January 23-25, 2022 Travel to Louisiana

We left our little spot in Hickory Creek and headed east but first a stop for DEF and Diesel – what a learning experience.

We took a lot of the blue roads thru Texas:

The RV was nice riding although a little bumpy.  So we will be trying to get use to that.  And we learned what was not secured – LOL.

Sunday night found us south of Marshall, Texas at Laguna Vista RV Park – a Passport America Park.  It was a reasonable price and okay for an overnight stop.

Monday we woke to rain and fog and continued our journey on the blue roads:

We stopped for diesel at Pilot using the truck lanes and found out that if you do not have a company card, even with our Good Sam Discount, it was more expensive that the other stations around.  Another learning experience.

We found out that we did good on securing some stuff but not all.  Will be changing things around again – LOL!

We are staying at Lorrain Parish Park near Bell City, Louisiana.  It is a little park with nine spots with electric and water for $12.00 per night.  We have decided to stay for four nights.

From their website:

“This park is located at the foot of Lorrain Bridge. Because of its unique design and construction, Lorrain Bridge is being considered for placement in the National Register of Historical Sites. The site was acquired in 1894 and the bridge was constructed around 1895 as a wooden type draw bridge. In 1920, it was re-constructed, still as a wooden draw type bridge. It was damaged in 1950, repaired in 1951, and in 1955 the draw bridge portion was disabled. The bridge remained open and connected Calcasieu Parish and Jeff Davis Parish until it was closed to traffic in March of 1998. Due to joint efforts of the Lorrain Bridge Association, the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury and Jeff Davis Police Jury, the bridge was rebuilt and opened to traffic on July 1, 2004.”

Travel Stats:

Sunday, January 23, 2021

Texas: Hickory Creek Road; Point Vista Road; Turbeville Road; I35E N; SR288; US380; US69; I20 E; US59 S; CR1027

Miles Traveled: 198 Miles

Monday, January 24, 2021

Texas: CR1027; US59 S; US84 E

Louisiana: US84 E; US171 S; I-10 E; SR 383 S; US90 E; SR 101; Lorrain Road

Miles Traveled: 238 Miles

Today, Tuesday, 25th,  we woke to more rain and fog so decided to take a little ride and make a few stops for supplies.  This area was hit by back to back hurricanes in 2020 and major storms/tornados in 2021.  It is very emotional to see how folks have suffered and inspirational on how they continue to persevere.  We were here in 2011 and saw some of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.  I don’t know how they do it.

Back home, we decided to take a little walk around the park.

The dock area:

Love the trees:

The Bridge:

We took a little ride earlier in the day and saw a beautiful blue heron – huge animal.  Now that we know where the road goes, we may follow it tomorrow.

The campground:

Notice the trees/swamp behind our MH.

Another cool tree:

One of the things we do is try to clean up around our campsite.  When I was out picking up some of the trash, I came across what looks like alligator? snake? skins.  There were eight of them and looked like they were cleaned and just dumped.

And we found bones..

So we are not going out at night – LOL!

Tomorrow we will be doing more exploring so stay tuned and enjoy today!

 

 

January 8-22, 2022 Moving, Sickness, and Good Friends

Yikees!  It has been a while since I updated.  We have been crazy busy and sick again… 

As I last wrote on 1/7, we signed the papers for a new to us RV (pictures below).  That Saturday and Sunday, we spent boxing up as much as we could because we only had 7 hours on Monday to move everything.   All I can say is WOW..we have too much stuff.

That Monday, 10th, we showed up at the dealership and worked our butts off (it didn’t help that we woke up sick that day – more on that later.)  We left there and went back to the campground around five.  Then we moved boxes and other “stuff” outside and covered with tarps; picked up the cats from kitty daycare, picked up supper, and came back and crashed.  We were hurting..

So over the next week and a half, we slowly got everything moved in.  If it didn’t fit, it went to the Salvation Army or Goodwill or folks in the campground or the dumpster.

Also over the next week and a half, we started to learn all the systems.  We are still not there yet but we will be.  At this time, I do not have a gas oven but I do have an convection/microwave.  Since I never used a convection oven before, it has been a learning experience.

Another funny thing is that things are high – like the cabinets and the bed.  We have purchased stools to get to the top shelves in the cabinets and also to get into bed.  Too funny!

So since you are waiting, here are some pictures.  Some were taken while the RV was empty, some while it was being filled.

Looking forward:

We expect to take this chair out at home and replace it with a cabinet, similar to what we did in the Bounder.

Above the cab.  We are going to have cabinets built in here and will be looking for someone to do so.  (So if you know anyone, let us know.)

Looking back towards the bedroom:

Seating and dinette:

Sink, Fridge area:

And the outside:

The smaller RV has been an adjustment but we do like it.  It does fit better in places – LOL.  We will be driving next week so we will let you know how it goes on the road.

Now I am going to touch a little on our being sick.  We woke up moving day and felt like a ton of bricks hit us.  So to say we were hurting that week is putting it mildly.  Did we have C?  Who knows?!!  Tried calling around to get tested and the earliest was that Friday and it would take 2-4 days for results.  UNLESS we had a local doctor or wanted to wait hours in line or go to the ER.  So we decided to ride it out.  Andy battled a fever and extreme tiredness.  I had the tiredness but no fever.  We both lost our sense of taste.  We thought we lost our sense of smell until one of the cats used the littler box and the smell permeated the RV – LOL – Smell was still there.   I started to feel better on Sunday, 16th – finally got a good sleep without coughing badly.  Andy’s fever broke that Monday and he started feeling better.  I will say this..whatever we had zapped our strength and it has taken a while to build back our stamina.   So how are we now (25th)?  I am much better, mostly back to normal, but still have the cough. But on another note, I also had a sinus infection with this so the cough could be from that.  Andy is lots better and almost back to normal.  So hopefully we will stay well.  (It was an adventure – NOT!).

So how are the kitties doing with all this excitement?  Dusty, my older cat, stayed with us during the move and did pretty good the first day.  Gray and Bella were not happy with kitty daycare and were even less happy when they came back to their new home.  The first couple days, Gray howled and hid usually with Dusty.  Bella is my adaptable kitty.  By the second day she was checking out everything and just loving it.  Once we had a lot of the boxes gone, the other two came out of hiding and did their exploring.

As you can see, Gray is happy.

Bella above the cab with all the stuff:

Dusty deciding whether he wants to go there or not.  He finally did.

During this time, I also discovered delivery to Amazon lockers.  Since we needed a few things and I do a lot of Amazon shopping, it was nice to know I could get it quickly nearby. 

We did get out a few times too.  We went to the local Legion for steak night with Ann and Norlynn a few days before our move.  And we got together the day before we left.  It was great spending time with them and we will miss them as we head east.  But hopefully we will see them again.

We also got out to steak night at the local VFW two nights before we left – it was great to get out again.

We have been here since 12/2/21.  We did not expect to be but we have been blessed to be near good friends, have a nice place/park to stay and we met some great folks in the campground and at the Legion and VFW.  When we were sick, we realized that there were a few folks we could call on to help and let me tell you..that is a good feeling.  Yes, we are blessed.

So tomorrow we are off, heading east.  Stay tuned and enjoy today.

 

January 7, 2022 Our New (to us) Home

I know that many of you have wondered why we were staying here in Texas for this length of time and especially since the weather turned cold.  Well, here is the reason.

It is a new 2019 Nexus Wraith 32W and we are excited.  We do all our transfers on Monday and will finish on Tuesday. 

As some of you know, we have been looking for the past three years but although there were some nice ones, they were not quite “right”.  We saw this one, took a tour, took a ride and said “Hmmmm, may be.”   I have to say that this is the first one that when I sat in the driver’s seat, my butt said “Nice..I can drive this.  It is like my truck.”   

Since it is smaller and less storage, over the last week, I have made donations to the local Food Bank (for those who know me – I am a little bit of a prepper) and donations to the Salvation Army.  We will probably be making more next week.

So this weekend we will be boxing as much as we can.  When we purchased the Bounder, we were able to stay overnight at the dealer’s to change over everything.  In this case we cannot (due to some of their local laws.).  So we have to move as much as we can from 9-5 on Monday. Yikees!  That is why we are boxing what we can.

It is going to be interesting with the kitties.  I have booked Bella and Gray into a kitty daycare for Monday. My concern with those two is that they may bolt given the opportunity because they will be scared.  They may be scared in the kitty daycare but it will be a lot more peaceful (Yes, we made a visit last week to be sure.)  Dusty will stay with us for the day – he will be okay with us more so than the daycare.  For those who have pets, isn’t it amazing how you get to know their personalities.

So stay tuned for our next adventure – moving and downsizing – LOL.  Enjoy today.

January 6, 2022 JFK and Cattle

We had a great dinner last night with Ann and Norlynn and today was another one of our touristy/history days.

We made our way to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.  This museum examines the life and times of John F. Kennedy and it follows a timeline from the announcement of the Dallas motorcade thru the shooting of JFK, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the investigations.  We went thru many films, artifacts and interpretive displays.  More information can be found here: https://www.jfk.org/

I was eight years old when he was shot.  I went to Catholic School and I remember the nun being called to the hall and she came back crying and told us that we were going home.  I rode a bus home and I remember seeing the older kids crying.  It was very confusing to an eight year old.  I do remember my parents and grandparents being very upset and trying not to let us see it and I do remember being scared.  It is amazing what you forget, isn’t it.  I wonder now how the children felt after 9/11.

What struck me here was that in 1960 over half the population was under 25.  That is a lot of people now in their 60’s and 70’s.

Interesting:

The corner room where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK:

The X in the middle of the picture was the site of the first shot:

There were a number of quotes from witnesses.  One of the things that I did not remember was that he was shot three times and the third shot was what killed JFK.

There were a number of groups in the US that did not like JFK.

The location of the found gun:

Very thought provoking even today or maybe especially today!

We saw a movie on how JFK was mourned all over the world:

This is where the first shot entered JFK:

And this was the killing shot location:

The grassy knoll where they think there was a second shooter:

The sixth floor corner room was where Lee Harvey Oswald shot his gun:

Such a sad time in our history.  I am glad this museum is here to remind us what happened.

From there we went to lunch at Cyndi’s NY Deli – Yum – then made our way to the cattle sculpture at Pioneer Park.  Scenes along the way:

Cool Museum:

Interesting:

Interesting and have no clue:

Mobile Oil Pegasus Flying Horse:

And we found the sculptures in Pioneer Park:

“The large sculpture commemorates nineteenth century cattle drives that took place along the Shawnee Trail, the earliest and easternmost route by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken to northern railheads. The trail passed through Austin, Waco, and Dallas until the Chisolm Trail siphoned off most of the traffic in 1867. The 49 bronze steers and 3 trail riders sculptures were created by artist Robert Summers of Glen Rose, Texas. Each steer is larger-than-life at six feet high; all together the sculpture is the largest bronze monument of its kind in the world. Set along an artificial ridge and past a man-made limestone cliff, native landscaping with a flowing stream and waterfall help create the dramatic effect.”

These sculptures were just incredible and we enjoyed walking around them.

Aren’t they cool?   Did you notice the winter coats?  Yes it was a cold day but we had fun.

Stay tuned for our next adventure and enjoy today!