Blogs from Louisiana, United States, North America - page 6

We were told by several friends to take a samp tour. I am so glad we did. It was great! We saw so many alligators. There was even an alligator gaurding It’s nest. The guides had trained the alligators to eat marshmallows. They said it was hard to get them to eat the first one, but once they have one they are hooked. The day was pretty hot, but the rain held off for the most part. Our guide was very knowledgeable. He was an older gentleman who grew up there. He talked about why they don’t give tours through the marshes anymore and how it contributed to erosion. We didn’t get any bug bites or alligator bites so it was a good trip! ... read more

Google Maps says the drive from Live Oak Ridge Park in Belton TX to French Quarter RV Resort in New Orleans LA is 522 miles and would take 8 hours 9 minutes, but that doesn’t compensate for food and fuel stops nor for my “less-than-the-limit-while-pulling” speed; sooo, I planned a one-night stop at Twelve Oaks RV Park in Lake Charles LA. That gave me a final leg of just over three “Google Maps” hours and 200 miles which would place my arrival time in the heart of New Orleans between the morning and evening rush hours. Informational Irene (my GPS) again performed flawlessly, and both trips were uneventful save some major road construction that caused a couple of major delays between Belton and Lake Charles. I was glad I hadn’t tried to make the entire trip ... read more

We left John's with heavy hearts on Sunday, it was a late start, and after a long drive we parked for the night at the Alabama Welcome Center on I 10. Very nice stop, with well-lit and quiet parking well off the highway. The next morning we bailed from the Interstate to take a secondary road route I had planned out. Alabama went fine, Mississippi was also a breeze, and the first half on Louisiana worked well too, and we crossed the new Audubon bridge over the Mississippi as I wanted to do. After that though, we ran afoul the map demons. I was working from the large scale map in our Rand McNally, not the (my excuse!) smaller scale individual state gazetteers I usually work from. It looked to me like we could take LA ... read more

So Monday started in a fairly relaxed fashion. There were only two parades tody, Opheus and Proteus, and they didn’t start until 5.15 (according to the schedule) So we had a day to explore the city. We decided to get a streetcar, AKA a tram, and just see where the road went. Five minutes on the tram and I suggested we find Lafayette cemetery. I really need a destination. We got off at St Charles avenue thinking we could catch the tram down to Lafayette. Now St Charles Avenue is one of the streets the parades come down. Soo the trams weren’t running, 6 hours before the parade and they had already been cancelled. It wasn’t just us that got caught. There was a local man who was quite upset that he couldn’t catch the streetcar ... read more

So this is just the precurser to get me warmed up into writing again. Hopefully I will finish the works on the whole trip this time. So the basics. Flights were long. 23 hour to land in New Orleans. The first leg into LA was the longest, 14 hours into LAX, with turbulance the whole way. Made sleeping a near on impossible task. I'd just nod off and the plane would shake around again and again....and again. By the end I was almost ready to cry, for God's sake can't you stop the plane from moving around! Because pilots can control that kind of thing right? I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep toward the end. Poor Mis Jo only managed half an hour. She made up for it on the three hour ... read more