Jan 27 - 30 San Antonio, Texas ~ The Alamo & Riverwalk

Weather just at the 70 mark, night time about 45.  Sunny two days, cloudy today.

This is a very old Hispanic area of Texas famous for its 1836 Battle of the Alamo which was a military disaster but the start of Texas's independence from Mexico.  The Alamo is a Catholic mission, era 1720, one of five along the San Antonio River which is all right down town.  There were 189 rebels that held off 5000 Mexican troops for 13 days - and if you saw the movie with John Wayne you know the whole story.   BUT the exciting part that we didn't know till we visited The Alamo today is that Billy had a long, long lost cousin there!!!!  Oh yes Daniel Bourne was listed as one of the heroic men that defended the siege.   Oh my God.   After that I have been singing Daniel Bourne was a man, he was a big man!  Are you sing with me yet? ha ha.  Seriously I am not kidding. 

The Riverwalk is also just a famous here and dates back to the mission times.  The canal was diverted to service the missions and then about 1920 the walkway, landscaping, cobbled paths and bridges were brought into fruition that winds around for 21 blocks, 2 and 1/2 miles.  It is simply amazing and well done.  Clean and safe for you to walk all day and night, 3 stories in some areas with many hotels, shops,  eateries and entertainment.  River taxi's will take you anywhere along the way.  For $1.10 each we could take a city bus right from our campground for a 20 minute ride and it would drop us right at the Riverwalk.  As you can see it was Happy Hour and we had to have a Margarita and Guacamole Dip!!!  

There is no comparison between San Antonio River Walk and New Orleans French Quarter.  San Antonio is a slam dunk!

Check out this cool bar called the Buckhorn Saloon, it is filled with Horns of all kinds.  Years ago the ranchers used to bring in their cow horns to trade for a drink - take a close look at the ceiling above this guy.  When they talk about Texas Longhorn Cattle they are not kidding. 
And it definitely is a romantic destination - I got a shot of a flower bed shaped in a heart too!

Jan 26 San Antonio, Texas ~ The Lawn Man

Weather clear now, high 70's, sunny
We are staying in San Antonio now for a week to see the area and do so some riding.  The creek along the Alamo KOA campground rose up yesterday from the severe storms and left some sticks and lawn debris near our sight..... so "Out Cometh the Lawn Man"!!!!  

I guess you can take the lawns from the man but you can't take the "Man" from the lawns.

Jan 24,25 Beaumont, Texas ~ Tornado Watch

Weather 75 but Severe Thunderstorms and Tornado Watch

Well you don't have to tell us twice.... so we decided to stay an extra night in Beaumont since we are just headed West on I10.  Driving in wind and thunderstorms and a Tornado Watch doesn't sound like something we wanted to do.   It did get a bit windy and poured for about an hour on Jan 25 - we shut all our slides and just looked at each and hoped it would go away!   ha ha and it did !   This is a nice RV park for passing through Gulf Coast RV Park, all pull thrus and they give you breakfast too.  Billy saw this unusual and very cool old International Harvester Truck pulling a 5th wheel - pretty neat.

Jan 23 - The Big Easy

Weather - 79 degrees and humid

The campground we are staying at is New Orleans East Kampground, it used to be a KOA but was just taken over by a new couple from Port Huron, Michigan.   You just never get to far from home sometimes.  It is a little rough around the edges but it was safe and the site was level and easy to get in and out so we are not complaining.  We just couldn't seem to find a RV park that we liked but there's always next time.  Today we rented a car to head down to the French Quarter. 

The old buildings are beautiful and a must see.  We walked down Decatur Street and wound our way up to Bourbon Street.  You absolutely must eat the hot Beignets at Cafe DuMonde, you will think you died and went to heaven.

Later we did stop and eat the local cuisine - a Po Boy sandwich and Muffeletta but both of us agreed we should have just went back to Cafe Du Monde and ordered a platter of those Beignets.  ha ha ha ha and which one is the real Jimmy Buffett?

Its kind of ironic that my Parrothead also happens to have his concert shirt on ..... I swear we always find Margaritaville.  Billy bought a sticker that is going to be the new motto for our motorhome WWJBD.  Anybody???   LOL






what would jimmy buffett do?

Jan 21 - 23 Just outside New Orleans, Louisiana - Slidell

Weather - Warm high 70's, Humid, Humid, Humid
On I10 driving into Mobile, Alabama you have to go over a big bridge and then down under a tunnel.  Billy was wondering where are we going???  It was a good size - width and height..... phew.

Everything I read said DO NOT take a motorhome into the core of New Orleans.  Old roads, bumpy, tight areas and heaven help you if you make a wrong turn and end up in Vieux Carre which is the Old Section translated and better known as The French Quarter.   So we were wise and stayed 30 miles out in East New Orleans in a suburb called Slidell.   So glad we did.  N O has not really recovered from Katrina and that was August 2005; so sad.  Miles and miles of housing, businesses, stores still show much in disrepair.  Crime is rampant downtown, and the locals warn you to BE CAREFUL; which also translates into Rosey and Billy do not take the motorcycle downtown as well.   First day we road around the area here which is miles of swamp and bayou and in the town we found a crazy "Drive in, Diner, Dive" place from the Food Network show.   Ha, ha oh yes it was a Dive for sure..... but we loved it.   The place was called La Pines Cafe and it was packed.  I had the Poor Man's Egg's Benedict which was homemade biscuit, topped with spicy sausage and poached egg then smothered with sausage gravy!!!!    

