Thursday April 16 2009 by Leland.

Today we got out of Rainbow’s end at Livingston Tx about 10 a.m.  By about 5 p.m. we were into the COE campground at Pat Mayes Lake just north of Paris Texas and just short of the Oklahoma Border. 

This would be a great place to spend a week if you were a fisherman or it were the heat of summer.  Right not though it is only an excellent place to spend the night. 

Early in the morning we head north again and will drive around familiar places in McAlester, Tulsa and Claremore Oklahoma before hunting up a night stop north of Tulsa somewhere.

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Saturday April 11 2009 by Leland.

A feature of at least two Escapees parks that we have been to is the RV shed designed out of a pole barn.  People have these built on deeded lots within the park and have them finished or not to their pleasure.  I am going to make one on our lot in Montana.  You can click on any thumbnail for a larger view of the photo. 

The interior roof is sometimes finished, sometimes open rafters as below.

Then there are a small number of “other” ways of doing a shelter.  These include pseudo pole barns with aluminum poles and metal roofing or the “carport” type metal pipe and roofing types.

You can notice that some folks just have it for shelter while others build complete homes into the cover and are probably just storing the RV rather than living in it.

My plan for our property is a multi year thing.  I think we’ll try the basic cover and shade with maybe mosquito screens around it this summer and then think about adding on another summer.  and so on and so on……  

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Friday April 10 2009 by Leland.

As most who read this know we are Escapees.  What the heck is that?  Well, it’s an RV Club, similar to (and totally different from) The Good Sam Club.  The Escapees has a discount program like the GS club, but in addition the Escapees have a multitude of campgrounds that are club owned or coop owned across the USA.  We try to stay at them often. 

This is our site in the “up on the hill” area.  Didn’t notice much of a hill but the laundry is just about 7 sites down and the club house (photo below) is about the same distance.

One of the “things” that Escapees places have is an every afternoon social hour.  Usually at 4 p.m. and lasting up to an hour.  It is an occasion to meet the people staying in the park and get some local information etc.  Social right.  Well at Rainbow’s End, the National Headquarters the social hour is hosted by the founders on the Friday social hour. 

Kay Peterson, a real live spark plug along with her husband Joe started Escapees back in 1978.  It has grown from the original hundred or so members to around 35,000 active now.  Their consecutive membership numbering system is up to about 103,000.  We joined several years about and our number is in the 85,000 series.

Joe Peterson was an electrician who traveled to construction jobs.  It was this travel, in an Airstream travel trailer that began the whole Escapees deal.  Joe is as nice and down to earth kinda guy you would ever want to meet. 

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Wednesday April 8 2009 by Leland.

After Avery Island we got back to BETTY’s RV Park in time for the evening activity.  This night it was a Crawfish Boil.   A couple of the guys staying in the park went to several of the local Crawfish markets and bought two 50 pound sacks of Crawfish.  They knew what they were doing in the prep and the results were SUPERIOR - or so I’m told. 

The cooked them in two batches.  First they start the kettle boiling, add spices and sauces.  Then they put in the veggies - potatoes, corn on the cob and whole onions.  (This was my dinner and the first time I have had Cajun spiced corn on the cob. WOW)  Next was the first batch of Crawfish.

Once dumped onto the newspaper on the table, the feast commenced.  They were black before they were boiled.  Can you see the aprehension on Cathy’s face?

Cathy, who had her serious doubts was taught how to twist off the tail, shell the meat piece and dip it in the sauce.  She loved it and ate a huge plateful.  Of course a huge plateful is only a couple dozen mouthfulls as the piece of meat you get is pretty small on each Crawfish. 

This was the first batch.  The 0ther 12 people ate these and over half of the second batch which was just as large.  Just for reference each of those critters are about 2 to 4 inches.  Can you say Pig Out - or rather FEAST.  It was a great evening.

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Tuesday April 7 2009 by Leland.

After arriving in Abbeville La at Betty’s RV Park, we headed out the 20 miles to a place that is legend to us spicey people.  Avery Island is the home of Tabasco Sauce. 

We started with the factory tour where they first told us a little of the history of these old buildings.

The store had a large amount of brand junk of course.  Cinnamon got a Jalepeno pepper decorated collar.  I ate Tabasco ice cream and tabasco soda pop.  Neither will make the top 10 in America.

The fill over 700,000 bottles of Tabasco Sauce PER DAY!  Yikes, this must spice up a lot of the world don’t you think.

