Erik's Graduation

May 21, 2010
Albertville, AL

In spite of 36 hours of thunderstorms and threatening skies all morning, the clouds disappeared and the sun shone for Erik's High School Graduation. Even though the school and surrounding grounds were heavily damaged in a F-3 tornado less than a month earlier, the community did a great job of recovering and making sure that everything was in place for the festivities. We attended along with quite a few other family members, including Erik's aunts and families, who traveled from Florida and North Carolina.

The graduation itself was a smooth and relatively quick affair, with over 200 graduates involved. Things went off without a hitch and, before we knew it, tassels were switched and caps were in the air. Fantastic!

Click here for a photo album with more pictures...

A relatively slow week...

May 20, 2010
Albertville, AL

It's been pretty quiet this week. Alyson and her beau, Henry, arrived mid-week, in town for Erik's graduation. I did a pork loin on the rotisserie; we put a dent in the wine supply. I took a ride over to Arab on Tuesday and found the specialty wine shop there closed (ouch!). The weather was nice mid-week, so I was able to wash the Rover (about 3,000 miles of road grime) and half of the coach (shady side). Yesterday, Geri and I made a shopping trip to Huntsville, about an hour away, hitting Costco and Publix and stocking up for a while. The weather's turning rainy, with lots of thunderstorms here and predicted. This is unfortunate, since Erik's graduation is traditionally held on the football field and inside seating is severely limited. Storms are predicted throughout tomorrow, so we'll definitely be playing it by ear...

Next Phase - Alabama

May 16, 2010
Albertville, AL

Friday was our next travel day, leaving New Orleans and heading for my brother's place in Albertville, Alabama. We got started roughly on schedule, a little after 9:00 AM. It was easy to get back on I-10, which we followed east to I-59 near the Mississippi border. We headed northeast, picking up I-20 in Meridian, and stopping for lunch at the Alabama line and fuel just short of Birmingham. Even though we picked up a little afternoon rush traffic around Birmingham, we were still able to get to Albertville around 6:00 PM. A couple of pizzas and bottle of wine later, we were all caught up with the latest news (unfortunately, mostly focused on nephew Erik's new tattoo - ouch).

Yesterday, we relaxed for the most part. I finished a book (latest Dan Brown novel) and Geri started another (last of the "Twilight" series). Rick grilled some steaks. It's all good.

Today, we cleaned up and headed for Erik's music recital in the afternoon. He's taken voice and piano lessons from a local instructor for quite a while, and the recital was quite interesting with about 30 students at varying levels of study. Several were quite good; it was like American Idol without Simon. Here are pictures of the group (Erik is center, rear) and Erik performing.

We had pulled pork for dinner, sampling various sauces in the process. All in all, a good couple of days!

Day 2 in New Orleans - Walking Tours

May 13, 2010
New Orleans, LA

Our second day in New Orleans started with coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde (it's a tourist-y thing but, hey, what the heck), followed by a stroll around Jackson Square. We didn't get far along the square before we were accosted by a carriage vendor looking to fill up a tour, so we hopped on. It was a short loop around the French Quarter, with historical narration (heavy on references to "Storytown", the bordello district just outside the Quarter) and some name dropping about current NO residents (Brangelina, Nicholas Cage) and people who grew up in the area (Ellen, Richard Simmons, Jimmy Buffet).

After the ride and some additional walking around, Geri headed home and I met up with a group of folks for a "Haunted Cemetery Tour". This walking tour was almost three hours long and quite interesting, even if it was long on the cemetery part and light on haunting (fine with me). We started in the heart of the Quarter and walked past several interesting sites on the way to Saint Louis Cemetery. I enjoyed the tour, and it was an easy walk back to the coach late in the afternoon.

Click here for pictures from today...

We decided to have dinner out, and I used OpenTable.com to make reservations at Emeril's New Orleans for an early seating. We took advantage of their free valet parking and had a very nice meal. Geri had a nice salad and Andouille-crusted Redfish, which was excellent (I'm still trying to figure out how to recreate a "crust" with sausage). I started with a Rabbit Remoulade and moved on to Panéed Veal with Crispy Sweetbreads. Paired with a great Melville Pinot Noir from our favorite California wine region (Sta Rite Hills), we had a great meal. Topped off with dessert (Geri's cheese plate and Port and my bread pudding and Cognac), we were filled to the brim. A great way to cap off a short visit to New Orleans...

Touring by car in New Orleans

May 12, 2010
New Orleans, LA

Today, we got a slow start (what else is new?) but did get out to see various parts of New Orleans.

As with many places, I've been to New Orleans on business but "that doesn't count". We also stopped near here, in Slidell, when we did a three-week-long mad dash across the country and back in our first motorhome, "The LearningMobile". We're not staying very long this time, either, but at least we're more centrally-located, just outside the French Quarter.

