SUPER BOWL LOUISIANA STYLE

By now most everyone has heard that New Orleans won the Super Bowl.  We attended our first ever Super Bowl Party, drinks, food, and enthusiastic people from all over the country  getting together to cheer for the Saints. Since we are not from the area, we were not into understanding the "mind-set" of their fans. Within the first quarter, we were cheering and getting excited as the game progressed. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement. We had two different football pools going.  Bob and I were fortunate to win two quarters. WOW!!

All this fun and money, too!!  Most people in Louisiana are true followers/fans. One of the people at the party told about her aunt, who is in her mid- eighties, getting so upset by the Saints in previous games that she would turn off the tv ( putting the Saints in a "time-out" situation, like one does a child).  Then after a few minutes she would turn it back on to see if they could now do better. Her thoughts on Manning are, "they ought to stretch him out".  Now this is all done behind closed doors and she would be embarrassed if her friends saw this reaction because she is such a genteel lady.  But, alas!!!  When you are a Saints fan your loyalty runs high.  Who Dat! Tonight we are off to the Cajun Claw restaurant for crawdads... about 12 others want to go, so Betty arranges a dinner party... she really is a social  director and enjoys doing things with the campers. The weather is turning cold here and maybe NewOrleans parades are off..... we will see. We are not into standing with 1 million people in freezing weather.

Suire's Restaurant

 Our first day at Betty's one of the other rv-ers said he had seen our truck some where.  It was at Suire's where he remembered seeing it!   We went back to Suire's (pronounced swears) Restaurant/ Grocery store.  A couple pictures of the 2 sisters ( that own the store) standing on/by the little green truck are posted on their wall.  Bob and I got the special lunch, a type of beef stew over rice. Bob loved it, my taste buds are still recovering.  We got some of their homemade dessert to take home to ease the burning ;)  Today is one of the dryer days as it has finally stopped raining for awhile. Hopefully it will dry up now.  Our days have been spent settling in, reading about ALL the upcoming festivities, trying to decide which to do and partaking of "happy hour".  All the weekends in Feb. are planned out already. This Sat. was a grand opening at Hub City Ford that we went to. Geno Delafosse(Zydeco) and Sammy Kershaw(country variety) were the headliners and 5 contestants from a radio show were there.  Very great music from all, along with free hotdogs, hamburgers and drinks (pop). Not an ordinary grand opening for us from the north.  Next Sat........Three New Orleans Mardi Gras parades with 4 other couples from the park. The following Sat. north to Eunice/Mamau area for radio show, theater, jam  sessions .... all with cajun music and dancing. The last.. more jam sessions and local concerts and many other local traditional happenings and a concert at the rv  park on Friday  that Betty has arraigned.

New Roads

We left FL on Jan 28, saying goodby to old  friends and many new friends. As usual leaving with many places left not visited, so we will have to put it on the list of places we need to return to. But our plans were to head to LA and Betty's RV Park http://www.bettysrvpark.com for the month of Feb and visit places we missed last year. We traveled back roads in FL and stopped the first night in Port St. Joe FL. was a Passport America(PA) Campground that was empty and the signs said pick a spot so we did---- right at the waters edge of St.Joseph Bay-- a really neat spot. Lillian, AL was our next stop at  the KOA we stayed at with Chet Beeswanger two yrs ago. Thought we would enjoy the hot tub but it started raining and rained hard all night. The next morning--clear skies and  new roads for the Little Green Truck-- US 90 through AL and MS. These roads follow the Gulf of Mexico-- very often running right on the shoreline with only the beach between . We stopped on Long Beach, MS about 20 mi. from Biloxi and found another PA park (Magic River Resort). Again the signs said pick a spot and we will catch you tomorrow. Very nice campground, neat spot, just a little hard to find, but worth looking for. A couple other people said they came for a few days and stayed for three weeks. Jan said she needed her casino fix so we went back to Biloxi and the Hard Rock Casino. Spent 5 or 6 hrs and had a good dinner and broke even like we usually do at the casinos. Sometimes Jan wins and sometimes I win but never together so even is about the best we can do. Still a fun evening out. Monday morning was off to Betty's on US 90 yet until we reached New Orleans and the the Interstate to get around The Big Easy. Back on 90 for the rest of the trip. We ran into rain again but reached Abbeville about 4 o'clock, just in time for happy hour and some new friends. We also arrived into the middle of "WhoDat" and Saint's madness.  Superbowl fever is high with the natives displaying their Whodat! and Saints shirts and flags. A big party planned here at the park tomorrow.

On the Road

FL was nice,but cool. We are in Abbeville,LA. It is raining and cool so I thought I would try to start updating our blog. Jan left off at Titusville where we spent a day at the NASA Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force base(I think it is fascinating--Jan not quite so--she saw her first live armadillo and lots of wild pigs. She likes the wild stuff). So---- we traveled down A1A to Palm Beach where we visited Whitehall, the Flagler House Museum. Henry Flagler built most of the east coast Florida tourism by building the railroad and hotels in many of the towns along the coast. The biggest are in St.Augustine and West Palm Beach. He, also, built many churches along with his hotels. Key West was also developed by him, because he thought that it would become the major US seaport in the south, but he was wrong and New Orleans became the great seaport. He did build the railroad to Key West. In some places along the highway to Key West you can still see some of the railroad bridges he built---they are listed on the National Historic Register.flaglermuseum The internet is great because you never hear of people like this until you start searching for things to see. We left Palm Beach and traveled across Alligator Alley (even with the cold weather,the alligators were THERE)------I-75 West to Naples and Fort Meyers Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed overnight and toured Sanibel Island, a cracker house museum, a Sears catalog house, the lighthouse and the shell covered beaches. Left there and went to Sarasota and the John Ringling circus museum and John & Mable Ringling's house. ringlingmuseum They also have a 200 yr old theater that was brought from Asolo, Italy-- rebuilt and is now being used for meetings and shows,etc. A very interesting and amazing place. We learned that he created the Sarasota tourist business with his winter camp for his circuses. He also owned more than 1/4 of the land in and around Sarasota. We left there and returned to Whispering Pines and a couple more days of really cold (20's & 30's) weather. Turned nice and we spent the last few weeks there visiting jam sessions and the Orange Blossom Opry --- lots of great music in the area along with Jan's cards and bingo.

Been at Whispering Pines since Thanksgiving

As we were headed south, we decided we would like to be with friends for Thanksgiving. We went through the Outer Banks a little faster than we had originally planned. But we did get to Whispering Pines a few days before Thanksgiving and were able to be thankful for friends AND a wonderful meal.
Since then I have fallen into the routine of bean-bag baseball, bocce ball, shuffle board, bingo twice a week and cards or dominoes the other nights. There have been a few times that I did not go to bocce ball since they were doing that at 10 am. I'm not a morning person and did NOT bring any gloves.
We were experiencing a cold spell in Florida, which usually does not last very long...ha-ha, little did we know.
During this time a friend, Helena was in the area staying with some other of her friends. After various discussions it was decided that Helena would come stay with Grizz while Bob and I went on a little sightseeing trip further south. Giving Helena a taste of trailer life and us a chance to experience more of Florida.
We rented a car Monday morning and started our trip to find the sunny, warm Florida. We went to a section of Daytona Beach where cars are allowed to drive along the coast on the beach. There were a few people out in their winter coats and gloves enjoying a walk along the beach. We chose to observe and not participate. brrrrr
Then drove on to Titusville on A1A but were unable to see the ocean because of all the tropical plants and weeds growing along there.

