Well most of it is crap except of course the Brougham, our home and/or project for the last 11 months. I would do whatever possible to leave it with some family or friends who can use it while we travel in the trailer till I can work on it more, but everyone I know is thousands of miles away. So we have to sell it due to the excessive costs of having an RV, trailer and truck – insurance, gas and possible extra costs at parks for being selfish hoarders…and I don’t have a drivers license.
Anyway, throughout our travels I have tried to take photos of the Brougham, most of them have Ross in them so I didn’t use those but what I had left over I made a video for its sale. I went into excessive detail with the craigslist add as well, going over every repair and addition I could remember to try to seek out people who actually give a crap about vehicles (as opposed to ads that say “74 dodge camper, runs and drives $####, mechanics special). So here is my sad sale video, well, stills made into a slideshow and put on youtube, with music from youtube’s music selection which is totally terrible.

Ross already sold the 5th wheel hitch, goose neck adapter plate (both came with the truck) and our hitch shelf and the only junk laying around outside now is the hitch shelf extension and adapter, and half of Ross’s extensive tool collection. We have no idea how moving and driving with the trailer will be, it hasn’t been moved since we bought it and neither of us have driven with a trailer this long. Truck and trailer together will be over 50 feet long and interesting to maneuver in.. or not maneuver in. Planing on how to pack things without them flying around while we drive, tomorrow.

Jude park has been really great to us. Even if we’re not the most social people, the owners, previous and present, have been really lenient about having the RV here and us staying so damn long. About 70% of the people here are men working locally, construction or otherwise, staying in older trailers and driving big trucks. The other 30% is a regular rotation of older couples you never see and people crazy enough to stay in tents in this humidity (usually they’re put in the very back next to the trailer shaking loud train yard). I guess when coming to New Orleans, staying close to town to party is better for most people than staying a little further, where you can see the swamps and armadillos in the state park.

Jude has a pool, which through the owners, has gone from bug infested mud puddle to clean, resurfaced and lit. It used to get used about once or twice a week by people who mustered up enough to bear the nastiness for a cool dip but now there is almost always someone in it throughout the day – or the hot tub next to it.

The only negative things, that I cant wait to have a break from, are the really cramped spots, with barely enough room to extend your awning (depending on who parks next to you) and the crashing train yard that I cant even go explore due to a massive poisonous snake filled wall of vines and barbed wire. Seriously.

The south itself is what has made it bearable to stay here so long. As much as I love the southwest, if this was Pecos, Texas, Id have driven off in the RV by now – even if only into a ditch or off a friendly canyon. The weather has been consistently interesting, storms, heat, humidity and always awesome clouds, and the fact that it’s one of the most interesting cities on the planet, has kept us fairly busy although with working weekdays, we don’t get out as much as I would have liked.

Hopefully these are the last few days, although we still don’t have a set destination (probably west Florida then west again?).

Susa has been doing really well on the leash. I had put the harness on her a couple times in the house before finally jumping into the leash on her first visit to the vet. She was really good besides destroying my shirt at the sight of people, cars and especially a weed whacker. She sat in the waiting room and watched the other animals go by, not even flinching when a huge hyper dog went by. We don’t have a cat carrier but who needs them anyway when you have a leash cat! I’ve always wanted a cat that would walk on a leash. Shes got the leash part down, and she doesn’t struggle with it or freak out at all.. but the walking has actually yet to be seen.

Chena is as always adorable and unconventional. I got her into the habit of climbing on tables and walking on concrete walls in Argentina during walks at the park. Though once she went to jump onto a wall, unleashed, that had a 12 foot drop onto concrete on the other side. Now I make sure to keep a close eye. I guess I got into the habit of wanting dogs comfortable with height having had a wolf hybrid as a kid that would climb trees and a boston terrier as a teen who would walk up and over cars while we walked and balance on my wood fence. Plus I’ve always wanted to be in the circus (my own of course) so strange animals is kind of my thing.

With all the time not moving so much, I’ve started making some more time for crafts. Trying not to spend every waking hour at the computer though I certainly have enough work, projects and photography to occupy me for years. I bought pewter trays for necklaces and tons of jewelry stuff, though still having trouble perfecting the drying process of the epoxy on the trays, I can use my own photos or drawings in each. I also made a hideous little felt monster of which I hope to improve on soon but I mostly don’t have time till the weekend.