We headed out late in the morning, and our first task was verifying how we'll get back on I-10 when we leave Friday morning. When you're parked in the middle of a city full of narrow one-way streets with a vehicle combination that's 66 feet long, it's always a good idea to do some reconnaissance in advance. Fortunately, we can make a quick left out of the park, take the first right, and get right on the Interstate about 4 blocks away. Check.

Next, we headed toward the river and the French Quarter, checking out Jackson Square and scoping out places to park the car tomorrow when we do the walking part of the tour. From there, we went southwest into the warehouse district, spying tomorrow night's dinner destination (Emeril's - hey, we have to be touristy at some point!) along the way. We threaded our way along Tchoupitoulas Street, curving with the river, even though it's not visible from surface streets, toward the Uptown District. "Oh, hey, there's a Whole Foods"! Although we specifically needed olives, they had some other things we can't live without.

Supplied and sated (pizza slices), we headed back toward home, weaving our way to and through the Garden District following St Charles Avenue and the famous streetcar line (we'll save the $4 and see it from the car as opposed to the open-air, bench-seat trolley, thanks). St Charles Avenue is a major parade route, and the closer we got to the French Quarter, the more beads there were hanging from all the trees and power lines.

There's still a lot of construction and renovation going on. Uptown and the Garden District are obviously getting a lot of upscale investment, while neighborhoods in between sport a mixture of rebuilt and decaying buildings. We didn't tour the Lower Ninth, which is north and east of the French Quarter (the opposite direction from today's route), but I did note that at least one "cutting edge" tour company does a walking tour there. Not this time, thanks...

Tonight, we'll relax a bit and call it an early night so we can hit the ground running (well, at least walking) in the morning. It should be a busy day...

"If you think you're having a bad day..."

May 11, 2010
New Orleans, LA

...there's always somebody worse off. The last couple of days were interesting, starting yesterday afternoon.

Most of the day yesterday was mundane. We putzed, did prep work for dinner (Cornish Game Hen), and started getting ready to hit the road today. Since we weren't going anywhere in the evening, I decided to hook up the Rover to save time in the morning. I pulled it up to the back of the coach and started getting ready to put the cover on the front and hook up the tow bar, when I noticed a hissing noise. I thought to myself, "Hmmm, the people next door must be running their water wide open". Then I realized that the noise was coming from the Rover. A little bit of investigation led to the conclusion that we had a leaking valve stem on the passenger's front tire. Now, how the heck did that happen? And why now?

Well, we still don't know why the valve stem failed, although I'm pretty sure that they should have been changed when we had the new tires put on last fall, and probably weren't. I did a little research and found that there weren't any Discount Tire stores in Livingston but that we'd pass right by one in Beaumont on the way to New Orleans. After a quick call to confirm, I changed out the tire for the spare. It's great to have the right tools: 20 ton air jack - check; impact wrench for lug nuts - check. This made quick work of the swap, and we were on to dinner (and DWTS)...

Today, we were up early, checked out and on the road. Although the cross-winds continued to be brutal, we easily rolled into Beaumont and had the valve stem repaired. One of the nice things about Discount Tire is that repairs and rotations are free and they have locations all over. We've had work done in AZ, Washington, and now Texas. Other than 45 minutes of our time today, no charge.

The drive down US-69 to I-10 continued to be uneventful, and I-10 was its normal bumpy self until Lafayette, when we ended up in a total stop on the highway. A quick switch from XM to CB yielded the info that only the left lane was open ahead. When we got up there, we found a semi on its side across 2 of 3 lanes. and, that's when we realized that we were having a good day.

Other than some rush-hour traffic coming into New Orleans, the rest of the drive was uneventful. We're parked at a place called the "French Quarter RV Resort", right in the city near the French Quarter and the Superdome. Other than being right in the shadow of the Interstate, it's a nice park. I'm sure we'll enjoy our short stay here; we leave on Friday morning.

Cloudy, Windy, Steamy Texas

May 10, 2010
Livingston, TX

We've had a nice and quiet stay here at Escapees HQ in Livingston, TX. The weather's been sauna-like, with lots of low clouds moving through, pushed along by relatively brisk winds. Today, we took a ride in the "East Texas Piney Woods", checking out Lake Livingston which is actually a reservoir (largest solely within Texas) for Houston's drinking water. The area reminded us of the back roads in north-central Alabama, sparsely populated with lots of brick houses.

We ended up looping toward Livingston itself, stopping at the Wally World, resisting the temptation to take pictures of the patrons to post on the Internet, and picking up a few things we needed (and - of course - a few we didn't know we needed). This afternoon, we'll relax a bit and do some of the prep work for tomorrow's travel to New Orleans.