All posts by paula

16-Pensacola FL, Places we Visit-Year 1

Pensacola – the gulf and a fort from the Civil War era

We went from Lake Charles to Pensacola to stay for a few days on our way down into Florida.  It’s a very beautiful area with a huge bay (Escambia Bay) as well as lots of white flat beaches.  The gulf coast is very different from the Pacific Ocean – it’s warmer although I wouldn’t say it was bath-water warm in December!  It’s also got very tiny waves.

  

We visited Fort Pickens, which was first established during the Civil War and was the site of a battle with the Union Army taking control of that Fort and fighting the Confederates who were at two other forts at different points in the mouth of Escambia Bay.  The fort was also used in WWI and WWII to protect the bay.  It’s mosly in ruins now but most of it is open to the public for a self-guided tour.  Here are pictures Jeff took at Fort Pickens.

 

15-Lake Charles LA, Places we Visit-Year 1

We watched a woman coax a deer close enough to take food from her hand

When we got back to the Sam Houston Jones State Park today where we are staying, we stopped on the road as we saw a couple of deer right next to the road.  We were going to take a picture or two, but then we saw a couple walking toward the deer with a bag of bread.  So, we backed up the road a little bit to watch.

The two deer saw the couple and one started to leave, but the other turned toward them and actually starting walking toward them.  The woman got a piece of bread out of the bag and tossed it towards the deer, and with a few pieces and some encouragement she got the deer to take food from her hand!  It was very cool to watch!

15-Lake Charles LA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Avery Island – where they make Tabasco Sauce

We visited Avery Island today to see the only factory that makes Tabasco brand pepper sauce and see the natural beauty of the island natural preserve.

It’s called an island because there are bayous all around it.  It’s really a salt dome in the middle of a very flat swamp area.

Just before the Civil War Ned McIlenny, a lawyer from New Orleans, married one of the Avery daughters and moved with her to the family plantation.  They were forced out during the Civil War but returned afterward.  Someone travelling through the area gave them some pepper seeds they had obtained in Mexico and these soon turned into fiery pepper plants.  The McIlennys experimented with a pepper sauce and developed the recipe that is still used today.

Between this beginning and today, the McIlenny family has run the business and have also been interested in conserving the wild beauty of the area.  They created a snowy egret preserve and planted and maintain a beautiful park area.  Here are some pictures we took today:

15-Lake Charles LA, Places we Visit-Year 1

Lake Charles, LA – and the Sam Houston Jones State Park

We’re now at the Sam Houston Jones State Park in western LA.  We’re doing a bit of backtracking by heading west before we head to Florida for the rest of the year because Jeff needs to get his Texas drivers license.  Our efforts to get Texas drivers licenses has been long and would be funny if it weren’t so alarming!  I had to go into the Drivers License Office 4 separate times when we were in Livingston before I had all the paperwork in order to get my license.  They couldn’t tell me all at once what I needed – each time I went in they gave me one more item I had to have.  Geez!!

Jeff couldn’t get his as he didn’t have his ORIGINAL birth certificate.  It was in our safe deposit box back in San Diego.  So we left Texas without his, and since I was planning a quick trip back to San Diego the first week we were in Picayune, I stopped at the safe deposit box and picked his birth certificate up.  We made sure he had ALL the paperwork they were going to need and Jeff made the 9 hour round trip from Picayune MS back to Texas one day to get his license.  Wouldn’t you know…the day he chose to do that the computers were down state-wide and he couldn’t get his license processed.

SO…here we are back in west LA so we can do a little sight-seeing in this area and he can make a shorter trip into Texas to (finally) get his drivers license.

The Sam Houston Jones State Park near Lake Charles is very primitive, but beautiful.  It’s setting is in a swamp area, and our campsite backed up right to the water’s edge.  Picture below.  It’s very beautiful and has lots of trails, so we’ll do some hiking while we’re here (we’ll try to avoid any aligators!) and we’ll also see some of the west LA area including Avery Island where Tobasco sauce is made.  It’s also in a swamp and is a natural preserve area.

 

14-Picayune, MS to see family, Places we Visit-Year 1

Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas in Picayune

Jeff and I had Thanksgiving dinner with a large group of relatives here in Picayune.  There were about 50 or so people attending a potluck dinner outside at one relative’s house.  Great food, lots of good company!  The only downside was that I had laryngitis, so I was unable to carry on a conversation for more than a few minutes at a time.  But everyone understood.

This morning it was 31 outside when we got up, pretty cold for this area!  Here’s the pasture outside our door covered in frost:

We had lunch at my daughter’s in-laws house, just across the driveway from her house!  After lunch the guys got the christmas tree and all the ornaments down from the attic and the kids got to decorate the tree.  Here are a few pictures of the tree decorating:

 

14-Picayune, MS to see family, Places we Visit-Year 1

We’re here at my daughter’s house now – it’s been a week and this is my first post!

We’re at my daughter’s house now in Picayune, MS.  I have five grandkids here so we’ve been real busy with them instead of making posts.

