Day 27 – Back to Florida

I should point out, that if you are reading this for the first time, the blog is presented last day first.  So you'll need to start at the first day of the blog.  Use the Archive on the left to view from the first day.  

An early start today should get us back in Sebastian in the mid evening time frame.  We Leave New Orleans and follow I-10 across Lake Pontchartrain all the way until we get to I-95, then we’ll turn south.

As we near Biloxi, Mississippi you can see houses in the distance on the beach near the Gulf.

Driving through Mobile, Alabama we can see the USS Alabama battleship at the Battleship Memorial Park next to Fort Drum.  They also have a number of jet fighters and other planes.

Alabama is not very wide here and we are soon in Florida, and crossing Escambia Bay just outside of Pensacola.

Now that we are in Florida and more familiar surroundings, Carmen is no longer taking many pictures.  This one is of some of the swampy areas that we are passing.

By evening, we are back in Sebastian and have parked the motorhome in the driveway and settled back into the house.  This has been a long trip, but it has been great.  I for one would do this trip again, but maybe also to other locations.  Twenty-seven days seems like a long time, but we were busy for most of that time it hardly seemed long.  Staying in each place for two or three days seems to be right, not too long or too short. 

That is the end of our trip; I hope you have enjoyed this blog of our travels.  You might also enjoy blogs our other travels by going to this web address: https://www.blogger.com/profile/02504216977029606085. 

Thank you, Carmen and Bob.

Day 26 – French Quarter, New Orleans, LA

We are parked only about 3 blocks from the St. Louis Cemetery no. 1 and about 5 blocks from the French Quarter.  Many of the streets are lined with residences similar to this.

Of course there are also a large number of bars like this one.

We make our way down to the river and before getting on a city tour we stop at French Market.

On the tour, one of the first districts we visited had been flooded during the hurricane.  You can still see the markings on the front wall when evacuations were required.

Next we passed some of the older manor houses.  This one has a porch on the second floor.

We stopped at the botanical gardens.  You can see the Spanish moss growing on the trees.

Here’s Carmen taking a break on one of the bridges. 

The tour stopped at one of the cemeteries in the city.  Don’t remember which one, but it was still interesting.  All of the roads are named, just like a regular street.

Check out this walled vault.  Someone wanted to be buried under a pyramid. 

There were many unusual vaults in this cemetery; here is another of the vault streets.

Ha!  Check out this house.  After all it is almost Halloween.  You can tell the person that lives here is a Grateful Dead fan; they have a dead head in the front yard.

We drove by, but didn’t stop at, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.  This is where they filmed the cemetery scene in Easy Rider.

Check out this food truck we saw while driving around with the tour.

Standing next to the river at the Washington Artillery Park and Moonwalk and looking across Jackson Square at St. Louis Cathedral. 

We decided to go on one of the paddle wheel boats, in this case the Natchez. 

A couple of cargo ships, of some sort, getting loaded.  These are the Cape Knox (dock side) and Cape Kennedy out of Norfolk, VA.

One of the tankers loading coal from a barge tied up alongside and placing it into the ship.

I think they said this was a Domino sugar processing plant. 

We passed a coal barge coming our way.  I think it was headed to the cargo ship w saw earlier loading coal from a barge.

The Creole Queen passed by on our port side as we headed up stream. 

Back on land, we were walking around looking for some beignets when we came upon this man, yes I said a man, dressed in feathers.  I think he was practicing for Marti Gras. 

It is beginning to get dark and the bar and restaurant florescent lights are coming on.  You can see the first round one on the right is called the Funky Pirate.

We are still on Bourbon Street, just a little further down then before and you can see all of the neon lights all of the way up and down the street.

Check out the lighted skulls on the balcony above the Tricou Gifts shop. 

I wonder what they serve at this place.  Bet they serve Huge Ass Beers, along with your Big Ass Burger!

Tomorrow we are leaving New Orleans and we plan on making an early start, since again we have a long way, over 725 miles, to go.

