California Trip

I had a short business trip to Orange County. Got to the Austin airport early in the morning and got to see a gorgeous sunrise. All the business zombies sat at the gates and didn’t notice the sunrise. But I went to the end of the terminal to take this picture and 5 people were taking pictures, so they weren’t all zombies. Ironically, coming back I got to the airport early again. I was working on my expense account and totally missed sunrise. I’m a business zombie! 

Right next to the hotel was an area that connects to a park with several miles of trails. I didn’t bring shoes to hike much, but it’s a nice area right in the middle of the town.

RV'ing in Austin

At the state park, we had 2 deer that showed up at dusk almost every day.

At the RV park, we had a longhorn steer show up near our RV. You know you’re in Texas when….

This is another picture of our new RV. It seems to be a party RV with TV and refrigerator outside. That’s the new thing for RV’s. We’re still debating on the extra fridge. It can’t run when we’re boondocking (electricity only). To me, it’s just dead weight but John seems to like it when cooking outside.

McKinney Falls w/o the Falls

We’re in the Austin area right now. Earlier this week we camped at McKinney Falls State Park. It has a Upper Falls and Lower Falls area, but there was only a trickle of water in the lower falls area. Apparently, it is either dry or flooding.

Love that this guy was meditating near the falls. 

Now we’re in an RV park in another section of Austin and it’s pouring (several inches of rain). It would be fun to go back and see the falls, but not enough to drive in this rain!

Fun in New Orleans

I really loved our previous visit to New Orleans (1, 2, 3, 4) so we had to stop in on our way to Texas. The streets of French Quarter were about three times busier this time. I guess that is normal for Halloween season versus Christmas season. Speaking of Halloween, there were decorations everywhere.

Apparently we watch way too much TV. As we were walking around, we saw this street which we both agreed looked like the set for NCIS: New Orleans. After looking online, we realized it really is the set seen in a few of the shows.

In the Old Mint, we saw Louis Armstrong’s first cornet in the music section of the museum. In Baton Rouge, we saw his first bugle. I wonder how many more Louis Armstrong first’s we can see? The mint section included old crucibles and equipment from the New Orleans mint.

Of course we had to stop at a cemetery. St. Roche has an area where people bring in an item or model (like legs and heads) to thank God for a healing of either a person or animal. We talked to one lady who had left a dog tag there a few years ago.

Jackson Square was full of tourists, art, music, and bizarre performing artists. Always fun!

We drank beer, ate local food, and waved to the EarthCam on Bourbon Street. My favorite part was dancing “Shout” with a group that was celebrating the half-anniversary of St. Patrick’s day (technically, it wasn’t 6 months after but who cares about that in New Orleans). They gave me beads to celebrate!

Big News - New RV

Owning a used RV has been interesting. When we first bought it, we had to spend major money on new tires, sealing the roof, and TV connections. Over the years we’ve replaced a lot of things like the refrigerator, awning, converter, inverter, and more. Overall, you save money, but it was getting tiring to keep fixing things (Poor John!!!). There was a running joke on every new noise we heard. The worry was how much it would cost us to fix it.

We’re planning on heading toward Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. We decided to bite the bullet and upgrade. Not only is it a new RV, but its 3 feet longer. We’re amazed at how much 3 feet increases the space. We’re still less than 30’ (many state parks and national parks are difficult to travel in with longer RV’s) but it feels so spacious.

It’s a lot of stress buying a new RV when you are full-timing it. We spent 3 days at the RV store with the paperwork of buying the RV, buying it, moving everything into it, and returning it for some repairs. Lots of work and it will take us weeks to get everything organized.

And just because it was a spectacular sunrise and maybe to relax a little…

Red Tide and Deer

Last time we stopped at St. Andrews State Park in Panama City flags were up to warn us about jellyfish. Turns out it wasn’t dangerous at all, but the flags were up. This time there were no flags warning us, but red tide was bad. I’ve experienced red tide before, but this time seemed to affect me quicker. I only stayed near the beach for 5 minutes before it really affected by lungs. The shore was full of dead fish that not even the birds will eat. Luckily, the red tide moved off shore over the next few days.

The deer are plentiful and friendly at St. Andrews. I heard about several herds of 5-6 deer that walk up to a campsite asking for food. I didn’t see the herd, but I did see several beside the road and our campsite.

One morning I turned around after reading a sign on a hiking trail to see two small fawns just a few feet away from me. We all jumped. They ran over to mom and started to suckle. VERY COOL to see this.

Falling Waters

We stopped at this park several years ago. This time we were healthy, but it rained hard so hikes had to fit around the rain. The waterfall is the tallest in Florida, but most of the falls is actually underground into a sink hole. Still pretty cool!

Advertising and Stephen Foster

First, I love how bill boards can be both honest and dishonest all the same time. We needed to stop for a little while. I thought the place that advertised a 13 foot alligator would be fun. So, here’s the stuffed (not live) 13’ alligator along with a bunch of preserved alligator heads that cost from $15 to $35 dollars depending on the size. Nice advertising.

I found out that there are 163 different Florida state parks. Each one is somewhat different. The Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park does a great job of differentiating itself. As far as anyone knows, Stephen Foster never visited the Suwanee River. All he did was use a variation of the name in a song (Swanee River). But someone decided that was enough.

The bike ride to the carillon that plays Stephen Foster songs is a nice ride. 

  

Instead of bells, these are rods of metal that are from 3 feet to 12 feet long in the carillon tower that are struck by a mechanism. We couldn’t see the actual rods, but they had models of the system.

In the museum, multiple artists spent hours making dioramas to illustrate his songs. Even though dioramas are very old-fashioned for museums, these were fascinating to see. They are only 16” deep. In the one called “Camptown Races” you could see little horses running in the back of the track and then suddenly bigger horses would rush past in the front of the track. Everything is built to perspective so that the furniture is built with the back legs much shorter than the front.

The Suwanee River is dark with tannins, but still beautiful.