Susa and Chena suffer much from the heat and my crafts. Susa is often in trouble when my craft things are out because she cant keep her paws off them and Chena is forced to lay on the floor while I use the couch. When the AC is not on they pretty much just rest and wait for it to come back on. Once in a while the AC throws a switch so we don’t push it too hard. Yesterday the power got shut off outside because of a short or excess power usage (no idea what caused that except the AC) and we had to flip a switch at the source. Hopefully the AC holds out for us, this weather is mostly too much to bear alone, especially when we’re trying to work all week.

Rent is due tomorrow and it’s looking like we’ll be paying for another month. We didn’t want to be stuck here this long but don’t have much choice without a truck. I’m not so sure the people want us here too badly anymore though. There are several long term people here but I get the feeling with the combo of us technically being “stuck” and the Brougham taking up extra space (and looking funky parked out front like a car  - or even in the back covered with a tarp), they are starting to get annoyed. I’m paranoid though, especially when it comes to what other people expect of me – so maybe Ross should just talk to them.

Louisiana Armadillo at Bayou Segnette State Park

Since I decided like 15 years ago that New Orleans was my favorite US city, thanks to Ann Rice  no doubt, theres no way we could come for only a week, or 2 even, and no way we could get away with just hanging out on the outskirts of town, never going inside it. Naturally, we rented a car for the weekend to head into the center and take a look around. It was the first time we rented a car so far and was actually pretty cheap. We went out Friday night and of course walked down Bourbon Street, but avoided the busier bars. I made a list of places that sounded interested or offbeat, Ye Olde Original Dungeon, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (a bar owned by a pirate and supposedly the countries oldest continuous bar) and Yo Mamas where we started the night off with a garden burger.

Saturday we headed to find a vegetarian breakfast and found 13 Monahan in thw Marigny district to be the only one so far. We spent the rest of the day walking around the French Quarter and Marigny, then drove to the Garden District where we ran into Lafayette Cemetery and walked around a while. For lunch we got some dinner at another Vegetarian place in Marigny, Cafe Bamboo at the Dragon Den. They have a fake chicken there thats pretty much the best I’ve had at  a restaurant, good texture and taste. After eating it was getting close to the voodoo tour I paid $40 for online. We still had to go all the way back to the camp to let Chena out to go to the bathroom; it was a mad rush through the French Quarter (where you go an average of 10miles an hour) and onto the freeway, then back through the same thing. We’d planned to park in Marigny and walk the 15 minutes to the meeting place of the tour but arrived downtown only 10 minutes before 7:30 when it started. Ross dropped me off at Rev. Zombies House of Voodoo where the tour was already gathering. I hate tours but was interested to see one about Voodoo in New Orleans. I turned in our ticket and waited in line while Ross tried to find parking with an almost dead cell phone. The tours started gathering in groups of about 15 people. As time went on I kept moving to the back of the line, hoping to give Ross some time to catch up. Finally the last group gathered at about 8pm and we started walking down the street. I called Ross to try to tell him how to find us but his phone died mid directions. I didn’t really know what to do. The group turned off into Pirates Alley and I tried to decide to ditch the group or hope he finds us, 30 seconds later he somehow did. Unfortunately but ok in the end, by going to the back of the lines I had gotten out of the Zombie tour and into a regular Haunted Tour. No signs or information about this difference during the group gathering process of course. It was interesting anyway and we learned about some truly gruesome history – yellow fever epidemic, civil war hospital and Dauphine the slave torturer, all in the French Quarter. Our tour guide held back no details on yellow fever, amputation or the state of Dauphine’s mutilated  slaves.

Lafayette Cemetery

Even jesters use Technology

Sunday was a different story completely. I woke up at 7am to get a drink of water, by 8 I was on the floor with a trash can next to me puking. I was in horrible pain and constantly nauseous but insisted we make use of the rental car while we had it. Every bump in the car was like a knife in my stomach. We made it to Magazine Street where lots of vintage clothing stores and cafes are but even walking felt like daggers. All the smells of the street didn’t help either. Throughout the city open sewers stink up the intersections and each cafe and restaurant provided a different set of nauseating aromas. The RV was no better, every smell but the new clean car smell was making me sick. We took an excruciating drive back to Marigny where Ross got a burger and I got a small salad, whose smell immediately made me push it to the other side of the table. After that we decided to head back to the RV so I could lay down, day ruined in my book, and from that point I was sick and basically unable to eat for 4 more days.

On Wednesday night Ross finally came down with the same thing,making its source even more confusing. The water at the state park wasn’t necessarily the safest water, although we filter it. I was sick directly after drinking  - though Ross drank from the same cup, and Ross was sick directly after a shower almost 4 days after me. The night before, 12 hours before I got sick, we shared some fries and fake chicken nuggets; but a 12 hours to 4 day delay for food poisoning? Although I was less sick after 4 days, I still had a sore stomach after everything I ate, making it discouraging to eat at all. We decided to get another rental car and a day early this time (only $30 more) so we could go buy some pro-biotics and yogurt as my mother had suggested. Ross improved over the weekend but my stomach continues to be really sensitive to anything with spice or flavor. Indian food that Ross made had be back at the trash can for hours and since I’ve been sticking to mashed potatoes, cereal, bread and pasta – boring. Hopefully this will be over soon; its horrible when in order to eat I have to prepare for hours of sharp shooting stomach pain, though nothing else at least. I started to read allot about bacteria in water and food poisoning and with only the one symptom its hard to imagine what it could be. Would be nice to know so I could avoid it in the future at least…

We spent this last weekend (3/5-3/7) discovering more neighbourhoods in the city; Magazine Street again, this time finally getting some shopping done at Buffalo Exchange, and a neighbourhood that was the worst hit by Katrina, the Ninth Ward. There were many empty spaces and most of the standing buildings were unoccupied and still had the FEMA markings on them. One building we decided to park next to while we ate out takeout also had markings from the Humane Society “2 dogs”. Its always horrible to think of what the residents and animals of the neighborhood went through. I took a photo of some graffiti I liked (not realizing it was painted over a FEMA marking till I saw it on my computer) but didnt really take many photos in the area. I love taking photos of dilapidated buildings and wreckage but this just wasn’t the same. People died in this neighbourhood, dogs drown, people homeless because of a storm and the fact an irresponsible company like FEMA left them waiting. I saw no reason to take photos, I don’t take photos for shock value.

After we left, we decided to head back towards Magazine street and St.Charles Street. A neighbourhood with huge mansions, towering cathedrals and the gorgeous Toulane University. It was definitely a contrast, as much of the city is. We stopped to use a bathroom at a McDonalds and once I saw a Borders books across the street I got into a crafty frenzy. I haven’t actually made thing this trip… somehow I’ve managed to too be busy or too tired and sore after work to manage that but I intend to change it. I bought a beading book and a “cute” crafts book, then we went to Michael’s for some supplies (because JoAnn’s was closed) and headed for the worlds most disgustingly sweet gelato sundaes.

Sunday was our moving day but the place we wanted to move to was full till Monday afternoon. We drove the car and RV to a Walmart and hung out for the night, returning the car in the morning working till 2. I’ve become increasingly annoyed by the lack of space for 2 people and a dog in the RV, so I had to enlarge my work table. Before the move we headed over to Home Depot and had a piece of wood cut, which is not strapped to my existing table with a bungee. Better than a table barely wider than my laptop, now I can actually use a mousepad and mouse!! Future improvements may include as much as a whole new trailer. We are both feeling very, very cramped in here and I’m sure Chena’s nearly insane.

The new park, Jude RV Park is our new home for an entire month. It’s closer to town and should give us some more time to look around some more, rental car or not. They even said they’d work with us if we ended up with a trailer, truck and RV all at the same time. Nice people.

I’ll try to update more often, assuming I’m not on the floor next to a trash can.

seven thirty, french quarter

Cocodrie, LA one room school house

Coco Marina, Ross and the Brougham

Coco Marina, A ship called T-bag

Little house on the coco, Cocodrie, LA

The Road to Cocodrie, LA

Shells in Cocodrie

It was only 9 when we finished out food but we headed over to Walmart anyway. We wanted to see a movie but will all the bad reviews, I’m still afraid to see The Wolfman and nothing else was playing. I love Benicio too much to watch him flop. I might still go anyway and think it’s fine. I usually don’t read reviews but I cant remember the last time a movie I wanted to see really bad had got a 20-30% approval by rotten tomatoes and paid critics.. a sad state. I suspected the effects were terrible but that rarely bothers me when a story is good – sadly the story is said to also be total crap. We decided to save money by just eating Thai and watching a movie at home. I wanted to see a large male comedian flop around like an idiot, so between what was on instant on Netflix for John Candy and Chris Farley, Beverly Hills Ninja won. Sad that I would rather watch Beverly Hills Ninja than The Wolfman but that’s how afraid I am right now.

Boondocking at Walmart almost always works out pretty great. We get left alone far in the back of the parking lot – by security, customers and other RV drivers, and we have a bathroom open 24 hours. We run the generator if we feel we need extra electricity (than our backup batteries can provide) and we can cook, run the heat and do anything that doesn’t involve running water. We even got to see some cops search a guys car right outside our front door – an unfortunately uneventful event, but nevertheless -something, and we left feeling good about our 40 year old RV as the guy in the Southwind motorhome next to us was stuck with his hood open and looking grumpy. It was also the first time we left before the other RV’s in the parking lot – and we left at 10 so we were shocked, but nevertheless we finally WON! (dork)

Cocodrie, LA

We drove to Cocodrie pretty much immediately, heading south on highway just barely elevated out of the swamp. The weather had managed to pull itself out of its extreemly long slump to give us a 71 degree day, humid and windy in telling of the coming storm. When we arrived in Cocodrie we were pretty impressed. We expected what was at the end of the last swamp highway, a stilted fishing town with one closed market, but instead got a stilted fishing town with a closed market AND a closed marina/restaurant/boat rental! It was actually pretty though, unlike Holly Beach and Creole. Aside from a couple nice houses, Creole had no awesome trees, fishing boats names “Big SexSea” or a bubbling outdoor pool. Cocodrie is a fisherman’s wet dream destination town as we deducted. The whole area is full of things they call “camps” which are basically rental cabanas on the water with docking, parking and of course, the pool. Said on the marina website to be the best fishing in Louisiana, while completely surrounded by swamp, several lakes and the gulf of mexico, we really couldn’t doubt it. There was even a small airport for say… boats that land on water? Men who jump onto marlins from helicopters?  Unfortunately the cabanas go for $75 and up a night or we might have rented one.  There were 2 trailers with hookups parked among the cabanas, causing us to get giddy at the thought we might be able to stay for the week, but on closer inspection – those were the only 2 empty spaces with hookups and they were probably just the “houses” the owners of the lots chose to setup. It was a really interesting town and reminded me of the town in Robin Williams Popeye, although much smaller of course. Anyway, Ross decided to take a look at the bushings and try to tape them into place, so me and Chena walked around and took photos. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many little skeletons stacked in one place as I did in the mountains of oyster shells in Cocodrie.

Chena on the oyster mounds

We left disappointed that we couldnt stay and made it into New Orleans about 5:30pm. We drove around the French Quarter till after 6:30pm, the biggest vehicle on those narrow streets, and checked into camp just after 7. More on that tomorrow!

I’ll post some more photos tomorrow when I have better internet. night!

All the buildings here are practically new looking, cabin style, with unpainted red wood, painted concrete floors and cushy rubber mats everywhere. Clean showers with closing frosted doors, rather than the usual nasty plastic shower curtain that touches you while you shower ( in an attempt to make you barf) – and even a separate door to give you privacy and space to change (some seriously make you change inside the shower or out in the open bathroom). Lots of toilet paper and paper towels, rather than hand dryers that don’t work or nothing at all to dry your hands on (let alone soap to wash your hands with).  The laundry room has nice new machines that don’t smell like pee, a big HDTV with Satellite, a DVD machine (currently unplugged for some reason), a soap dispenser and a change machine. Best of all, we are practically the only ones using the bathrooms as usual so there’s no awkward bathroom moments with strangers.

There are about 20 trailers here, ours the oldest I think (as usual) and we haven’t really seen anyone except this one horrible man who leaves his dog outside in a kennel, rain or shine.The lady who works here is nice and there’s lots of stuff to walk to nearby, a Casino with a restaurant, a Gas station for snacks, every fast food chain you don’t want to eat at, one Mexican restaurant, a Rite Aid, a movie theater and a few mechanics and parts stores.

On top of being superior to any place we’ve stayed so far, It’s also one of the cheapest places we’ve stayed at only $135 a week. They also have a heated pool (when its not as cold as it is) and rent peddle boats, canoes and golf carts on an hourly or daily rate and even though its a little too cold to use them, the option is pretty nice. If we ever get a chance before we leave, we hope to get out on the water at least once.

Therefore, even though it’s nearly Mardi Gras, we are staying another week because this we will miss places like this dearly when we leave because most of the places to come are going to be pieces of crap.

The have bike lanes in Baton Rouge!

After the fiasco in the swamp, we ended up staying in Baton Rouge for just a few days. Friday was my Birthday, which I’m comfortable with saying now that its finally over, though you’ll have to guess my age because I haven’t settled with that yet. Ross did a little research during the day Friday, looking into places to take me for the festive event. He found a Lebanese restaurant that was pretty nice and reasonably priced. They had excellent soft falafel and flavorful hummus but soon after leaving and feeling stuffed we were hungry again. Just a side-note, if you can go inside it and eat or drink – and its not fast food, it will have a TV or 10 with sports on it.

I know this seems rude but isnt that a famous actor/director?

We left with the intention of heading for either an Irish pub, British pub or a pirate bar and just as we exited the restaurant we noticed we were next door to The Cove, the “pirate” bar. It wasn’t at all what I expected but it was pretty cool anyway. They had hundreds of beers from around the world – pillaging all ports, but their only real attempt at a pirate theme was about 20 pirate flags hanging from the ceiling. The bar was also in a strip mall, which seemed odd but my cream stout was good and the patrons weren’t too annoying. When we moved onto the next bar, also in a strip mall just a mile away, we started to wonder about the chances the third bar had in the “impressing” department.

The second was the English bar, The Fox and the Hound was more like an Applebee’s than an English anything. We shared a Dead Mans Ale, a Portland beer that we were surprised to see there, and headed 10 more miles on the freeway to downtown in search of Happy’s Irish Pub. After searching for parking for about 20 mins and being the only RV driving through the crowded drunken filled streets of downtown, we ended up parking about 4 blocks away (luckily). There were cops on every corner and beads on every girl and boy. I don’t know if that’s normal or just a “Mardi Gras month” thing but we’ve seen enough beads on the street and on people to consider them as common as missing roofs in these parts.

Happy's Irish Pub, Baton Rouge

Saturday we got up early, for us, and got a few things done before heading out of town. Our neighbour, Butch, who had invited us to his Superbowl party the next day, hoped that we’d come back for the game, but directed us to the nearby Bluebonnet Swamp anyway. Bluebonnet was probably about as close to the Swamp as we’ve really gotten so far because the man-made path goes completely in and over the outer edges of the swamp. To get that deep in the wild we’d need some galoshes or a boat, and I’m seriously considering the galoshes. We didn’t see anything but a small lizard while walking through the swamp and on the trails but I took lots of photos. Back at the visitor center, they had about 50 cages filled with native poisonous snakes, some turtles and 3 baby alligators.

We then started our drive south towards… well, marshy looking land according to our google maps, seeing a great abandoned looking graveyard next to a trailer graveyard, and the White House Plantation (by complete accident) as we drove the road that swerves along the Mississippi. It was a monstrous mansion with fountains and multiple servants buildings; big enough that we got a pretty good look without having to even stop. It was almost dark and we found out later they charge about $20 a person for a tour at many of the plantations.

That night we stayed at Walmart in Donaldsonville, a non 24 hour one (no bathrooms!), ran the generator and loosely planned our next days travels and destination. After watching Reno 911 till 3 in the morning of course.

destructohouse

Louisiana has been one of my main goals of this trip and we finally made it late Saturday night. Of course this was after a surprise mechanical failure or two. We only drove the RV twice during our stay. Prior to our new u-joints in El Cajon we had a similar vibration so we called a couple Sears in town to see if they would check and maybe guarantee their work. Both places ultimately refused to check out the RV because it wouldn’t fit in their garage, so they claimed, even though the garages are probably the same at every Sears and we fit fine into the El Cajon one. Either way, we ended up having to go to Firestone instead who agreed to check it out while we went to get some food. When we came back they said the problem was most likely related to the rear differential, and/or our transmission. While Ross was talking to someone about the risks of driving with a bad differential, I checked the tranny fluid to find out that it was about a full 3 quarts low. This was a surprise since we didn’t need to check it till California last time – for the first time since we bought it in August. It had suddenly started going through tranny fluid really fast. We put in a partial bottle and made it to a nearby auto parts store for some tranny stop leak and several more quarts.

