Day 26 - 30 ~ LOUISIANA

We will be spending 5 days in Louisiana; an overnight stay in the Lafayette area (to break up the miles to our main destination), and 4 days in New Orleans. Welcome to the world of dampness and frizz. The humidity was so high here that I had to wear my sun hat 24/7. My hair stuck out in fuzzy ringlets, could not do a thing with it. The hat kept it somewhat flat. And everything is damp. All the paper in our trailer was damp, walking on the throw rugs felt damp and our clothes are damp. We saw very little sun during our stay. The sky was covered with dark clouds and there was a yellow glow on everything. Weird, could not see the screen on my cell phone when I was outside. Hard to take pictures. 

Despite the cloud cover, it did not rain. And the temps were not that high so it was bearable to explore.

Mar 1: Our overnight stay was at FROG CITY RV PARK, in the Lafayette area. It was a 4-hour, 284-mile drive to get there.  We did not unhook the car. We settled in and relaxed the rest of the day. This RV park is okay, but there were trains nearby, that were very loud when they sailed by. Shook the ground sometimes. Fortunately, they were quite during the night.

NEW ORLEANS

Mar 2: After 2.5 hours and 135 miles we arrived at BAYOU SEGNETTE STATE PARK. We are in Westwego, a town on the other side of the Mississippi River, across from the French Quarter area; in the swamps in the heart of the town. You feel pretty isolated, except you can hear the sounds of the city.  The campground is large with spacious sites.You are far from any neighbor. We have full hook-ups (except for sewage) and we can get several local channels on the antenna. And, a bonus, we have Wifi. A fairly strong signal too. The comfort station is not so comfortable, but there is a laundry room with fairly new machines and it is FREE! That’s a first.

After ‘setting up camp’ we went to the French Quarter and walked around a bit. Took some pictures before it got too dark. We found a nice place to eat dinner; Sylvain. 

Andrew Jackson ⇧

        A nice place to eat. We had a delicious dinner on their back patio.  

Audubon Zoo

Mar 2: This is a nice zoo on 58 acres with more than 1,500 animals. It has about 5 regions and is laid out just like that region; for instance, Jaguar Jungle has Mayan temples and ruins.  Very pleasant to stroll through.  You felt like you are actually there.  We got there early afternoon and all the school groups were gone and the place was very quiet.  So, on this day we had a very relaxing stroll through the zoo.

 A great fountain at the entrance with dancing water spouts among elephants and lions with big pots around the outside that squirt water into the fountain, all synchronized.

 This beautiful peacock joined us for lunch. 

 Feeding time.

Mom with her baby. 

 Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

Mar 3: This place is right on the Mississippi River. It has more than 15,000 specimens that represent some 530 species of marine life found throughout the Americas. Your entrance fee also included a 40-minute movie. We saw “Hurricane on the Bayou”. It was about all hurricanes, but focused on  hurricane Katrina. It was fascinating. It explained how all the wetlands along the coast of Louisiana were a natural barrier that stopped hurricanes from going inland. Slowly the wetlands were being destroyed; first the trees were cleared to grow sugarcane, then more currently the swamps were being drained to avoid flooding. This allowed the salt water to come in and destroy the rest of the trees. Fascinating and so sad. Almost all the marine life in this Aquarium died during Katrina. They lost power, which cut off all the oxygen in the tanks. 

Feeding time ⇧ 

This otter got half a crab and 

kept banging it on the glass to break it open 

 

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

Mar 4: BARATARIA PRESERVE is part of Jean Lafitte NHPP. It is a 23,000-acre home to a hardwood forest, cypress swamp and marsh. There is 9-miles of boardwalks and trails. We got there late and was only able to walk about a mile of a boardwalk trail from the visitor center.

 Do you see the Alligator ⇧ 

Found another one ⇩

 Snake (not sure of breed). ⇧ See the head?

 Almost missed this one. ⇧

Swamp Lily 

Tomorrow we drive into FLORIDA.  Stay tuned…

Here we go again!

We are off on a new adventure.  Four months circling the USA, revisiting favorite cities and sites with a main goal of visiting all the National Parks and Monuments!

Come join us in our adventures.  Stay tuned.

The trailer is packed, the pets are secured in the car, the police have been contacted, the neighbors have been contacted and someone will be coming by often to water plants, window check, etc. and picking up our mail and sending it to us.  

Our home for the next four months!

  

We are one our way.  Come join us in our adventures.  Stay tuned.

Day 1-7 ~ California (Death Valley & Disneyland)

PASO ROBLES, CA 

Feb 5th:  Our first stop is an overnight stay in Paso Robles.  This is wine country and Paso Robles has a lot of scenic and wonderful wineries along Highway 49.We are staying at WINE COUNTRY RV RESORT, just outside of town on Highway 49. This is a first-class RV park with level, manicured sites. Great WiFi and cable TV. But it is very expensive, $80 a night. Visiting the wineries are also expensive. Tasting charge is around $25 and that fee does not go towards any purchase of wine. So be prepared to spend a lot of $$$ to go wine tasting.

