Amarillo

We are in Amarillo Texas. We stayed a week at Amarillo Ranch RV park. It is a very nice RV park with a indoor heated pool and hot tub. I have taken advantage of the pool.

We went to the Big Texan and had a nice dinner. We rode in the limo from the RV park.

Charlie had a nice steak and I had BBQ pork ribs. The food was fantastic. It was a lot of fun. They have a 72oz steak and trimmings, if you eat it in a hour you get it free. There is a camera on the person eating and you can watch it on your computer. Well Charlie called his friend John and he turned on his computer so he could see Charlie on stage with a napkin that said hi John.It was a lot of fun. We took some pictures.

 We both sat in a extra big rocking chair and got our picture taken,
you know things are bigger in Texas.

 We took home enough food for a couple meals. Then Charlie went down and got some Rocky Mt Oysters a couple days later.




We went to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. It is 120 miles long and 800 feet deep and is the second-largest canyon in the United States.

 Palo Duro Canyon State park is more than 30,000 acres One of the nations most magnificent scenic byways. We enjoyed the vistas of color and beauty. The different geologic layers of beautiful colors.

We went to Amarillo Zoo. It was a small zoo.

                               

 It was very clean and well taken care of. We saw some Fantastic animals. One of my favorites was a Serral cat.

 Well I am a cat lover so there were Bobcats, Tigers, Lions, Lioness, Wallaby’s, Black handed spider monkeys and lots more. It was a lot of fun.
We also went to a Cadillac Ranch.

 The worlds only! Ten Cadillac’s buried nose down in a field at the same angle as the Cheops Pyramid.

They are in a farmers field and you can paint them all you want. People were all over the place painting all kinds of things on them.
We will be headed toward Kansas. More to come.
Ginny

Back on the road

We left Lake Charles March 12^th . We were there for 5 months. We enjoyed our stay. It feels nice to be back on the road I always enjoy all the new places and new things to see.
 

Our first two nights back on the road was out of Jefferson Texas. Corps of Engineers park on Lake O’ The Pines. It was a very pretty campground / lake and we were lucky to get a spot there as spring break had just started . We drove around and went to the dam. There were a number of people fishing and I saw a man with some crappie.





They were quite large and real thick would have liked to catch some of them and eat them. We were leaving the next day so we didn‘t do any fishing.

Lake Texoma

We drove into Oklahoma where we stayed at another Engineer park on Lake Texoma for 6 nights. It was close to Durant Oklahoma. We saw all kinds of horse statues in the town and some were made with scrap medal. 

 One looked like a Ford tailgate. I have been walking the campground to try to get some needed exercise. It is a nice park overlooking the lake.Where there are some pretty sunsets.  


 We stayed a extra day as a storm was coming from the direction we were headed. It had lightning and thunder so loud it scared you out of bed then the endless rain. The host came down to tell us that if a tornado came to come wake him and he would unlock the bathrooms. Why he just didn‘t unlock them for the people I don’t know. Well I am very thankful one didn’t come and the news said we could get some hail the size of golf balls. Glad it went some where else. Reba and I didn’t get much sleep that night. I had my nose to the window and Reba walked the 5^th wheel. The next day I was ready to get on the road but Charlie told me the news said there was more storm to come. I wanted to crawl in a hole. Well he looked it up on the internet it looked like it was gone. So we got on the road, thank goodness!
We then drove to Vernon, Texas where I was a able to do the laundry and get a good night sleep.
Then back on the road. We are in Amarillo Texas for a week now and have some things to see. More to come. Ginny

More Mardi Gras Celebrations Lake Charles

We are still in Lake Charles Louisiana. We have been here since October enjoying the winter .We have enjoyed the fresh gulf shrimp, black eye peas, jambalaya, boudin, gumbo, and many more southern dishes. We have even tried alligator on a stick and it was very good. We have gone to some of the Mardi Gras celebrations. We went to the Royal Gala and seen some of this years costumes they are beautiful

. We have gone to see some of the parades where they throw lots of beads. Some are at night and the pictures don’t turn out.

We saw a lighted boat parade that was very beautiful on Lake Charles they even throw beads to the people on the shore.

Mardi Gras is music, parades, picnics, floats, excitement ... and one big holiday in Louisiana.

  

The schools are closed for three days. Everyone is wearing purple, green, and gold; and adorned with long beads caught from the beautiful floats. During Mardi Gras, all of the businesses and roads are practically shut down -- people are walking everywhere and meeting new friends. People are dressed in crazy costumes, kids are everywhere, and they love it! People bbq on the street on Fat Tuesday waiting for the parade. We saw some beautiful costumes and enjoyed all the beads that we caught some are very beautiful. We will be leaving this area around the12th next month.



Not all the beads we got .More the next day.



More to come Ginny

Mardi Gras 12th night

    

                    We went to a Mardi Gras 12th night celebration last night.
A glittering entrance to the Mardi Gras season, the Twelfth Night celebration at the Lake Charles Civic Center draws thousands to see the grand promenade of the kings, queens, and captains of more than 50 krewes.
 
The Twelfth Night tradition parallels the three kings’ entry at the ancient nativity twelve days after Jesus’ birth.  The 2011royal court waved goodbye to all in preparation for the 2012 court. In the spirit of gift-bearing, everyone present at the Southwest Louisiana celebration was given a piece of king cake, and 12 grand prizes were given to visitors who found a surprise in the cake. They gave away a scooter, TV, I-pod, laptop, microwave lots more nice gifts.