We didn’t get out of town till after 4 and still had many many hours of driving left. Luckily.. our Alternator stopped working before we even got out of Texas. It wasnt quite dark yet which was good because our headlights didnt have enough power. When the engine started to sputter as the spark plugs lost power, we tried to pull into a gas station but instead of a safe place to park we stalled in the entrance and had to roll back into the emergency lane of the highway. We parked there for an hour while we charged the battery with the generator and watched some saturday night live on the gas stations internet. After a charge we moved to a real parking spot and took off the engine cover to check out the alternator. A large black wire was completely detached so we found our problem easily enough, at least we didn’t have to wait all night for a mechanic or worse – several days like we did in Tonopah Nevada the last time we have Alternator problems.

We got into Louisiana about midnight – I think – and headed south as per the GPS to the town of Creole. Now.. we made a bit of a mistake, as per our random and hopeful nature, in heading south from the main freeway 40 miles in search of a place whose number was disconnected and had no reviews online. I wanted so bad for there to be an RV park in a tiny little “town” called Creole in the Louisiana Bayou. Once we arrived to some supposed location and found only houses on stilts (which was awesome), we looked again at the maps and found another possible RV park in the next town to the west. While driving that direction, a 27 mile drive, I noticed something odd about the road. It stopped as soon as it got to a river that connected a lake to the Gulf of Mexico. GPS was telling us a ferry was up ahead, something we didn’t at all expect. I looked it up on my iphone and it turned out that it runs 24 hours a day and connects southern Louisiana commuters to Texas. We then had the worry of whether or not they would take a vehicle our size but we imagined they probably would and continued on. The alternative was a 110 miles drive completely about the lake so we took our chances.

When we arrived at Holly Beach, we drove in circles in the 3 street town looking for any signs of an RV park. A good number of people in the area lived in trailers and 5th wheels, their property set up like a personal RV park with hookups and a driveway for their truck. I imagine they all work on the ships and factories in the area as there certainly weren’t any other business around. Some lots were abandoned with things strewn about as if they’d left in a rush. When hurricanes are an almost yearly thing, having a motor home or trailer is probably the smartest thing you can do. Weather gets bad – take your home and family to Baton Rouge – your land will still be there when you get back and much less of a mess to clean up if you don’t have a building to pick up. It was already 6am by the time we stopped looking for the park and we were both getting fairly sick. Our colds started in Austin, but driving and a change of climate did us no favors and I went to bed with a sinus benadryl. We parked at the end of a dead end road next to a fire hydrant hoping to get a few hours of sleep.

The area really reminded me of Salton Sea. In Holly beach especially, there were lots for sale on the few roads – one directly on the beach. It looked pretty much like Salton City minus the desert. But in Holly beach there is no motel and not even a proper store. One trailer had a coke machine outside and a sign, it vaguely looked like it might be a store but not enough to go check.

We woke up at 11am with a vehicle directly outside our door. I pulled back the curtain to see a work truck – I hoped not a tow truck – running with no one inside it. While we scrambled to figure out what to do and who it was they started to leave. It was a fireman, although not really a fire truck, who may have been checking to see we weren’t blocking the hydrant or possibly if the RV was abandoned. Really odd since the hydrant wasn’t even anywhere near any buildings and it was muddy and wet out so a brush fire was unlikely. Either way, no ticket, so we were glad.

On the drive east towards prospective RV parks – along the coast/marshes, other towns had brick buildings that looked fairly stable although I saw a highschool in Cameron with bricks pulled straight out of the wall – just holes where they were. Minimal damage compared to what probably happens to the people who have built in a week style houses and buildings, some even not on stilts. The towns looked more like giant construction sites with their office trailer buildings except some with boats and 3 flights of stairs to the front door. The houses themselves were giant car ports for boats and trucks. I still wondered what people did with all their cars when the flooding came. Their house might be safe but what about all the stuff under their house? I guess they just move it all early enough. One lot was particularly depressing because everything left outside was fairly valuable – a nice weight set, kids bike, basketball hoop and huge generator. They obviously left in a hurry. There was a tire swing on the tree that survived the storm and must have been an interesting thing to see flapping in the wind. Graveyards seemed about every 2 miles at times, some with the concrete grave boxes sticking half out of the ground and disheveled. Of course branches and logs everywhere you looked, making the already cluttered swamp even more of a beautiful disaster area. Having a dog is a great reason to take photos as a dog chenas age pees pretty often – digital photos here and film coming soon!

We got into Baton Rouge at 1am the next evening, stopping at an Equestrian park that happened to have RV hookups but was no RV park. Early morning we moved to Night RV park and so far its been a genuine Baton Rouge experience with a neighbour named Butch and an invitation to a Super Bowl party.

ross at the cemetery