Let the good times roll!

Laissez les bon temps roulez! The motto of New Orleans, and I think we should adopt it. As long as those good times stop at 9 pm or so, and start up again early.

We stopped hitting the headwind when we crossed into the Mississippi hill country. When we got to Louisiana, there was more rivers and swamps and less hills. We stayed at a park south of Baton Rouge, where I got the chance to try my first "po-boy" sandwich (a sub with seafood - very good!).

Since everything is closed on Thanksgiving, we spent that day paddling the bayou the park was situated on. We learned something very interesting at the nature centre of the park: that "stump" that hubby is holding on to isn't some rotted out stump like we always thought when we saw pictures of a cypress swamp. It is actually part of a bald cypress tree's root system: a tree's knees, we were told. Of course, these "knees" were everywhere. Especially on the trails. I finally found someplace with no rocks to trip over, and they put knees in my way.


The next place we stopped was just outside of New Orleans.

On our first walk around the area, we found a fish market with fresh crabs, shrimp and other delights. Needless to say, we brought some back for lunch. And this bounty only cost us $7.50!



Food is just too good to describe here. We spent a day in New Orleans in the French Quarter, and waddled home stuffed! We tried "gator bites" - both fried and blackened pieces of aligator, plus gumbo, crawfish, hushpuppies, and finished it off with fresh french beignets at the coffee and donut place.

The French Quarter was alive with people. Mostly tourists, but there were also buskers, musicians, dancers - both on the sidewalks and sometimes right on the streets. This performance artist stayed in this position for at least the 15 minutes it took us to walk past him and take pictures. And everytime I looked back, he was still there! The boutiques had Mardi Gras masks, art, and lots of cajun spices to buy.

Other kind of wildlife lived within our campgrounds. We were surprised to see this little fella rooting around just behind our trailer. Armadillos move quickly, and dig in the dirt with their nose and feet. It didn't seem afraid of us, but just kept going. We also saw several great egrets, pure white and the size of a blue heron, and smaller snowy egrets.

No aligators, yet. That's probably for our next hike.

W

On the way to Graceland

We left our cozy spot at my sister's farm and drove straight into a stiff headwind that did horrible things to our gas mileage. And rattled our extended mirrors, too! But we made it to CanAm RV Center without losing any pieces, and settled in for 2 days of trailer repair, and three nights of free overnight hookups. Bonus!

We crossed over the border to the states on Wednesday at noon. A much easier crossing than we had anticipated - we had cleaned out any fruits, and most food, from our trailer. But he only asked 3 questions: where we were going, when we were coming back, and was our trailer 16' long? He gave a whistle when we told him it was 34 feet, and waved us on.

We still seemed to be fighting a nasty headwind. In fact, that became a theme to our travels over the next few days. We went through sunny spots, and one very cold spot, but always a stiff wind coming from the southwest whenever we were on the road.

We made an overnight stop at the Airstream production plant in Jackson Center, Ohio.

It was interesting taking the tour of the plant and actually watching them put together a new Airstream trailer. And hubby found a new accessory for our own trailer. Good thing for me it was too heavy to bring along!





We travelled down the state of Indiana and into Illinois, crossed the Mississippi River and into Arkansas. The land was flat, and mostly farming country. Certainly there was nothing to slow down that headwind. We saw fields of cotton ready to be picked just before we crossed the Mississippi River the second time. The river was wide and muddy coloured, and there were tugboats, and riverboats, and barges on it. But this second crossing brought us to our first destination: Memphis! We came in just after dark, and so we missed the entrance to the Graceland RV Park we were aiming for and ended up talking to the security at Graceland Mansion parking instead. He was very kind and accommodating, and escorted us to the "40 acres" we needed to turn our rig around.

It didn't take us long to get set up and hooked up for the night. One of the brochures given out at check-in was for a BBQ restaurant called Marlowe's that had a free shuttle in a pink limo. So just for fun we called them and got our ride.

Everyone here talks like Elvis, "Y'all have a great night, now!"





And yes, we toured Graceland. It was a very interesting place. Even though it is kinda the "off season", it was still busy with tourists. It was well run, and you could move along at your own pace and not have to keep up with a group. There was a lot of history blended in with the amazing collection of memorabilia.

This was a stunning display of awards and of gold and platinum records in the trophy room. The collection was on all the walls and all the way to the ceiling, as well as on the walls of the hall leading into the room.

The most surprising to me was the huge plaque received from the Town of Memphis recognizing Elvis' generosity of donations to many charities, organizations, and even needy individuals in the town.

Of course, as in most tourist spots, there were also the endless souvenir and gift shops. We hurried through those - not enough room to put them!

W

2nd PHASE OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY

After saying our heartfelt good byes to Roger and Heather, we left their farm (our home for the last month and a half) in Bath, Ontario on Sunday, Nov 13. Stopped at daughter #2 briefly and then on to Can Am RV in London, ON.
The stay at the farm gave us the time to reflect on our initial phase and learn from our mistakes and experiences. It took all that time to fix, pack, and prepare our trailer for the next phase. We took our time to visit with families and friends.
The next phase of our travels will be through the Airstream Center in Ohio, Graceland in Memphis, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, along the Pacific Coast in Oregon, Washington State then on to BC. Planning to spend the summer in BC and Alberta. The biggest highlight of the 2011 part of the trip is spending 5 days at the Pasadena New Year Rose Bowl Parade.
Take Care and see you all soon...

B