Helene immediately found a place to hang out.

  

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

We are spending the next three days visiting and exploring Death Valley National Park.  

    

Feb 6:  It's a long boring drive to our next destination. But we did pass an interesting sign. Driving along Highway 15, I saw this street sign and had to google it.  How many of you know about this road?  Curtis Howe Springer founded several health spas during the 1940’s and built one in this area; officially Soda Springs at the edge of a dry lakebed.  Historically, it was a small freshwater source used by local Indians. Springer renamed it Zzyzx (Zeye-zix) Mineral Springs resort in 1944 claiming it to be the last word in the English language. Today the road leads to a mineral spring and there’s a mineral spring/health center that has been built up around it.  Interesting things you discover in your travels.

After about a 7-hour drive, we arrived; just before dark. We are staying at Shoshone RV Park in Shoshone, CA. It’s about 50 miles to the visitor center in Death Valley NP. This place is the most decent RV park that is close to the Park. The RV parks inside the park are sloppy, crowded, no WiFi and worse. This place is somewhat rural, and very small. About 35 sites.  Considering we are in the desert; this place has lots of trees and the sites are shady. No cable TV, but we have WiFi. There is also a pool that is fed by a natural warm spring.

Of all the RV parks we have stayed at, this place has the largest library for book exchange that I have ever seen. I found 5 books by James Patterson; the current author I am reading.

  

Feb 7 & 8:  The next two days were clear, sunny and warm as we explored Death Valley. We visited several sites, did short walks and drove through beautiful scenery. We could not visit Scotty’s Castle as all roads leading to it and the Castle itself were severely damaged during the flash floods of 2015. Yes, 5 years ago and they are still working on it. The estimated damage was around 20 million. They hope to complete the repairs by 2021.

⇧ Zabriskie Point ⇩

Harmony Borax Works ⇩

The mined borax (salt minerals) were hauled 165 miles to the railroad town of Mojave by 20 mules. The teams averaged 2 miles an hour and took 30 days to complete a round-trip. The tank at the end of the two box cars held water for mules and man. ⇩

Mesquite Flat Dunes ⇩ 

⇧ Dante's View of Badwater Basin ⇩

Artists Palette ⇩ 

Badwater Basin ⇩ 

Feb 9:  In the wee hours of this morning, strong winds hit our area. Our trailer was rocking and rolling the rest of the morning. We were to depart this morning for Anaheim. But as the winds continued to get worse, we decided to stay in Death Valley another day. We hung out in the trailer and tried to enjoy the thrill ride of the rocking and rolling and prayed that tomorrow would be a better day.

Feb 10:  The winds were still blowing this morning, but decided to take our chances that it would be better when we got out of the flat desert. 

We left early and by noon, after a 4-hour drive, we arrived safely in Anaheim. Our home for the next two days is ORANGELAND RV PARK. It is a fairly nice park. About 200 sites. We have a deluxe site so we have grass and a nice patio table and chairs and it is a pull thru (expensive though; $90 a night). The standard sites are laid out like a parking lot and back to back. The best thing is the park is full of orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees. All are full of fruit and free to pick.

The park is walking distance to the ART station (Anaheim Regional Transportation). For $1.50 (Sr 1-way) we can ride to Disneyland instead of paying the $25 parking fee. We bought a 3-day pass and went to Disney Downtown for dinner.  What a beautiful night. Tomorrow we go to Disneyland.

 ⇧ Anaheim Regional Transportation ⇩

DISNEYLAND

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

Feb 11 & 12:  We visited both parks at noon instead of early morning. We missed out on getting FASTPASS, but we also missed the unbearable, gridlock crowds. In the afternoon, the wait times were not that bad; 25min at the most for the rides we wanted. However, you do need to get there early for FASTPASS for any of the Star War rides, Indiana Jones, and Radiator Springs Racers. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland was most impressive. The place is huge and you feel like you are right there in the movie.  We saw Chewbacca and he had a horde of kids following him, running to keep up. Cute. They even had a sleeping Loth-Cat in a cage. The creature was breathing. All the young children really thought it was a real creature. Their comments were priceless.

⇧ Loth-Cat ⇩

 

 ⇧ Right in the middle of the plaza between 
Disneyland and California Adventure 

 ⇧ Huge stone ball that rolled around by force of the water

⇧  A wonderful lunch/dinner at Wine Country Trattoria

 ⇧ We did get a fastpass for this ride for 7:20pm.  

Never rode this at night.  

What a thrill, but kept my eyes closed ⇩

Good bye California, hello Arizona.  Stay tuned.