Wednesday, November 26 – Galveston Island

Today was a “nothing planned” day.  Diane did some stuff around the Ti and then we headed out to the local grocery store for food and fuel.  Yup, lots of grocery stores also sell fuel in the U.S.  We went to Kroger’s and paid the lowest price yet for Diesel, $3.24 per gallon, oh ya!!

We also picked up some human fuel inside the store.  This store is fairly new and very nice inside.  It was just before 11:00 AM and the store was starting to fill up (American Thanksgiving tomorrow), although the checkouts were not too busy by the time we were finished.

Galveston Island Along the Beach

Back to the Ti and lunch then out for a walk on the beach.  It does seem to be breezy here much of the time.  That is nice as it keeps the bugs down and milder temperatures in the hot weather, but it is miserable when it comes to hearing aids, constant wind noise over a microphone with a small speaker stuck in your ear, ugh!!  Oh well still better than snow J.

Another thing we have noticed is the amount of shipping traffic you see in the bay.  During the day you can see many ships moving in and out.  During the evening and night it is like another city out there because of all the lights from these ships – really neat!!

 

Later in the afternoon we took a walk with cameras and tripods in hand to take pictures of the sun going down behind the carnival on a pier a couple of miles from here.

The sunset pictures did not work out as it set behind the city as opposed to the carnival.  But as it got darker the carnival lights came on and gave us some interesting shots. I also tried some shots of the ¼ moon.

It was time to walk back in the dark (yes, we brought a flashlight which helped).  It was about a mile walk and was very peaceful, except for the wind, which was now at our backs.  Time to review the pictures and find that I have some dirt somewhere in the camera that must be cleaned out - $&@^%!! Note to self: always, always check the camera with a test picture before going out!

Tuesday, November 25 – New Orleans to Galveston - Dinner with Friends

We got away early (on the road just before 7:30 AM), traffic was light through New Orleans and away we went.  Nice day for a drive, we arrived in Galveston about 3:00 PM, no issues – that’s always nice.  We are at the Sandpiper Motel and RV Resort that is about 250 yards from the beach.  Each site has a great view.  Very nice park, will definitely be back here.

We were meeting some friends (Ed and Jinny) who we had not seen since 2011 in Sault Ste. Marie; we first met them on our Newfoundland trip in 2009.  They drove down from north Houston which is almost a two hour drive (they are there helping their son build his house) and arrived at the Ti just after 4:00 and we sat and talked for a little while before heading out to Millers Seafood & Grill, a local seafood restaurant.  What a wonderful meal, the food was just great and the conversation even better.  It was so nice to meet up with Ed and Jinny and shoot the breeze.

Following dinner it was back to the Ti to watch Dancing with the Stars.  Wow, three hours long, I hardly made it to the end, way past my bedtime! J

Monday, November 24th - New Orleans

We took the RV park's shuttle bus downtown and purchased tickets for the Hop On/Hop Off double decker bus.  We have had very good experiences in other cities with this method; unfortunately, this did not extend to New Orleans.  The speakers were crappy, that along with a horrible narrator’s voice really did not make the ride very good for us.

However, we persevered and rode around to at least get a look-see at the layout of the downtown area and points of interest.  This city is of course very old and there is a lot of history in the area. 

An Old Infant Asylum?? How would you know?

Included, as part of the bus ticket was a 45-minute walking tour through areas of the French Quarter.  From both our walk about and the bus ride we learned some interesting facts about New Orleans:

• New Orleans is located approximately 90 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
•   We did not know that during the civil war Louisiana was not part of the Confederacy!
• New Orleans is known for more than just Jazz and Food.  They also have some great theatre arts and opera!  Yes, there is a large opera contingent in New Orleans.  There was one gentleman singing on the corner and he was very good.  Great range and volume considering all of the other noise going on in the street.
•  Much of the downtown area (e.g. The French Quarter) was not damaged by the hurricane Katrina flooding.  Those areas were actually too close to the Mississippi River bank that is actually about 15 feet higher than many of areas that did flood.  However, some of the buildings did receive some wind and rain damage. 
•  During our walk we were asked not to lean on any of the buildings (hmmm funny request!?!); this is because just a week prior to our visit one of the 3 storey buildings totally collapsed into the streets.  We saw the spot where the building used to exist and it is obvious the buildings are getting old and the city wants to do some inspections to prevent any other collapses – so, no leaning!
• We passed Harrah’s Casino on our bus tour and found that it is actually illegal to have a “Gambling” establishment in Louisiana, but there are still Casinos.  Those Casinos are for “Gaming” not “Gambling”, because “Gaming” is not illegal in Louisiana.
• We also learned that New Orleans is not the home of Cajun cooking.  It is Creole cooking here, Cajun cooking is more to the west in Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas of Louisiana.
• They leave the beads from all the Mardi Gras in the trees.

