From Louisiana to Texas

We woke up to pea soup fog this morning so Gordon went out to Lake Martin to take photos. I stumbled my way on the loop around the lake. We didn't really start getting ready to leave till the fog cleared shortly after 9 a.m. so didn't get on the road till 10:50 a.m. By then it was 74F (23C). Today's trip was very boring on I-10, no really pretty things to take photos of.

There are however these pretty grasses that you see all over the south. Here they are separating the east and west lanes of I-10.

Here are some signs that I recognized the names of as we arrived in Beaumont. People from the rv-dreams chatroom live in these places.


It's hard to believe we've been on the road over a month now. We left our home base in Carleton Place, ON on October 14th!

We arrived in Texas around 1:00 p.m. We made it!

Here I am in front of the Lone Star at the Welcome Center.

There was lots of construction on I-10 as we got in to Texas. According to the couple who own the RV park here, Beaumont is booming and all the RV parks and hotels are full with construction workers. We were lucky that we got here early and got their only pull thru site. We are at Hidden Lake RV Resort which is a new RV park that just opened in April. It is Passport America. For $17.50 we got a full hook up, pull thru site with free wifi and cable TV. The park itself isn't what you'd call beautiful but it's functional. Their washrooms/showers are individual bathrooms which we like and they are very clean. Their laundry has only two washers and two dryers. The couple who own the park are very nice and accommodating. I'm not sure what the temperature here is but it's very nice and warm. We have our Fantastik Fan running and it's beautiful inside the RV.

Here's our site


And an RV park photo


I'm off to have a nice hot shower at the campground bathroom!

This is just an overnight stop so we only setup the bare minimum. We're off to Port Lavaca in the morning!

For Gordon's blog for today, click here.

Getting Things Done

Although it was cold this morning it turned into a beautiful sunny day. I went out around 8 a.m. for my daily exercise, then came in for breakfast and my morning computer stuff.

I had a shower, changed the bed and got the laundry ready. Since we're probably staying at Goose Island State Park when we get to Rockport for a while I don't want to have to go in to Rockport and use the laundromat that I did two years ago. I'm sure there's another one, that was just the closest one.

Around noon I headed over to the laundry and no one was there so got that done in short order. I like to go around noon. Most people are home having lunch then. Seems to work pretty well. While the laundry was doing it's thing I took advantage of this swing (above) overlooking the lake that I've had my eye on since we've been here but it's pretty far from our RV just to come over to swing.

Mid afternoon Gordon went out again to Lake Martin. He also wanted to drive around some. I decided to stay at home and get some things done. So I vacuumed and washed the dishes. Women's work is never done!

Looks like I'll soon have 50,000 blog hits. Thanks everyone!

Trip to Atchafalaya

Didn't feel the best this morning, my shoulder still hurt although it's gradually improved during the day. I just feel kind of blah! I did get out for my exercise.

I lay down and read and had a nap this morning and felt more human when I got up so we went for a drive to the Atchafalaya Welcome Center to see if there were any roads we could drive on to see the swamp area. The Atchafalaya Basin is the largest swamp in the United States. Unfortunately there are no roads that take you through the swamp. You have to do a swamp tour. We weren't up for that today so we drove around a bit. We didn't see anything really interesting but it was a nice drive around the area. Maybe next time we'll take a swamp tour. I'd really like to get in to see a real Louisiana bayou although I could do without the alligators, spiders and snakes!

There was a heron on the log with the turtles when we left today

The Atchafalaya Welcome Center


One of the swamp tour places.

To get to McGee's Landing, you have to go up over the levy, here's the road up.


And here's the levy. We didn't drive on it, just over it.


We got home mid-afternoon and I read again and lay down for another long nap.

Back to Walmart

It was still cold this morning but warmed up to an absolutely gorgeous sunny day with a high of 71F (22C). Besides doing the loop around the lake this morning I also walked between two of the fishing lakes and around the end hoping I could walk around that lake but there's a ditch there that you can't cross. There was a great egret and a blue heron in the ditch so I scared them and they flew off.

My walking path this morning

The good news is that my ear doesn't hurt anymore but now it's moved to my right shoulder. Getting old sucks!

This morning I spent pretty much on the internet. After lunch we went in to Breaux Bridge to the local SuperWalmart and got some groceries and things and we also both got much needed haircuts.

Here are some turtles on a log that we saw on our way out of the park this afteroon.


It was so beautiful when we got back that I spent an hour sitting outside in my lawnchair with my book. Now this is the way it's supposed to be!

I think this is a Grebe of some kind.

Reflections



Don't know where this smoke was coming from.

A Little Drive

Cccccold this morning, well it's been colder but I wasn't expecting 36F (2C) at this time of year in the deep south. Must be because we've arrived! Gordon went out to Lake Martin again for sunrise. There was even some mist on the lake behind us but I didn't bother with my camera when I went out.

This morning passed uneventfully and after lunch we took a drive through Breaux Bridge to Lake Martin. We walked a ways around it on a couple of trails. Here are some photos.

Downtown Breaux Bridge - yep, that's about all there is!

Lake Martin



Pathway along Lake Martin - the pathway is covered in straw - wonder if there are any snakes under the straw???

A house in the deep south

Swamp

Turtle on a log

Wide trunk bottoms on some of these cypress

Another path we took

Palmettos
See the egret peeking out - just then we heard several rifle shots and the egret kept going into the swamp

Another swamp photo

Piggly Wiggly for Jenny


After that we drove to Lafayette to have a look at their downtown but it wasn't much so we filled up with fuel at 2.79.9 and headed home for a nap.

For those of you concerned about the pain I have in my neck/jaw area, it's definitely under my right ear. I've had this several times but it's usually more painful. It goes away after a while.

Hangin' Around at Poche's

Our cold front came in overnight. It was 12 degrees colder this morning when I went out but still a respectable 50F (10C). The wind however was coming straight from the good ole north right from Canada. I managed to get out of the RV, go for my exercise and get back in without a problem. Gordon again went out to Lake Martin and Henderson Lake this morning. Maybe I'll get there soon.

I've had a pain in the right side of my jaw and down my neck the last couple of days. Didn't know if it was from a tooth, I tapped each one with a metal object and got no cries of pain so I don't think that's it, from my ear or glandular. I thought maybe I've been gritting my teeth at night as I've been known to do that and it was TMJ related so I took 1/2 tranquilizer today and although I pretty much slept the day away, the pain seems to be mostly gone.

So that's what I did today, read a bit and slept on the couch.

Late this afternoon before sunset Gordon and I took a walk around the lake as I had not taken any photos today. There aren't a lot of birds around due to the wind. Here's what I've got:

You can just see our RV and truck on the left (where the burgundy truck is).

This is two lake areas at the end of our road. There were quite a few people here today fishing.

This is the road on the other side of the lake that's behind us.

This is the rec hall.

This is looking across the lake that's behind our RV. You can see the egret walking in the middle.


To see some of Gordon's pbase photos that he's processed, click here. The first few are ones that he's taken in the Breaux Bridge/Lake Martin/Henderson Lake area. The rest are of our trek west.

A Semi-Relaxing Day

The day didn't start out well. I got up at about 7 a.m. Gordon had already gone out to take photos at Lake Martin. So I got ready to go our for my exercise, locked the door and away I went. When I got back, I couldn't get the door unlocked! It's been giving me problems the last few times I've tried. I tried several times but no luck. So I called Gordon and he was already on his way back. I got out my lawn chair and sat under the nose of the fifth wheel as it looked like rain to wait for him to arrive. Of course when he got here, he unlocked it the first time he tried! It's either my key or old age! We had no sooner gotten inside than it started to rain but it didn't last long.

Here are some photos I took on my walk this morning. It's a nice walk around the loop around the lake.

Cottages at end of lake


Great egret in flight

Great blue heron on the point

Our 5er across the lake


We hung around the RV and read and napped this morning. I sat outside in my lawnchair for a while with my book and gazed at the water.

One of the views from my lawn chair


Our Verizon contract is up and we're on the new every 2 plan (to get new phones every 2 years on contract renewal). I had gotten a letter in the mail saying that we could get a $70 credit if we renewed by phone. We decided to go into a Verizon store in Lafayette. (Lots of traffic in Lafayette even at 1:30 p.m.) We're grandfathered on the North America Plan (they don't sell it anymore) so he explained the new plan to us that covers Canada. It's more expensive so we stayed with our old plan. We picked out our phones and a few accessories - $129 please. You'll get $50 back in the mail. Hmmm thought our phones were free. Must have been all those accessories! Anyway, we now have new phones. Here's mine getting all charged up. Oh and you don't get the $70 credit unless you renew by phone. We got a $50 credit.



We stopped at the local SuperWalMart on our way home and picked up a few groceries. Then I sat outside again. At 81F (27C) it was a day to enjoy!

We're really enjoying being here. It's somewhere totally different for us and the weather has been great. However, a cold front is moving in tomorrow. I don't expect to see these temperatures again while we're here.

Sunset (taken from my living room window)

The day seems to be ending well though!

Now at Breaux Bridge, LA

I was up at 6:30 a.m. and it was foggy! Gordon had gone out to Cypress Swamp to take some photos. I had my walk/run and was packing things up inside when he came back. We had breakfast and as the fog wasn’t too bad went outside to start packing up there.

Then I got a big surprise! A lady came walking toward me and introduced herself as Donna. It didn’t twig with me at first as I wasn’t expecting her but it was Donna from chat. She and Nolan had come in yesterday and she was just dropping by before they left to meet me. We chatted for a few minutes then she left. I had completely forgotten to take a photo so I went down to their site as they hadn’t left yet and got a photo. Thanks Donna for dropping by!


We left around 10:30 a.m. and arrived at Poche’s Fish N Camp at Breaux Bridge, LA around 3 p.m. We had some trouble getting into the sites as the road isn’t very wide and there’s a row of trees right there so it’s hard to get the truck in the right position to back the RV in. We moved to the other side of the pond however the sites here aren’t concrete but we’re in. We have pond in front of us and pond behind us. It’s a really nice spot. We also had several blue heron and egrets to welcome us.

Our arrival in Louisiana



Cute door handle on the Welcome Center for Louisiana - it's eating Gordon's hand

Crossing the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge


Henderson Swamp as taken from I-10




Our first sighting of palm trees when we arrived at the RV park



Our site

View from our rear window

In the front across the road - this blue heron was strutting his stuff!

Looking away from our rig


Gordon had lots of problems setting up the internet satellite even though we appeared to have a clear view of the south. He finally did get it working.

We didn’t have any rain and although it was mostly cloudy for our drive, we did have a few sunny breaks. When we left Canton, MS it was 59F (15C) and on arrival at our new site it was 70F (21C).

Today was a long day. We're looking forward to staying a week here.