Off to see Herman

We had scheduled Saturday as our big Mardi Gras day - it was going to be the Big Easy, Paddle Wheel Steamboat ride on the Mississippi River, and the Endymoin Parade (rated one of the top 4 parades) - but it started raining Friday night and kept getting worse throughout the day so we had to cancel our plans.

To help make the rain go away, Paul mixed up some Mint Juleps and pretty soon we didn't care. We'll get to the Big Easy next time we are here. To pick up our spirits even more, the next morning we went to Cafe Du Monde for that New Orleans favorite - Beignets.

With our bellys full we headed out for a 4 hour drive to Oakdale where our old buddy Herman Ware lives. As we left the park, we spotted the Great Horned Owl the ranger had told us about. It has come back to the same tree to raise another batch of Owlets as it has done for the last 5 years (eat your heart out Billy).   It is the two small pointed ears you see in the top center of the tree.

We made good time and arrived at Herman's house in 3.5 hours. He lives at the end of a dead end street and we were going to park our RVs in his lot for the time we were there. The first job was to turn them around - my 14 ft long camper was no problem but Paul's  much longer camper proved to have a mind of its own.

It had rained up there the day before also and the ground was muddy. Paul's truck was up to it's axles in the soft ground. We hitched my truck up to his back end but only succeed to get it in deeper. Finally had to call for the pros (a friend of Herman) and in no time we had it out of the ditch.

This picture is out of order but it shows the trust everyone now has in Paul's driving - even the neighbor was out to help direct.

Herman had arranged for all kinds of Cajun treats - we had jambalaya for supper. Lunch the next day was Cracklin' and Boudin Balls and Boudin (the sausage looking thing). Polly didn't eat any!

Herman's sister brought over a Kings Cake (half Lemon and half Barvarian cream) for dessert.

Herman has a Dachshund named Dixie who is slightly overweight but can sit up to look out the window forever.

Herman's message on his phone answering system is something to the effect that if Dixie likes you he will return your call - I of course assumed that Dixie was Herman's lady friend and when I met her I called her Dixie - Wrong, Dixie is the dog and Gloria is her name. That's her with Herman admiring a trike.

What do two old submariners talk about when they get together? - submarines of course!

On Fat Tuesday we went to the town of Momou - the self-proclaimed Zydeco capital of the world. They had a parade of sorts - mostly horses - and a lot of Cajun music - and some great jambalaya.

The band played and people danced all day long

Remember when Catrina hit and they brought in FEMA trailers for everyone to live in - Well some have been put to good use and have become permanent homes.

But the rest of them are just parked in big fields and nobody knows what to do with them.

Along the roads going to Momua were a lot of flooded fields - these it turned out were flooded to raise Crayfish.

In addition to the flooded fields, Crayfish are all over the place - everybody's front lawn has these little dirt piles which crayfish make when digging their homes.

 

Good bye Louisiana - Hope to see you again someday.

Louisiana Day 2 Night

The town right next to the campground is Mandeville and it was having a Mardi Gras parade put on by the Krewe of Orpheus tonight. So we went down to the area where it is going to start and cased it out. It was organized in a shopping mall where we could park that night and a restaurant (Chili's) where we can eat and wait for it to start. Not a glamorous as the New Orleans floats but still pretty good.

So it's all planned out and at 5 PM we head down and park and go over to Chili's. It is packed but we find four seats at the bar and have a great meal (appetizer was fried onion strings and jalapenos - I've got to try them at home, they were good). Every thing worked out just like we planned - when we left Chili's, the parking lot was packed and we never would have gotten in if we came later but we just had to walk a half a block to where it started. On our way to find a place to watch the parade, it started early - we had an unblocked view and every float threw us beads as they headed out.

Here is the queen of the parade and you can see the Chili's sign where we ate in back of her - that's how little we had to walk.

Most of the floats were two storied jobs with people and loud music. This one threw a perfect ringer of some heavy beads around Carol's neck.

We got a lot of beads - I don't know whether it was the location (they were just starting and had plenty or was it the girls who were constantly flashing the floats and yelling "throw us something mister".

Look at the loot we took home.

Plus we had pockets full of cups, small animals and other junk.