It’s been pretty nice weather-wise, not too hot and not too humid, until today when it’s cold and raining a lot!  So, I have a little downtime to write a post.

I’m really enjoying being right outside my daughter’s door!  They have a large enough yard and a pole with a 30-amp plug on it so we pulled right up and set up just a few steps away from them.

The kids are getting so big!  I’m glad we’re able to spend several weeks here so we can get to know the kids better and spend good time with them including some time one-on-one with each of them.

I’ve attached pictures of the kids.

13-Livingston TX (our home base), Places we Visit-Year 1

Livingston Texas, visiting our new “official” home

We’re in Livingston TX this week, getting our vehicles registered in Texas and getting Texas drivers licenses.  Why? you might ask.  Why Texas? you might ask.

When we decided to become “full time RVers” and rented out our house, we discovered that the federal government requires everyone to have a state they are “domiciled in”.  You can’t be a U.S. citizen without being a citizen of a state.  And, to be a citizen of a state you must have a valid address in that state.  We considered using a relative’s address in either California, Arizona, or Mississippi where we have children.  We also realized that we need to have some way to receive mail while we’re on the road.

It didn’t seem fair to ask our kids to receive, sort, package and forward mail to us on a regular basis.  We learned that there are businesses who provide an address and a mail forwarding service.  The one we choose is the Escapee’s Club based in Livingston Texas.

In addition to the mail service, the Escapee’s Club is a large organization dedicated to providing service to people who are full-time on the road.  They have member forums where questions about RVs and trailers, places to go, how to make living in a small mobile place easier, etc.  They have discounts at a lot of other RV parks, sometimes 50%!

While here at the headquarters of the Escapee’s Club we are meeting lots of great people and participating in some fun activities.  Last evening at the Activity Center they had a great “one-man band” Walter Plant, who played country-western music.  We hadn’t danced in years but enjoyed doing the 2-step, West Coast Swing and country waltz!

No pictures though – sorry! 🙂

 

 

12-Dallas TX to see friends, Places we Visit-Year 1

Plano Texas to visit old friends

We made a stop in Plano (just north of Dallas) in Texas for one day to visit a friend of Jeff’s.  Jeff used to work with Keith and they’ve kept in touch over the years.  We had a great time visiting with Keith and his wife Sherry and had a great dinner together at a local sports bar and grill that specializes in BBQ chicken wings – great food, great company, wonderful time!

Now it’s on to Livingston TX to the headquarters of the Escapee’s Club, where we’ll become Texas citizens by getting Texas driver licenses and have our vehicles registered.

RV Parks We Stayed At

Our Travels – Year 2 (August 2013 through July 2014)

 

update this map with all the places we’ve visited.  Click on the map to see it enlarged.

To see our Year #1 travels (dots labeled #1 through #41) click here.

 

11-Carlsbad Caverns, NM, Places we Visit-Year 1

Carlsbad, NM – the Carlsbad Caverns

We had a lot of fun visiting the grandkids in Casa Grande, AZ, and then we moved on to Carlsbad, NM.  Rather than drive the whole way in one long day we split the drive and stopped for one night mid-way.  As we were nearing the Guadalupe Mountain range (a very short and mostly small range but still the highest point in New Mexico) Jeff was very interested in the formation at the highest end-peak and so he took a couple of pictures of it.  Also, at the bottom of the highest end-peak was a huge salt flat that apparently used to be a lake, you’ll see a picture of that as well.  It was interesting to see that most of the landscape around here is very flat, and in the middle of it is this mountain range sticking up!

We visited the Carlsbad Caverns yesterday with a self-guided tour of “The Big Room”.  Later today we’ll go back and do a ranger-guided tour of “The King’s Palace”.

It’s an amazing place!  If you haven’t been there, you need to add this to your bucket list for sure!  Hikers can go through the natural entrance and down through the bat cave to get to the caverns which are 750 ft below ground.  We chose to take the elevator and were there in less than 1 minute!  The national park service did a great job of placing walkways with good railings throughout the areas that visitors can go in, without interfering too much with the natural setting.  A lot of the time we couldn’t see the railings more than a few feet behind and in front of us.  And, because this was a self-guided tour, we went at our own pace, stopping to take pictures and look at formations.  On a Wednesday in October it wasn’t that crowded and several times we couldn’t hear any sound other than water dripping and our own footsteps.  WOW!

Below are pictures we took in “The Big Room”.  Things to note about the pictures are:

  • the natural state of the caverns is pitch black, any lighting you see is artfully placed by the national park system or caused by the flash of the camera
  • one picture is of a large stalagmite with a shape that has been name “the caveman”.  Can you find it in the pictures below?
  • In addition to a myriad of stalagmites and stalactites there were other formations.  One we dubbed “lace” because it was flat, very low formations with waves and holes in it that resembled lace.
  • There’s a lower cavern below the big room that is available for tours only for the hardy!  A couple of the pictures show an old metal and wire ladder used in 1924 when the National Geographic magazine sponsored a exploratory and surveying trip into the caverns.

Enjoy these pictures: