Day Eleven: Louisiana

We took it easy getting off today and then spent a leisurely day getting lost on back roads in South Louisiana. Road signs or lack thereof do leave something to be desired. We found the highest rated restaurant in Houma, LA purely by accident.

William: I'm turning here. I want to find downtown. Me: But that says No Outlet. William: Look this is a restaurant. It looks busy, so it must be good.

And it was good. http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-18180033R-abears_restaurant-i

We both had the lunch special. Fried shrimp patty, white beans on rice and potato salad. None left for dinner and no room for their special desserts.

A Bear's Cafe est 1963

Day Ten; Louisiana

We spent this morning at the Acadian Cultural Center learning a lot of history I did not know about the Acadian people. These French peasant people were searching for freedom and found it in Nova Scotia or New France. They landed just before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth. They were pretty much abandoned, but they were resourceful people who made friends with the natives and began to prosper. When the British took over Canada the Acadians were eventually thrown out of the country in a very brutal way. First the British confiscated all the peoples guns. Then when they complained the British required all the men and boys to congregate in churches and other meeting places to discuss the issue of the guns. The Acadian men were then locked in and arrested. The women and girls were required to pack up what they could carry of their belongings and march to the sea where they were placed on boats. The plan was to distribute them among the various colonies, but the colonies did not want them. Some were imprisoned and some were sent back to France. More than half of the ten thousand deported died. Here is another culture that has had it's trail of tears.
After 10 years land was offered in Louisiana to fifteen hundred who had returned to France. This was the start of the Cajun culture in Louisiana. Many more followed and were successful here. The first houses they built were made of palmettos.
Time for lunch in St. Martinville. I ordered an alligator sausage po-boy and Wm ordered chicken/sausage gumbo. Then we switched half way through. Pretty good stuff. Someome had written on the chalkboard that listed evening entertainments that the latest ghost sighting was by Brad Tibadeaux on 2/5/11. I asked the waitress and she said she knew nothing, although there are a lot of ghosts around there. But she was from Breaux Bridge.
The church had encouraged catholic settlers here. We went in to look and then walked around back to see the statue of Evangeline. Longfellow is famous in these parts for his poem about the Acadians, "Evangeline." Also the Evangeline Oak is back of the church. Lots of things that commemorate this piteous history.

St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church

Evangeline and Me

Evangeline Oak and Me

Next on our agenda was the Longfellow Evangeline State Historic Site. We toured a large two story Acadian house then walked out to smaller Acadian houses next to the Bayou Teche. William was right at home here.
Round and round on back roads until we arrived at our destination for the night Lake Fausse Pointe State Park. Nice park and after we set up William wondered off to the water behind us leaving the door open. Then I am yelling for him as a small brown bird flew right in the RV, pooped on my seat and flew out the door. Thankfully it did fly right out.

Where William was when the bird flew in

Day Nine; Louisiana

Today was a day for sightseeing. We managed two sights and lunch.

We drove down Front Street in Natchitoches with the iron pillars holding up balconies with iron railings. Iron gas lamps were lit on the fronts of the commercial buildings. Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Park was our first stop. We watched the movie and looked at the displays inside before we walked out to the replica of the fort. The fort was quite amazing and the docents were wonderful. When we arrived one was caulking some chinks in the walls with a mixture of mud and dead Spanish moss and another was getting ready to light a fire in the bread oven. Since we were the only tourists, we were given a private tour of all the aspects of the fort.

The docent even fired off a flintlock for us and regaled us with many of the common slang expressions that come from the flintlock such as; “Don't go off half-cocked,” “lock, stock and barrel,” and “flash in the pan.” The French had good relations with the Indians as they were ordered to make friends with the natives by their king in the interest of trading with them. The original fort was built in 1716 to prevent the Spanish forces in the province of Texas from coming across the border of French Louisiane.

By the time we left the fort it was time for lunch so we headed to Mama's Oyster house. William had a fried catfish Po-boy. I wanted to have something unusual so I chose stuffed soft shell crabs. Very good, but a huge plate of food. I ate ½ and we will have the rest for dinner.

After lunch we took the historic Cane River Highway to the Oakland Plantation. We had a guided tour of the plantation house with just one other couple. The plantation was occupied by the Prud'homme family continuously from 1785 to 1990. The park was established in 1994 and furnished with furnishings from the Prud'hommes in the style of the 50/60's. The house was added on and enlarged starting soon after it was originally built when Mrs. Prud'homme brought home furniture from France that was too large for the house. The last add on was an indoor kitchen and kitchen eating area in the 50's complete with the ubiquitous chrome/formica table and chrome/plastic upholstered chairs of the type everyone had in the late 50's. Mrs. Prud'homme chose yellow. My mom chose red and passed the set on to us in the 70's. I would not leave the grounds until we had found the privy. It was worth walking to the other side of the house to find a communal 3 holer for adults and a small low hole for little ones. I could not help but think of Axel. He knows why.

Day Eight; the first of many in Louisiana

We decided to try a series of Texas Farm to Market roads to avoid freeways in the Dallas area. This might have worked better if William had gone over the route with me prior to departure. Here is William planning the route with Val in a picture shot by Ben.

Farm Roads can change direction abruptly and although you may be going in the most traveled direction your Farm Road may have cut off to the left or the right. William said why are there no big road signs and I said if people are driving here they already know where they are and the small signs telling you that you are in Wylie or Emory are sufficient.

We needed to freshen up our groceries a bit so we stopped in a Brookshire in Emory. We pulled out of the parking lot and went a bit before we realized that we were on the wrong road. We had entered the parking lot prior to an intersection and exited after the intersection and the road we wanted had taken a jog.

Farm Roads are also fun to drive with no shoulder, narrow lanes and 55MPH traffic that feels like you are flying along a tiny curvy track. We crossed Lake Lavon twice in different directions on different roads. Gray shallow water with skinny tree trunks sticking up like sparse dark hair and tiny white caps from the fierce wind on the narrow bridges. This is where Val's tap water comes from. Water is sucked up out of the reservoir into a tall water tower so the water can flow to the houses and come out of the taps smelling like a swamp.

Finally we found Route 69. We decided to just follow it to I20 and then I49 rather than do any more fooling with back roads. But you do miss a bit of the countryside. Once we were on the interstate with wide mowed meridians and verges bordered by skinny short needle pines and hardwoods, we might have been on an interstate south of Jacksonville FL except for no kudzu.

We pulled off at Ajax into the Country Living RV park. Quiet now that the small sawmill across the road has shut down for the day. William shot a few pictures and spent time looking for the resident alligator in the RV park pond. That alligator is sleeping on the job as he has missed a few little yipper dogs tied up outside RV's.

William found no sign of the alligator, though he was told it had been seen today.




Ajax, Louisiana sawmill

Day Seven in Lucas

A long day at the laundermat because the dryer is not working right. Ben ate a huge lunch at Cici's and had fun taking pictures. We also went out to dinner at Mexigo.

Ben's cleaned dinner plate

Richard and Robert at dinner

Self portrait of the artist

More self portraits of the artist

The artist doing tricks

Grandma

Ben and the car

Ben at Lunch

Day Six in Lucas

Ben's I Love You Bear hanging up.
Ben, Santa bear and I Love You bear.
Ben and Santa Bear
This is I Love You bear.
Just my Ben

We are here at Valerie's. I played with Ben so much this afternoon that he fell asleep in the middle of his bedtime story. We played in the RV with him wanting to know all about everything. Then we played upstairs with trains, cars, a Scooby puzzle and a ball. We talked and talked about how much we would play together when he moves and lives near me.

Day Five into Texas

Spending the night in Midessa Oil Patch RV Park and I have nothing I want to say about Texas.

Day four of the journey

Scrubby desert landscape with red dry mountains at the edges of the flat. Luckily no dust storms again. We were going to stay at Rockhounds State Park outside of Deming, but it was full. It is a small park that caters to a certain interest group, those who like to pick up rocks, geodes, etc., since you are allowed to gather.
So we drove on to Los Cruces and just found an RV park. Very windy. Must be near Texas.

Nice big road runner very visible from the freeway as you enter Los Cruces.
Freezing in the wind with a blah sunset.

Day three on into Arizona Wednesday 2/23/2011

So we are looking for downtown Needles for a store and I see 8 foot clearance ahead and it all comes back. A few years ago we came through Needles and we were looking for a picnic spot near the river and came right up against this railroad underpass from the other direction. We came pretty close that time and had to turn around right in front of it. We are 9 ½ feet tall. This time we knew it was serious and we detoured at the next corner. Turned out there was no grocery store until you are out of downtown. We found the Bashas and I found my Bashas card. I'm pretty good with grocery cards for the Southwest. The Southeast will be something else. If we see a Piggly Wiggly, we'll have to stop and shop just so I can get a card as a souvenir.
Heading through beautiful downtown Phoenix, reminiscing about the horrible dust storm we encountered our last time through. That was bad. Now just a lot of traffic even though it is only around 2PM. Not as bad as the other side, they are totally stopped due to a crash.
Finally we are at Picacho Peak State Park. Pretty nice park and there was a historic civil war battle fought here. The South was trying to expand to have more slave owning territories and to keep the blockade that the North had imposed from being effective. Confederate troops came out from Texas and took control of the southern part of Arizona, which was still a territory. Union troops came from Yuma and the battle was fought at Picacho Pass. It was basically an ambush and the South won this battle. Thank you Google on the Droid for the information. The park gave us no information, although they do have a reenactment March 12-13. We are only staying here one night.

Out the front door, sunset light on the peak
Sunset at Picacho Peak

Day Two on to Needles

The sky was clear and crisp as we pulled out from Lone Pine. We soon came upon Owens Lake with water in it. There must have been quite a bit of rainfall. Los Angeles Water District has been under court order for years to work on getting enough water in the lake to prevent toxic salt from blowing around. Such a sad story. The Owens river valley used to be full of orchards and farms. Then through hook and crook LA gained the water rights and shipped all the water to LA until the lake dried up. You would never believe there had once been farms and orchards here.
This was a very large solar farm. Too bad there are not many more of these. One other thing that I noticed as we drove along was no independent trucks. Remember the truck doors decorated with the drivers name. I saw none. All company trucks. Have independent truckers gone away in the recession?Here we are in Needles next to the Colorado River. We got here early enough to sit out in the sun.

Day One the Flight From the Snow

We made the break after the storm and the road was dry over Donner. Highway 20 was wet, but it is shaded by all those trees. William is washing off the RV now as it got very dirty from road mist. We made it all the way to Boulder Creek RV Resort outside of Lone Pine. A good days travel for us. Highway 395 is our favorite way to drive South, because of the view of the back side of the Sierras. Millions of years ago a crack formed in Nevada and the California side rose up. Over the millennia it has eroded to sharp peaks on the Nevada side and softer slopes down on the California side. But everybody knows this. We saw a few fumerals, quite a few hot springs on the Nevada side. Approaching the Five Mile House.Driving past the five Mile House
More Snow Still Covers the Trees
If you look closely, you can see the ice dripping from the leaky flume.
Thinking of FrankWe rolled right past the Basque Restaurant in Gardnerville. If you eat lunch there, you'll get so sleepy you'll be lucky if you make it to Topaz Lake to camp. But the driver is blowing right past Topaz.Beautiful mountains near Mammoth.Finally near Bishop the snow is only on the mountains and not on the ground.

Wolverine

In early August of 2008 we went camping at Gold Lake. As we were getting ready to leave I saw a mid sized chocolate furry animal run across the open area in front of me to the edge of the lake and then run back. At the time I thought it might have been a Pacific Fisher, but now I am sure I saw the male wolverine that has been tracked on the Tahoe National Forest since 2008. My sighting would have put the animal rather further north of the range noted in the Sac Bee article today. I am adding myself to the list of the few people who have seen Buddy.
At the time I contacted the local Forest Service and they convinced me that I must have seen a Pacific Fisher, although I had picked the wolverine out of images and thought the size of the animal I saw fit a wolverine better than a fisher. I think it was not widely known in August of 2008 that a lone male wolverine had been found on the forest.