Louisiana Vacation Day 2 Morning

We drove an hour to get deep into the Louisiana swamps for a swamp boat tour. Here are a couple of swamp people and that's the swamp boat we are going to ride on behind them.

It was a cool overcast day and the cold blooded creators weren't too active but here's one swimming to attack our boat. 

Even with no sun this one was on the bank sunning herself.

We were given the chance to wrestle an alligator and it was close but I won.

Paul also won. That's our guide in the background and he was a genuine swamp person. He made fun of the TV Show Swamp People and was always pointing out how he caught, skinned and ate the various birds and reptiles that we saw - Very interesting tour guide.

Carol petted the gator so gently it fell asleep on her lap.

This is a typical swamp person house - we considered staying there for a few days but Polly doesn't eat alligator or snake.

Here is what remains (an old cemetery) of some of the people killed in a 1920's hurricane.

This isn't a very good picture but what he is holding is a Nutria Swamp Rat that was imported from South America for it's fur and meat - when people found that it was a rat the meat didn't sell very well but they multiplied and there are plenty of them now. The fur is used and the tail (he's holding it in his right hand) is sold for handles on women's pocketbooks.

Louisiana Vacation - Day 1

The Currys and us have started a week trip over to Louisiana to see some of the Mardi Gras and to visit Herman Ware. This is the first day of touring after our 10 hour day of driving over from Wimauma to New Orleans. Here is our mini-camper - close quarters - I go out for coffee every morning to the Curry's camper which is in the picture right behind us.

We are staying at the Fountianbleau Campground on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain (North Shore) from New Orleans.The fastest way to get to New Orleans is across the Lake Pontchartrian Causeway which is shown in this picture.

Oh, you don't see it, let me blow up a section of the picture. There now you can see it. Lake Pontchartrain is the 2nd largest salt water lake in the US (Great Salt Lake is 1st) - only 12 to 14 feet deep.

We took a drive out to Oak Ally Plantation which was a sugar cane plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River. Can you see Carol, Paul and Polly waving?

No, let me walk in a little closer.

Still can't, let me walk in even closer - you can almost hear me puffing - Oh, I took too long. Paul got tired of waiting for me.

We took the tour through the house and the tour guide was super - Creole accent and all - He described how they had big dinner parties - there was a slave over in one corner pulling a rope which made the big fan over the table move back and forth - It kept the flies away and cooled the air as it moved over bowls of ice on the table.

Here is another neat room - the bed was called a rolling pin bed  because after you slept in it, a slave would come in and roll the mattress out - it was made from Spanish Moss and got lumpy when you slept on it - the rolling pin was part of the headboard.

We Bathe in the Sun

We've got solar panel to heat the pool water so why not solar to heat our bath water. The house was built in 2000 so the hot water heater is 12 years old and is probably near the end of its life - add onto this I heard that the electric company was giving $1000 rebate if you installed a solar hot water system - I like rebates - so I got two estimates and took the low guy - $4300 minus 1000 = 3300 minus tax credit of  $990 equals $2310 and I needed a new hot water heater anyway.

Of course the solar panel for the pool was in the wrong location so they had to move it over.

It's tilted to optimize solar output in the winter.

The interior is an 85 gallon tank and a small pump to push water through the solar panel whenever the temperature in the panel is hotter than the water in the bottom of the tank. They put in a couple of extra valves for me so I can drain it down when I leave during the summer.

Enlarging the orchard

While the digger was still here we had him remove the stumps from the land we had cleared next to where we had planted all the citrus trees.

Instead of having him bury the stumps as he did in the backyard, we had him just pile them up and we were going to pick through the piles and cart the stumps to the dump. Wow, what a job that turned out to be. They weigh you when you take them to the recycling center. We ended up taking 8 truck loads which totaled 3.5 tons. My poor back.

But we got it cleared and leveled - digger came back to help in getting it leveled with a smaller tractor.

And now the planting begins. Guess what these are? Yeah, we are going to have bananas.

We have two figs planted. We plan to follow Tony Deus's father's pruning advice and flatten off the top when they get bigger so it will be easier to pick the fruit.

A close-up shows that they have little figs on them already.

Finally, we got some Avacado planted - Guacamoli galore.

We got room for another 10 trees so we are hunting for Persimmon, Pomegranate, Guava, Pecan, etc.