Day 25 – To New Orleans, LA

After a full day in San Antonio, we are leaving and heading to New Orleans.  The last time we drove I-10 through Texas, starting at El Paso, it took us 2 days to get into Louisiana.  Hopefully, today we can do it in one day, so we left very early.  On the way, Carmen took pictures of the countryside.  She took pictures of these long-horn steer.  Until now, we had seen some but not close enough to get picture, now we have one.

We have been passing any number of ranches and fields.  This field was recently hayed and the hay rolls are still in the field.

Well we are in Texas and there are a few refineries, so Carmen did take a picture.

In Louisiana, Carmen gets a picture of the bayou.

After we passed Lafayette, Louisiana and still driving on I-10 we drove on this raised section of the highway.

We made it to New Orleans with the sun going down and just before we get off of the highway to go to the campground, we passed the Superdome. 

We are soon settled into the French Quarter RV Resort.  It is right next to the French Quarter, so close we can actually walk tomorrow.  It’s late and it has been a long day and will be a long day tomorrow, so we are heading to bed.

Day 24 – San Antonio, Texas

Now that we are in San Antonio, we are going to the River Walk.  On the way, we stopped at Produce Way, a pedestrian street where there are a number of small shops, bakeries, restaurants, boutiques and a Farmers Market.  Very colorful with banners and signs displayed everywhere. 

While we were walking around, we stopped into the Mariachi Bar.  And yes, there were people playing music inside and out.

After the Farmers Market we headed to the River Walk area and began our walk.  You can see one of the tourist boats waiting for passengers.

Along the walkway, there are shops and many different restaurants like Dick’s Last Resort, Joe’s Crab Shack, Hard Rock Café and other non-franchises.  Many have tables along the river all with umbrellas to keep the sun off the patrons.

On the river in one of the tourist boats, we travel around the river looking at the sights.  Here there are a number of large trees along the river’s bank.

While we were floating in the boat around the river, we passed a number of buildings.  This one has some very unusual architecture details.  Check out a couple of faces along the walls, each one was different.

After getting off of the tourist boat, we headed over to Plaza de Las Islas (or Main Plaza) where we saw San Fernando Cathedral.  The original church as built between 1738 and 1750.  In 1836 the cathedral, still a parish church, played a role in the Alamo when Mexican General Santa Anna flew the “no quarter” flag from the church’s tower.

Inside the church is the burial tomb of Davy Crockett, William Travis, and Jim Bowie.

The front dais of the church is constructed like a cross where the dais is the top, and two wings just off to the sides is the crossing bar.

Back walking along the river walk, we cross over some of the foot bridges and checked out some of the waterfalls.  Here Carmen is in front of one of the water cascades along the river walk area.

Making our way along the river we got onto Crockett St and a couple of blocks later we were at the Alamo.  This is the front of the church as it existed in 1836.  Where I am standing is part of the courtyard that was being defended by the men at the Alamo.

An artist’s rendering of the Alamo after the Mexican army took control of the area.

Leaving the River Walk we drove to Mission San Jose which is one of the three missions on the mission trail, which also  the Alamo, Mission Concepcion, and Mission San Francisco de la Espada.  The mission’s courtyard walls from the parking lot, you can see the bell tower of the mission in the background

We begin our tour by going into this entrance gate into the Mission San Jose courtyard.

Mission San Jose.

Some of the out buildings built into the exterior perimeter walls along with an outside clay oven. 

From the court yard, called the Convento, in the back of the mission you can see the bell tower in the front. 

I find the architecture of the convento, simply fascinating.  Built in 1794, this structure, which would have had a roof on it, would have been the center of life at the mission.  I love the arches in this section of the building.

Couldn’t you imagine the solitude of walking along these arches while reading a book?

The front of the mission, which is still an active church, is very colorful.

Here we are looking towards the front of the mission

While walking around the grounds I came upon this plant.  Don’t know what it is, but it looks unusual.

This is the fresco that was covering the church.  Not much of it is left, but you can see the pattern that was on the wall.