Another southern town

Leaving Charleston it was a short trip to Savannah Ga. This trip along the southeast coast was an eye opener for us, as this was the first time we had been this far east. The coastal swamps and marshes were surprising along with all the water we passed over by the many bridges. We followed US 12 as far as we could and then US 17. Everything on this trip seemed a lot closer, as our trip last winter covered TX and AZ. Charleston and Savannah are very close together and when you look at a map Savannah is about as far northeast in Georgia as you can get.Savannah and Charleston, along with many other southern coastal towns were founded by the shipowner merchants. They made their first fortunes shipping goods and slaves from overseas. This was hard work so they then went on to become plantation owners as this was seen as a step up and they could sort of retire and show off their wealth. Savannah is more of a coastal town with a water front that has many old cotton warehouses with cobblestone streets and foundations that have been turned into shops and restaurants and other unique places. Charleston was built in the old tradition of getting as much as possible in as little space where Savannah's historic district has 22 squares with many statues honoring the city's founders. Both have many beautiful old houses with many of them open as museums and showplaces.
The next day we took a trip out to Tybee Island to visit the lighthouse there. The lighthouse and most of the area was developed by the gov't--- first as a lighthouse in 1736 (At 90ft--the tallest building in America ) and lifesaving station and then as Fort Screven for the protection of Savannah. With over 400 yrs of history it is a unique place.The fort and lighthouse was used as training grounds until after WWII and in 1947 sold the the community of Tybee. The area was built also as an escape for the residents of Savannah from the summer heat and became summer residences for many. Access to the area was difficult and a railroad was for many years the only way . There was also a big amusement park that still operated in the 1980's. On the way back we stopped at the Crab Shack, a local oddity restaurant that was recommended by a guy at the Ga welcome center.. we found it a fun place with good food.

Southern Towns

After our ferry rides we headed towards Morehead City and a campground. Not finding a campground there we headed on towards a campground in New Bern listed in the PA book. The person on the phone gave us different directions and addresses than what Passport America gave in the book. Our trusty GPS did not like either of them so we tried the directions given us by the man on the phone. At this point in time it is dark and downpouring rain. We came to a dead end in a residential section...... no campground!!!! Now the challenge was to turn the rig around with little lighting, less space, lots of downpouring rain and ( thank GOD) little traffic at that time of night. After much manuvering and frustration we headed back where we had just come from. We went according to the book and stumbled across a KOA. We found a spot, did the after-hours check-in and landed for the next two days. They received 5-11 inches of rain in the 2 days we were there...the aftermath of the hurricane. We burrowed in and did NOTHING. Even Grizz was content to do his duty outside quickly and get back inside to dry quarters.
We left there after two WET days and headed towards Charleston S.C. On this trip we have had several people photograph our arrival and we have caught their picturetaking with our own picture. In Plymouth N.C. the local cop stopped as we were making a u-turn and got his camera from the back of the cruiser and began snapping pics. We stopped and he came over and welcomed us to his town and talked about the truck in the middle of the street for about 10 min. We found a brand new campground near N. Myrtle Beach, S.C. on the Passport America website. Here again as we arrived a guy video taped our arrival. We seem to cause stir when we arrive. The Carroll Woods campground had a very nice bathhouse, nice country setting and friendly, helpful hosts. There was wine-tasting on site hosted by the "Grapeful Sisters". The weather had turned to a cold, light mist and since we don't like driving in the rain we stayed for two days. Still not our idea of nice sight-seeing weather so we did some laundry and read hoping the weather would clear.
We left there on Saturday on dry roads amid sunny skies and traveled towards Charleston, S.C. driving thru N. Mytle Beach and stopping for lunch. We bypassed Myrtle Beach as we figured it would be more of the same...T-shirt shops and golf resorts. We arrived at Lake Aire RV Park, Hollywood, S.C. just ouside Charleston early in the afternoon. Sunday we decided to take a mule drawn carriage ride in Charleston. It really is a way to see the sights and hear some tales about the city. Charleston is a city that has had many earthquakes (200 since 1970)and we saw how they repaired the houses in the 1800's that were damaged. After hearing which mansions were on the "to do" list, we walked back to the Calhoun house for a guided tour. It is called "the oh my God house" because those are the first words out of everyones mouth. It is a 24,000 sq ft house built 1n the 1870's still used as a single family home and opened for tours every day. The rooms are so filled with rare antiques and collectibles. A lot of the house has been restored to the original interior. It is just one of several House museums that are open for tours.  Charleston has a law ( passed in 1931 )that if the house/building is 75 years old you cannot tear it down....you can remodel the interior but the outside must remain original. So there are plenty of beautiful old homes there. They are not all mansions but many,many neat old houses,some dating back to the 1700's. This is one of the cities that we would like to return to for further exploring.