New Orleans Anniversary Trip

June 19th-21st 2015

Let’s go to NOLA! Our 28th anniversary was approaching and I thought, “Why not go to New Orleans to celebrate?” When our kids were young we went to NOLA several times and always had fun, but we hadn’t been back since way before Hurricane Katrina. So we packed up and hit the road. NOLA is about a 5 hour drive for us so it didn’t take a super long time to get there. We had booked a reservation at Pontchartrain Landing RV Park/Marina. I did not take the following picture.

Here are the pros and cons of this RV Park. 

Pros: It’s on Lake Pontchartrain so the scenery of the lake is beautiful. The sites are clearly numbered and getting around the park is easy. It is located near the city so that’s a definite plus. There are 125 RV sites in a variety of price ranges. They offer free cable tv, wi-fi, restaurant, self service laundry, playground, pool and dumping station. 

Cons: It’s located at the end an industrial road. So you feel like you’re driving out into no man’s land. Especially on the weekend which is when we stayed there. All of the roads of the park are made of crushed concrete making it very dusty and hard on an RV filter. The posted speed limit is 5mph and trust me you don’t want to drive any faster than that because of the ensuing dust. The bathroom is a portable. I did not go in it but it looked very well kept from outside. 

After we had settled in we drove to the city to do some sightseeing and some shopping. We had lunch at Cafe Maspero. www.cafemaspero.com. Good food and our waitress was very nice and gave us lots of info about the city. We then went off in search of a souvenir for our grand daughter. David wanted to buy her a voo-doo doll but I thought that wasn’t the best idea. We finally decided on a New Orleans t-shirt. After shopping and sight seeing we returned to the RV to relax and shower for dinner.

Here comes the best tip I can give you from this trip. Parking in the city can be as expensive as $30 a day. To overcome this here’s what to do. Go to Harrah’s Casino. Park in their parking garage. Go into the casino and get a free rewards card. Place your rewards card into a slot machine and play for at least 30 minutes. You can choose the penny slots, put in $1 and play as slowly as possible making that $1 last 30 minutes. Be sure that the card is in the machine for a minimum of 30 minutes. You can of course play longer if you like and use the higher value machines. Once you are finished remove your rewards card and pocket it. There are scanners placed around where you can scan your card to make sure it was in play for 30 minutes. Now leave your car parked at the casino and walk the city. You can leave your car parked there for up to 24 hours for free by doing this. Once you are ready to leave the city pick up your car and drive to the exit of the garage. Show the attendant your rewards card. They will scan it and see that it was in play for at least 30 minutes and you will not be charged for parking. By doing this we not only got free parking but we walked out of the casino with an extra $14 in our pockets. 

For dinner we stopped in at Huck Finn’s. www.huckfinnscafe.com David had the Taste of New Orleans which is crawfish etoufee, jambalaya and red beans & rice served with french bread. He loved it! I had the Blackened Shrimp Salad. MmmmmmHmmmmm!

The next morning we slept in and laid around the RV playing with Hercules. David made himself a big ol’ breakfast of eggs over medium, bacon and toast.

Then we were off to the city for more sight seeing. We found street parking near the French Market. The French Market is an open air market much like a flea market. It goes on for 6 blocks! What makes this place stand out is the food section. So many different kinds of food to eat and sample. Gourmet, local, unique. This place is massive and wonderful. I highly recommend making this part of your trip. On the way back from the French Market we passed Cafe Du Monde. Oh, how I wanted to stop and get a beignet but the line was literally around the block. So I had to settle for this picture. 

We then made our way to St. Jackson’s Square. From here you can view the incredible church, the Mississippi River and untold street musicians. 

We made our way back to the car then took a drive down St. Charles Avenue. The mansions on this street are so beautiful! It would probably have been a better idea to walk to get better pictures but even driving it was amazing to see.

After St. Charles we set out to find Anne Rice’s house in New Orleans. I did a quick google search for the address and we found the house at 1239 First St. What a beautiful house. I’ve read most, if not all of her books so this was a real treat for me. Side note: Have your read The Witching Hour? I’m not saying it’s true but the house next door to Anne’s literally could have been the inspiration for the Mayfair House. I unfortunately did not get a good picture of that house. Here is a picture of me standing in front of Anne’s house though.

After leaving Anne’s house we stopped at Lafayette Cemetery #1. Very interesting. We even found a Weber buried there.

We were now pretty tired and in need of a nap so we headed back to the RV and relaxed. Later after our nap we got dressed and headed back into the city for the evening. We left the car at Harrah’s once again and walked around for a bit but we were still pretty tired from all the walking earlier so we settled on a place to eat pretty close to the casino. We chose Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. www.gordonbiersch.com This place was very unique. It’s an actual brewery and the food was so good. I had shrimp & lobster tacos. I couldn’t tell you what David had. :)

After dinner we were pretty wiped out and knew our trip was coming to and end. We went back to the RV and tried to recover. The next morning we bid a fond farewell to New Orleans. We had had a blast and were ready to get home to start planning our next trip. And spoiler alert: It's gonna be a BIG one!

Unicoi State Park Georgia

April 2nd-5th 2015

This year we did something we hadn’t done up till now. For some reason, (I think it’s because most of us now have some type of RV; travel trailer, camper or full on coach and camping is more comfortable) we decided to plan a family camp trip in the spring and it was scheduled for the first weekend in April. We chose Unicoi State Park near Helen, GA. The following picture was not taken by us. We failed to take a picture of the park sign on this trip. :(

We arrived on Thursday and set up camp. It was a little bit rainy and chilly so we set up as quickly as possible and then hung around insider he RV for a bit till it cleared up some. Then we explored the campground. 

Below is a couple of maps showing the campgrounds and amenities. It’s a beautiful, if very hilly campground. This first one shows the Unicoi Lake area:

This next one shows the campground map:

On Friday we hiked the Lake trail. It is an easy 2.5 mile hike around Unicoi Lake. Beautiful views of the lake and forest. There are other trails to hike here as well. Ranging from 1/3 of a mile loop to 5 miles one way. There is even a 7 mile mountain bike trail. They require an annual pass to bike this trail. We did not do this but David wanted to so bad. Here's just one of the views of the lake from the trail:

Here's a picture of David, Hercules and I:

And a short video of our hike. Yes, we are silly hikers. lol Check out Faith in the back when the video first starts. Silly girl!

Later that day we did something I’ve never done before: zip lining. Wow! What fun! We booked with Zip N Time right outside of Helen. They encourage reservations, which we had. We arrived, suited up and then piled into the back of a truck and was driven to the zip line site. We all took turns zipping from tree to tree. 

I’ll admit I was very nervous my first time. It was not easy to step off that platform but I took a big breath and jumped and OH! Wow! What fun, flying through the trees. After we zipped between about 5 different trees, of different heights we were then taken to one of the longest dual zip lines in the US. The great thing about this zip line is it’s so long and you can ride next to a friend. So much fun! I couldn't post a video of David and I riding it but check out this video of me on my very first ride. 

For more information about Zip N time click on the following link. You can also find them on FaceBook. Just search for ZipNTime. We highly recommend these guys.

http://www.zipntime.com

Saturday we went to Anna Ruby Falls. Well worth the 1/2 mile hike up to the falls. I’ll be honest. David and I love waterfalls and will more than likely tackle most hikes to see one and Anna Ruby does not disappoint. Easy hike along Smith Creek so there are views along the entire hike. My sister was on crutches for this hike so I’d say all can handle this one. Here's a picture David took of the falls. You can see me in the bottom left corner taking a picture also. :)

Later we went to Helen, GA and walked around. It’s like a little village. So cute! We did a little window shopping, bought some very expensive fudge, people watched and took lots of pictures.

The next day it was time to go home. Another adventure had come to an end. We had had a good time with family and had all done something new and exciting. Time to get back home and start planning our next trip.

Blue Springs State Park, Florida

February 23rd-27th 2015

We decided for our first trip of 2015 to go see the manatees. The best time to view manatees is in the winter when they swim up the rivers to the warm springs. We booked at Blue Springs State Park Campground and hit the road. Not long into our trip we realized that there was a problem. The RV started to hiccup periodically and it got worse the farther we went. It soon became obvious that we were losing power and eventually we could not drive faster than 50 mph. We called some experts during the drive and stopped, purchased and installed a new fuel filter but it didn’t help. A drive that should have taken us around 7 hours ended up taking us more than 12 hours. 

When we finally did arrive it was after 7 pm and the park was closed. We had not been informed to let the park know if we would be arriving after 5 pm so when we got there the gate was closed and locked and we did not have the code to open it. We were tired, frustrated and worried and now we couldn’t even get into the campground. I got out of the RV to go look on the building to see if there was someone we could call. Another camper pulled up behind us and finally, after David explained our situation, gave us the code. We were finally in the campground but now had to find our campsite in the dark. They do not have numbers on posts like most campgrounds do so we were pretty clueless as to which campsite was which. Luckily I saw a sign that said Campground Host and I went and knocked on his door and he told us where our campsite was. We got the RV parked and soothed ourselves with a late steak dinner and then went to bed. We’d deal with all of the problems in the morning.

The next morning we set up camp and then David made some calls and set an appointment for a mechanic to come out and look at the RV. Meanwhile we decided to walk over to the spring and see the manatees. Oh! The manatees! They are so interesting. They come up the St. John’s river to find the spring that bubbles up warm water. They are slow, graceful creatures. We just stood and watched them for the longest time. They’ll float near the bottom of the river for awhile and then they’ll come up for a breath of air. So interesting to watch.

Below is a video. The manatee comes up, takes a breath, rolls over then takes another breath before returning to the bottom of the river.

The campground has 51 sites which are within walking distance of the spring. Each site as water and electricity hookup but no sewer. There is a dump station available. Pets are welcome, thank goodness because Hercules goes everywhere with us.

Most of our time here was spent watching the manatees. If you’d like to see them go to  Manatee Cam  Save the Manatees have installed cameras and you can watch live streaming video of the manatees. There is also a house/museum on the property. The Thursby House. This home was built by Lewis Thursby. This was an official stop on the St. James River. It is an interesting self guided, free tour. 

The day before we left we crossed the street and did a portion of the Spring To Spring biking trail. This trail is 3.3 miles one way and was a very pleasant, easy bike ride. It is completely paved and mostly flat so not a lot of having to huff and puff uphill. You travel through palmetto and pine trees. We left the trail and took a dirt path out to a point on a lake and it was a very beautiful peaceful resting spot. Be sure to wear your tick repellant because this place crawls with ticks. David and I both found ticks on us when we got back to the RV. 

When it came time to leave, the RV was in serious need of some major repairs so we had to have it towed to the Cummins Orlando. Below is a picture of it being towed.

We stayed at the Cummins factory for several days then decided to go home until they completed the repairs. A week later we returned to Orlando and picked up the RV and took her home. Even with all the challenges we faced this was still a fun, enjoyable trip and we couldn’t wait until our next adventure.