What a beautiful old building and campus.  We loved the place.  If you go add on a tour of the nearby Botanical Gardens. 

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Monday April 6 2009 by Leland.

I may have expounded on Fire Ants before, if so sorry but I got em again.  Fire Ants are both native and imported.  There is a difference but I would think that you’d need a microscope to tell the difference.  If you step in them you find out pretty quick.  They only bite to get better leverage on their sting.  It’s the sting that is the “fire” in Fire Ant.   If you notice the first sting and brush like a crazy then you minimize the numbers.  My problem is that I don’t have much sensation in my feet anymore so they are really having a party by the time I notice - too late.

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Monday April 6 2009 by Leland.

Well we made it to Bettys RV Park in Abbeyville La.  If you get back this way you will love this place.  The grounds are pretty bad but the crowd is great and there is enough happy hour bull to keep even you going for a while.  The 4:30 happy hour started at 3:30 and just ended at 8.  Karoke and treats and snacks, bring your own drinks and what a nice evening.  Betty is a kick.  The reputation is lived up to.  We are here mainly for Avery Island, home of Tabasco Sauce.  We will tour their factory tomorrow.  Lots of other things to do here but we will see…..

I am worn out though from not sleeping much last night.  When I was putting up my windshield cover at St. Bernards I discovered I was standing in another fire ant hill when I was trying to get it straightened so I got the required number of stings on both feet.  I had more reaction to them this time than when they got me in Florida.  The stings bothered all night - and all day today too.  On top of the ants, the mosquitos gobbled me up bad at St. Bernards.  If I was going through there again, I’d skip that place, at least this time of year.  The park is very nice but don’t be outside after the sun goes down, at least till the nightly pass of the mosquito fogger truck.  Of course then you can’t breath but at least you aren’t doing the slap happy dance.

This is one of the several dozen Ocean Going Container Ships that were tied up in the Mississippi River which is just over this levee.  Nice to think that all the land around here is below river level.

We had a pretty tough time getting across New Orleans as it seemed all the east west roads were blocked for some sort of parades.  We finally found an east bound on ramp for I-10 and even though we wanted west bound we took it and figured there would be a turn around somewhere.  Sure enough we found a off/on ramp to suit our needs  and did make it back through.  We followed I10 down town and took Business 90 to the West Bank and then followed 90 around and up to here.  It would probably have been faster to go via I10 to Layfayette and down but who wants to go interstate.  That’s like going to the Keys and eating at McDonalds or something.  This was an interesting road till the last 40 miles which was concrete and rough enough to even do California credit.  We will probably spend the next few days getting things back into place. 

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Sunday April 5 2009 by Leland.

Although we saw a lot of rebuilding in some places around town, there were still lots of places like this. 

Some times it was hard to tell if places were just (excuse the term) “slum dwellings.” or left over Hurricane Katrina things.  On the road between Biloxi and New Orleans, and by road I mean old highway 90 not the interstate, there were tons of signs of devastation still not fixed and lots of not fixable.  It seemed that in most places work had progressed to the “rubble removed” phase.

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Saturday April 4 2009 by Leland.

We found this sign at a picnic area.  Love it.

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Friday April 3 2009 by Leland.

From the Biloxi area we made reservations at St. Bernards State Park.  This is a Louisiana State Park in St. Bernards Perish just South and East of New Orleans.  The full hookups price is $16.  Not bad as these things go. We had a nice site with plenty of green green grass.

The park has a feature in the brocure called “Man made lagoons.”  They essentially made a pond and canal system around and through the campsites.  This lagoon was completely covered with some kind of green plant life.  This turtle came out of the green stuff to sun on the log. 

This Cardinal came and sang to us from a branch above the turtles log.  Such a beautiful bird.  This photo was zoomed in quite a bit.  Not a bad camera is it.

As I rode my bicycle around the park I found these carved animals and others in the picnic areas.  Cathy has come to really love the dolphins.  If only we could stand the weight….  Well, and the price of these critters. 

adjacent to the park was this overgrown grass airstrip, an almost blown down building and this small airplane.  Sure would like to know the story here.  There are lots of what seem to be interrupted dreams in this area.  Nothing like a major hurricane to change your direction.

We loved the park in the day time.  The night belonged to the Mosquitos though.  A fogger truck came through the place each evening but this only did good for about an hour.  Welcome to the Bayou - They say Bayou means “Bend.”  I think it means swamp but what do I know.

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