It was dark in the center some of the pictures didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked. I forgot to bring my movie camera which would have been nice. Some of the costumes were over 10 feet tall setting on the shoulders on men and women and the average weight is 50 lbs.  

They are gorgeous and they use lots of feathers and bling. We plan to see a few of the Mardi Gras celebrations as we are here a while longer. More to come.     Ginny

Christmas In Louisiana

                           Happy New Year!!!!

   

Lake Charles

Happy New Year 2012 to all. We have had some wonderful times this past year some happy and some sad. We are  hoping this year will be a great year .



We are still in Louisiana where we spent the Holidays. Here in our park the owner had a potluck Christmas dinner a week before Christmas. He furnished a great deal of the meal with Turkey, Ham, brisket, dressing, yams. It was a great meal.

 

Glen and Charlie Christmas Dinner

We had a surprise when a fellow bus driver Glen and Helen from Bend emailed Charlie telling him they were coming to our park for a week at Christmas.  We got together and did a lot of visiting. They had us over for Christmas dinner  Glen cooked Turkey breast on the BBQ it was wonderful.

Glen and Helen Lake Charles

 The kids sent us all kinds of nice things for Christmas.

electric fry pan

We missed being with the kids for Christmas it is never the same when you are away at the holidays. Charlie tricked me into opening my presents Christmas Eve and he saved his for Christmas morning.

Christmas morning he brought his present to the bed and started  opening them it was quite a sight.We got more presents after Christmas.

Creole trail Calcasieu Lake

We stopped and watched some people crabbing with a small rope with a piece of turkey on the end. They throw it in the water and wait until the rope moves then you have to pull the rope in very slow and the other person nets the crab it is blue crab. You can catch any size or sex here.

Ladies crabbing for blue crabs

 A few days later we took Glen and Helen on the Creole Nature Trail. It is a trail that winds through the bayous, marshlands and shores along the gulf of Mexico. It was a beautiful drive.

We went to the Southwest Louisiana Natural Wildlife Refuge Complex Visitor center too.

National Wildlife Refuge  Visitor Center

wildlife refuge

We didn’t see any alligators the weather  had been cool and they weren’t around. We stopped at a small restaurant on our way back where we had some Louisiana cuisine. Charlie and Glen had chicken and sausage gumbo. Helen had gar sandwich I had a pulled pork poboy. It was very good.

Gulf channel

Then the New Year was upon us. The people in the south love there fireworks and they set a lot off. Although not as much as they did in Alamo Texas.
We had a New Year feed at the club house Jambalaya, cabbage and black eyed peas and the fixing. The traditional meal for new year. It was pretty good. The Mardi Gras is a big thing in Louisiana  so we have plans to see some. More to come.

Jambalaya

Ginny

Our Winter Home

Some of you that regularly visit Ginny’s face book page already know that we have settled in Southern Louisiana for the winter. We found a nice park on the East side of Lake Charles. The park is far enough out of downtown and off the main roads that it is very quiet. Most of the residents are local workers and we hardly ever see them.
We have started to learn the main roads and Ginny can now find her way to the thrift stores, fabric stores and JC Penny. So she is feeling good about the area now. Lake Charles, the lake, is a shipping port to the Gulf of Mexico. Even though the Calcasieu River runs into it, it is brackish water (salt and fresh). It is amazing to me that the salt water and tides would affect a lake this far away from the Gulf. Our elevation is only about 5 feet so that probably has some influence.
Hurricane season is over for now and the weather has been very mild. Eventually it will get to near freezing but we had that in New Mexico and Texas last winter too. In fact it was colder there than it was in Oregon several times.
Well unless we win a state lottery or catch a state record fish there probably won’t be much going on, on the blog. Keep up with Ginny’s adventures in shopping on her face book page if you want and we’ll let you know when we are back on the road.
Until then,     stay warm and healthy.

Charlie

Louisiana

Five acres we stayed on in Louisiana

We pulled in to our friends house in Homer Louisiana  on Monday October 3rd. Our jacks for the fifth wheel beat us there . Charlie got started putting them on. We found the brackets were a little different so had to buy a small grinder to help with the installation. We finally got them on and working and boy did it feel good to get unhooked from the truck. We were able to go to the store and look around to see what we could see. Our friends Maryland and Gilbert we met last year in Deming New Mexico and they spent part of the winter in Alamo too. They had bought a home on 5 acres and were working on fixing it up. They had electric , sewer, and water hookup for us so it was nice. Gilbert had a critter working over his lawn thinking it was armadillo. He got a trap and the next day he found a opossum in it .He sprayed it with a little green paint  to see if it would come back .It didn’t come back but another one came to his trap. It was fun to see what was going to be there next.



There neighbor had some goats and they were so cute. They had collars on and bells on there collars .

Lake Claiborne

Lake Claiborne

We went to lake Claiborne it was about 8 miles down the road from them. The water was pretty low they were draining the lake to fix the walls. There are a lot of homes on the lake it is a pretty lake. Northern  Louisiana  is pretty dry. We were there for a week our internet roamed on another tower and was very slow. We had a nice visit and headed to find a park for the winter. We are now in Beaumont Texas looked at a few here. We think we found one in Lake Charles Louisiana headed there tomorrow. Our grandson and future daughter-in-law got their first deer and our boys got theirs too. So proud of them all.


More to come Ginny