You can just see where the building collapsed -
the empty space to the left of the 3 story building

Trees with hanging beads!

We had lunch at The Gumbo Shop, Diane was not fussy on her Shrimp Gumbo, I had the Red Bean & Rice and Shrimp Creole that was excellent!

We walked through the French Market and purchased some spices called “Slap Ya Mama”!!  Interesting name J, excellent spices!

A huge building where all of the Mardi Gras
floats are created and repaired.

Evidently it is very easy to know when the New Orleans Saints (football) are playing a game in town, almost everyone is wearing “Saints” team shirts or some other item.  I say almost everyone because the ones that are not wearing Saints stuff are either tourists like us or the visiting team (it was the Baltimore Ravens today).  Wow lots of team spirit there!! Unfortunately the Saints did not win, oh well, lots of sad faces on Tuesday morning L.

We waited for our bus and returned to the campground.  We will return for a longer visit but will try to get a site at the RV campground in the French Quarter.

Sat. Nov 22 - Miramar Beach & Sun. Nov. 23 - Drive to New Orleans

Saturday, November 22 – Miramar Beach, FL (Geronimo RV Park)

Today was &#$^@# (just plain crappy).  Oh well, when someone serves you lemons, your supposed to make lemonade, right?  What happens when someone serves you a day of rain?  There was no sun to make rainbows unfortunately.

We spent the day in the Ti hoping it would clear up.  Each time it got brighter and the rain let up, we got our hopes dashed to see another bit of heavy rain to come in.

Well time to move on to New Orleans tomorrow.

Sunday, November 23 – Miramar Beach, FL to New Orleans, LA (Pontchartrain RV Park)

We slowed our departure this morning because of heavy rains forecast along the I-10 corridor for the trip to New Orleans.

Our drive was pretty much uneventful until just after we got on I-10 near Pensacola, FL.  The water started coming down which lasted about ten miles (felt like 50!).  Very heavy rainstorms, windy, lightning and thunder which slowed our speed to 30 MPH at times.  Visibility was down to about ¼ mile in rain.  I was following a couple of transport trucks and they sort of showed the way.

The wind was very gusty throughout our whole trip with a head on crosswind (if that makes sense).  Gas mileage was affected a bit but we arrived in New Orleans to very sunny skies and about 76 F (nice).

Off to do the tourist thing tomorrow in New Orleans.

Thur Nov. 20 - Visit with Friends, - Fri. Nov. 21 - Miramar Beach

Thursday, November 20 – A Visit with Friends

Today saw a warmer brighter sky, so off we (Vance, Joan, Diane and I) went to Bradenton (about 2 hours south) to visit friends Riette and Michel.  Traffic was not too bad on the way south.  We arrived about 11:30 (a little later than we expected). 

Well, you know it is just about time for lunch so we went to a small restaurant right on one of the inland waterways.  They get their seafood fresh from the boats that moor right beside their restaurant.  The food was very good. 

After lunch we drove west to Anna Maria Island and went for a walk on the beach.  There was a breeze, but not too cold for barefoot walking in the white sand beach.

We spent about 5 hours with Michel and Riette and then headed back to New Port Richey.  Driving from Bradenton to New Port Richey via the outskirts of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater at 6:00 at night is not a great idea (another note to file).  We arrived home OK, and started to prepare to leave tomorrow for Miramar Beach (near Destin, FL).

Friday, November 21 – Off to Miramar Beach, FL

The drive today was one of our longer ones, a little over 7 hours.  Very uneventful except for a fuel purchase in Perry, FL. 

We pulled into a Chevron and topped of the tank.  I almost forgot the receipt in the machine but did grab it before we left.  That turned out to be a very good thing.  We have a “switch” turned on for our VISA card that sends us an email when the card is used.  We were down the road having lunch when I received an email saying that a $146.00 charge was being pre-processed against our VISA by Chevron.  Our fuel charge was just a bit over $66.00, hmmm.  We called VISA and once the charge is actually processed against the account we can dispute the charge and it will be corrected.  Keep those receipts!!

We arrived at the Geronimo RV Resort in Miramar Beach about 3:30 PM.  We were a full hour earlier than what we had planned, oops – we are now in the Central Time Zone. 

Well that means the sun is going down earlier!  The sunset was gorgeous, so it was a quick walk to the beach to get some pictures.  We did not take out tripod so many of them we very “jiggly” (gotta love the tech talk), but a few did turn out.  Hopefully tomorrows will be better.  I took a picture with the flash on and the beach sand looks like snow it is so white.