Dorothy on Henderson Lake near Breaux Bridge, LA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last adventure was spending most of a week with Jeanne and Ed who are from our hometown. [They have an Anniversary Edition MB]

It’s Sunday and we are in a most wonderful park, Tickfaw SP near Springfield, LA. This is a CG with great facilities. The sites are not too close together, the pads are paved and level. Each pad has a large deck with a picnic table. It’s less than 6 years old, so the bathhouse is in good condition. There is even free WiFi. Around 5:30 our LD friends arrived, so after they set up we had happy hour and then dinner. I had cooked spaghetti and they brought ice cream and cookies.

Monday we all paddled Lizard Creek to the Tickfaw River. This is a swamp, but it was a fun paddle.

There was a threat of rain the rest week. And some days, the threat was made good. Wednesday, we went into Baton Rouge, about an hour away and toured the state capitol built by Huey Long to be better than the national capitol. We also toured the old capitol building. Both were interesting to us. We had a fine dinner at Mike Anderson’s.

We got home Saturday, March 28. A short trip for us, ten weeks.

The Alligator Tour

We should call this the Alligator Tour. We have been seeing them the whole trip.

We spent an idyllic two days at my cousin Stacey’s farm near Kentwood, LA. He has horses that race, cows that eat grass and boo-coo fire wood. He allows that the latter shows how much he is worth. A new colt was born while we were there and I took dozens of pictures of the colt. It was not like in the movies, no one attended the birth. It was fascinating to watch the new mother attend her colt as he struggled to stand. I spent several hours just watching them walk around the paddock.

Mother and Son

 

 

 

 
Stacey demonstrated that he can cook and plied us with far too much wonderful food. He also gave us an appreciation for Community brand coffee, which we had to purchase.

Tuesday we drove into Baton Rouge and had a fine dinner at my cousins Pam’s. Stacey joined us. It was good to catch up with both of them. It’s just us now; all of our parents, aunts and uncles are gone. We spent the night in Pam’s driveway. We got up “early” and Pam took us to a coffee and beignet place. Yummy! After consuming too much white sugar we drove west and then south into the Atchafalaya Basin to Fausee Pointe SP. We need a pronunciation guide to place names in Louisiana.

We had dinner out Wednesday at Pat’s in Henderson. Red fish stuffed with crab. Not bad. On the return trip, we found a swamp where we must paddle. Near the entrance to the CG, Dorothy saw a Barred Owl on a road sign. A minute later one flew in front of the grill. When we turned in to the CG there was another one perched on sign. We stopped. We looked at him. He looked at us. He decided he could not eat us and he looked the other way. totally unperturbed by us being 10 feet away.

Thursday morning we drove back up the levee road and launched the yaks. We had an enjoyable paddle around the bayou; and then a wonderful Poboy at McGee’s.

We would stay the weekend here, but it’s booked. They say they are full most weekends. The Bayou country has none of the drama of the west, but we like it and we will be back for a longer stay.

Friday we drove back to Baton Rouge to hole up for the weekend. We had lunch at Cousin Stacey’s office. He has a couple come in and cook three times a week for the staff. He had them today “special” for us. They had fried fish, oysters, hush puppies, onion rings and cole slaw. It was all good, my fav was the oysters.

We found a CG near LSU designed for horse events. Only $16 and a decent CG. Quiet, gravel roads and wide grass sites. Only a dozen rigs here.

Winter in Louisiana

If our Blog is boring to you, keep in mind that we do it mostly for ourselves and we are easily entertained.

It is dark. [I think that is like “I am born”] Anyway, at 7:10 this morning, it was more dark than light. Freaking government. No detail is too small to mess with. When we started this trip, it was dark at 7:30 in the Eastern time zone. It was a month until sun time matched local time. Now we get to go through it again.

Sunday, March 8. We are the Fontainebleau SP on the north shore of Lake Ponchatrain. It is a nice enough CG. Beautiful Live Oaks. It has W&E, wi-fi and sewer at some sites. $8 a night on the geezer card.

This is food land. Restaurants abound. Most are local owned. Everyone is a chef. We had BBQ for lunch. This consisted of too much BBQ, too much delicious fried okra, a cup of light brown gumbo and Texas toast. Nine dollars. Such a culinary contrast with Florida where restaurants are scarce.

We drove along Lakeshore Dr. in Mandeville and gawked at the splendid homes. We also passed by the Mandeville Yacht Club where I raced J22’s with my friends many years ago in the Adams Cup Semi-finals Women’s Regatta.

Wednesday, March 11. We are still at Fontainebleau SP. And glad to be here. We are not doing anything exciting. We are not exercising either. We are just being lazy, doing a few chores and listening to Radio Margaritaville.

The CG is going to be full this weekend and so will all the others in the area. We are in our second site already. After talking with Ranger Thomas, he will open another site for us this weekend. It has been off the reservation system due to construction. Construction was completed six weeks back, but somehow the site was not put back in the mix. Lucky for us.

A Lazy Daze from Wisconsin arrived. Maureen and Bruce. We have enjoyed cocktails with them.

The rain that was forecast to start Wednesday, started this afternoon and may continue for 48 hours or so. The CG is nearly full, mostly with LA tags. Great idea, let’s go to the CG and watch TV in the rain. The fellow behind us is typical. He bought every light and doo-dad that CW sells and he spent an afternoon and morning putting them all out. He is camping – inside of course.

I have now achieved Advanced Laziness - woke up at 8:45 this morning!

Sunday we will drive north to see my cousins. And after that? Maybe into the bayou country?

Winter in Florida - Crossing the Pandhandle

We rolled into a cold and windy Panama City Sunday afternoon. We chatted with our LD chums, Ted & Liz, inside the RV. It was much too cold to be outside.

Warmer, but still chilly, on Monday, we did marketing and errands. We should have paddled the boats as the wind was calm.

Tuesday the wind was back up, so we had a good lunch with Ted & Liz at Sweet Basil.

Wednesday morning, we did a few more errands, Dorothy cooked a marvelous new curry lunch and we paddled the yaks on the lee shore. With the water cool, there was little bacteria making the water very clear. We wanted to cross the channel to Shell Island, but the wind and waves would have made it work.


At the jetty in St. Andrews Bay

 

 

 

 

Thursday we said goodbye to Ted & Liz and headed to Perdido Beach, FL. This was our “Sentimental Journey”. Every summer from 1979 – 2004, we would make the trek to the Grand Lagoon Yacht Club for the Windmill Southerns. We camped at Big Lagoon State Park this time and drove to the yacht club looking at all the changes that had taken place since the hurricane in 2005. It seems like every time something is blown down, then a large condo takes its place. We had dinner at Interarity Point Original Oyster House where we ate many Sunday evening meals with our Windmill friends.

Friday we took the beach road to Gulf Shores, pointing out all the places we had stayed, places where we ate, and places where we had fun. The wonderful memories washed over us – Alecia at the beach, either enjoying being with other Windmill kids or babysitting, all the adults swimming in the pool on Sunday afternoon after two days of racing. This was wonderful for us to revisit our past.