lucked out with the weather. We left NOLA, arrived in a campground in Beaumont TX, and set up before the rain started.  The rain ended before morning. The stop in Beaumont was just one night at Hidden Lake Campground – OK for one night.

Sunday we headed on to Ingram, TX – in the ‘Texas Hill Country’. The drive the our campground was interesting, to say the least. The campground was about 10 miles away from the Highway (US 10) and the GPS took us on a ‘Ranch Road’, RR479. The Ranch Roads and ‘Farm to Market’ roads in Texas are secondary roads that allow access to rural areas. Needless to say RR479 was not the ideal road for a motor home towing a car. But there were some interesting sites and Bill handled it like champ.

We arrived in one piece at Johnson Creek Campground. It is in a Pecan Orchard and Pecans are in season now. Pecans were dropping from the trees like acorns. You just pick them up and have a delicious snack (they were delicious).

Yesterday we visited Fredericksburg. A touristy spot but interesting. It was founded by German immigrants in the mid 1800s and still has some German flavor to it. They were putting up Xmas decorations in the town park and one of the decorations was a 30 foot Christmas Pyramid (you know the little wooden christmas decorations that have a windmill at the top, and you light candles at the base to make it spin).

 

 

We had lunch at Fredericksburg Brewery. They apparently brew the beer on-site and the Enchanted Rock Red is excellent.

Departed from Ingram this morning and arrived in Marathon, TX (about an hour from Big Bend National Park). The drive was interesting.

The landscape looks like an old western. We are staying at Marathon Hotel and RV Park (never would have picked this on our own but was recommended by a guy we met in Ingram). It is small and very nice. The view is great.

Took me the longest time to realize the acronym, NOLA, that I was seeing all over the place stands for “New Orleans, Louisiana”. Duh!!

So, we are in New Orleans. Staying at a very nice little campground/marina close to Lake Ponchartrain (on the outskirts of New Oreleans).  It’s in a surprisingly industrial area of town on a canal.  Our theory is that the land was available at a bargain price after Katrina. There are very obvious signs of Katrina in the immediate area even after 9 years.

We visited the French Quarter today.  Walked around, had some great traditional food for lunch at The Corner Oyster House, listened to street musicians, visited history museum, saw the Mississippi river. All that tourist stuff, had a great time.

 

One of the museums had a great exhibit about Hurricane Katrina – very powerful. The picture below is the ceiling in the entrance of the museum and these words were on the sign near to it.

Message of Remembrances
Mitchell Gaudet, 2010
Cast glass, etched glass bottles, paper, wire, steel, wood

In creating this installation, Mitchell Gaudet wanted visitors to feel ‘as if one is moving up and out from being underwater.’ ‘I though about all the things floating in the water after the storm,’ he explains, ‘and all the people in need.’ The etched bottles allude to Hurricane Katrina’s death toll. The vessels protect messages, delivering them to a safe haven. Glass hands represent the countless, often unsung, individuals who rendered aid to the residents of the Gulf Coast. ‘Even during the storm and the trying times after,’ recalls Gaudet, ‘people still helped others.’

 

A better picture and an article here.

Woke to a beautiful sunrise and cold weather (in the low 30s). We just hung out in the camper until lunch. Figured out how to get the AppleTV connected to the campground wifi (a techie trick that will bore most of you, but I had fun).  After lunch we got a few groceries and some very fresh shrimp and oysters (shrimp for dinner tonight and oysters in the freezer).

Long walk on the beach across the street from the campground.  Some unusual tree stumps near the water line. Looks like they are battling some erosion here.

Tomorrow we head to New Orleans.

So we travelled over 1000 miles to the gulf coast of Florida and woke up to temps in the 30s (same as Plainville)!!! What’s up with that? Needless to say there was no swimming or lying on the beach today. Instead we got in the car and took a day trip west to Apalachicola, Eastpoint and St George Island. I guess this area gets busy in season but right we are pretty much all by ourselves and I love it.

This is Cape St George Light.

There are numerous signs like this in this area. We assume it is a picture of a bear (some of the signs have baby bears also). I guess the bears like to go to the beach!

Finally check out our new map (Red link at the top of the page).

So we have been on the road for 3 days now. Until this morning we were traveling a very familiar route. We drove down route 95 from Massachusetts to Florida (we did this many many times to visit Bill’s family in Fort Lauderdale for Xmas). But this morning shortly after we drove by Jacksonville, FL we headed West on route 10.  Now I really feel like our journey has started

It was quite an experience on the road today. After we hit route 10 we became aware of Tornado watches in the area. We kept a close eye on the weather but did not pull over until the Windshield wiper broke when Bill put it on high speed! We pulled into a rest area and it was a good thing because the weather became really intense. Extremely heavy rain – we saw cars pulling over in the breakdown lane on the road. Heavy winds – the RV was swaying until Bill put down the stabilizer jacks – we saw a downed tree later as we were leaving the rest area. Thunder and lightening – a close hit sounded very loud. No tornado but quite exciting. Bill fixed the Windshield wiper quickly (he is amazing) and we were off again.

After the storm we headed to Carrabelle Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The last 80 – 90 miles of the trip were lonely roads through forest and swamps. It was very pleasant.

I am working on a map that shows all the stops we’ve made but it still is not quite ready for prime time. Maybe tomorrow.

Just pulled out of the driveway. Omg!!