Jan 13 - 20 Gulf Shores State Park, Alabama

Weather ranged from 63 to 75, at night we had 33 - 56, sunny almost everyday.  I guess the 75 is 15 degrees above normal for this time of year.  The snowbirds were loving it, met quite a few Canadians!

This is our first attempt at a State Park, and we picked a good one.  It is one of the best in the nation apparently.  We stayed a week and then a couple of days after that,,,,,,, waiting for our topper/awning for our slide to come in at the local Camping World.  Oh yes we took a bit of a beating in a wind storm one night.  The old home was rockin and rollin!!!!  About 3:30 am we both were up wondering if we were hanging on.   Billy said it was probably too late but we should have put the slides in.  Well two out of three did but the passenger won was tore up.   We are thinking ok, this is a bit like owning a boat, there is always something to fix but what do you expect when you are taking your house everywhere you go??? ha ha.  So we decided to stay at the State Park while we waited the week and the sites were huge, and you can stay as long as you want which is unusual for a State Park.  Only sad part was that after Hurricane Ivan the Park experienced a fire about 4 months ago that took out over 1000 acres of trees.  Still we quite liked it, it was very peaceful and close to everything.

Calea and Kevin you are going to laugh at my favorite camping shoes - new Tom Tom's I got for Christmas -actually my present to me:)  they are the best - so comfy and easy to slip on and cool looking burlap fabric on the outside!!!!  Styling and profiling in the campground, lol.

Jan 12 - The sites around Mobile & Gulf Shores, Alabama

Weather  Sunny but cool about 60 - 65, couldn't resist to go riding.
We had a misconception about this area and Mobile we did not expect it to be as nice as it is and the downtown area we went through had beautiful old antebellum homes. 

The two big attractions are the USS Alabama Battleship which is docked in the bay for visiting and the Bellingrath Gardens and Home.  Both are pretty cool.  The battleship is from World War II and talking to some current military men it is small compared to the ones out there now.... the US doesn't fool around when it comes to fighting.  The gardens are at their off season but being a lover of flowers I talked Billy into going. 

The Camellia's were blooming and as tall as trees, lovely old property - the owner was a prosperous fellow from bottling Coca Cola.  And then there is the shrimp and oysters!  We found a local fishery that looked like it was falling down, but had everything you could imagine for sale and caught that morning.

We bought a pound of shrimp and boiled them in beer, bayleaf, parsley, garlic and thyme!!!!   Oh and yes I ate the raw oysters for lunch!

Mmmmmm good eatin. A.J. you would love this fresh seafood, I have to eat it all by myself, you know how much Billy loves seafood!
We had some damage to a topper awning over our slide during a wind storm one night so we headed down to the Gulf Shores State Park to stay for a week or until Camping World could get our replacement in.   Up till now we have not experienced any State or National Parks so we are anxious to see what it is like.  Sites are huge and it was redone after Hurricane Ivan so they now have all the hookups at each site, new rec center, and even WiFi....  wow not really roughing it.  We are now hooked up to Dish Network Satellite so the lack of tv cable is not a problem.  Dish has a pay as you go monthly plan for RV's and it suits our needs perfectly. 
Check out this cool retro VW camper...... neat.

Jan 9 - 11 Foley, Alabama ~A Ritzy Motorhome Resort

Weather - 9th was warm, 10th rained all day - gale force winds at night, 11th cool high 64 but sunny

This area is close to the Gulf Shores and has a large number of campgrounds catering to Snowbirds.  We decided to check out one of the fancy ones, ha ha.  A luxury RV resort named Bella Terra.  Hey Don you asked if we had seen any Rednecks in Alabama and we had to laugh since "we" may have been the rednecks at this park with our motorcycle.  The park sells their RV sites for $85000 to $125000 + a monthly maintenance fee..... imagine that!  The clubhouse had large gym, sauna, bar, lounge, theatre area with 10 ft projection screen for about 20 people, an outdoor hot tub and infinity pool.
The RV sites were overlooking a lake with a fountain and some of the ownership ones had full outdoor kitchens which were amazing.  Barbie this outdoor kitchen is for you girl.

Jan 5 - 8 Tallahassee, Florida ~ We're Back to our Home on Wheels

Weather is warm & sunny 78's, low 50's at night, very humid 94%.

Storing the motor home and trailer while we flew home for the holidays worked out great.  Tom at Pine's Storage kept it safe and quite clean and it started no problem, Billy was worried about it the whole time.....  We have some minor work being completed on the coach, mechanical at Tallahassee Truck and aesthetic at Camping World so we found a comfortable old place to stay the weekend called Big Oak RV Park; and they were not kidding about the "Big" part. 

These trees are called 'Live Oak' and they are enormous and the moss loves them.  

Billy spotted our neighbours ride and thought it was a great toad - '55 Chevy and real pretty colours.  (For non rv'ers a toad is your towed vehicle).   Pop and Tory I bet you both would love this car too!

Today we went exploring on the Harley along the 'Canopy Roads' around Tallahassee.  They are moss draped live oaks, sweet gums, hickory trees and pines that cover the tops of the roads.  Two words describe the feeling you get riding along ~ Southern Charm :)   I think it is so cool that the city has kept them special, there are about 9 roads that run out of the main part of the city.  The Tallahassee city brochure had a beautiful picture of one and yet they don't really promote it, so we did some research and I plotted them out on a map and away we went.  It was the best.

And to top it all off we found this modest old Country Store called Bradley's that started in 1927.  They have the best homemade sausages which we had to try.