February was a whirl wind of traveling between Florida, Louisiana, California, Louisiana, Kentucky and back to the Southeast. We can relax now that it is March Madness!
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| After a few days of R and R at the beginning of February, we stored the RV in New Orleans and drove to Shreveport, LA to visit Glorine's sister Sally and husband Les. The weather was a bit cool so we spent the time indoors doing a lot of visiting, eating and playing card. The girls always won. | With the crazy winter the USA had this year, we lucked out and got a "small" taste of the cold and ice. The morning we left Shreveport, all the Interstate highways heading back to New Orleans were closed. So we took the back roads and enjoyed the quaint little towns along the way back. |
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| Back to New Orleans, we got on a plane to LAX to spend time with Carmen and her family. We joined Mike and sat in on Sierra's first grade classroom while the kids enjoyed a mid-morning Valentine's treat. She loves school and has lots of best best friends. | Later that day, we sat in on Dakota's third grade classroom and watched her and her classmates working with fractions by making a meatball recipe. 1/4 teaspoon of this and 3/4 cup of that, etc., and then mixing it all together. Nice Valentines treat for a vegetarian! |
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| While we were in California it was Hunter's birthday--all week long. Everyday brought a new present that he could not wait to open. He has moved on from trains and is now into LEGOs and the more the merrier. The smaller the pieces the more mommy and papa got to help assemble. | For Hunter's birthday, we spent the night at LEGOLAND California, outside of San Diego. It is one of seven LEGOLAND's, making it the second largest theme park in the world, following Disney. The hotel suite was decked out in a pirates' theme that slept all seven of us just fine. |
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| The hotel lobby and adjoining sitting area included more Legos than one could image. Everything was made out of them. That evening, the kids built cars and entered them into a contest for the best LEGO Car. The girls did great, but did not get gold, silver or bronze. | Princess Eva is one of 13,000 LEGOLAND employees, but she made it extra special for our two little princesses--Dakota and Sierra. She was making sure that our gargantuan buffet breakfast was suiting us OK. We all got most anything and everything we wanted. Hmm, hmm, what a meal! |
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| Hunter is a big four year old and all boy. He loves to rough house a bit and building and breaking LEGOs is right up his alley. While in California, we got a call from Larry's friend Scott who informed us that his wife and one of our dearest friends, Joy McBrayer lost her three year battle to Leukemia. | We flew back early and drove to Frankfort, KY to attend her visitation and funeral service. This picture was taken at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, one of many trips we enjoyed together over the past 25 years. In loving memory, Glorine created a collage of pictures. CLICK ON PICTURE TO VIEW. |
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| Following the funeral, we drove to Lexington to meet up with friends David and Diane. We took the back roads along the rolling hills of central Kentucky. Even in the winter, these horse farms are beautiful. This drive brought back wonderful memories of the great friends we made while living here. | After a 13 hour drive back to New Orleans, we set up the RV and got it ready for guests. Dennis (Larry's cousin) and Nancy flew in from Arizona just in time to take in some Mardi Gras events. Like parades, gathering as many beads as possible and dining at Felix's Oyster Bar for fresh seafood. |
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| And what a stash of beads we got. It was a hoot as we walked down Bourbon Street and girls would come up to us asking us for some of our prettier beads. We always enjoy our travels with Dennis and Nancy, including a 10 day excursion to Germany and two one-week trips exploring the beauty of Mexico. | In New Orleans, we stayed at Pontchartrain Landing, a combination RV Resort and Marina. One morning we walked along the canal and saw this 20' x 100' house boat. It has three bedrooms, two baths, three patios and two 500 horsepower inboard engines plus a massive generator to keep things running while not tied up at shore. |
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| As we got closer to the boat, Glorine started visiting with the couple who own it and before long we were inside getting the grand tour. Roger and Nancy are from Ohio and moved here following Katrina to help out. His business is crushing concrete and making it into sand and gravel which is used to make new concrete. For rent, he provides the marina with three truckloads of gravel each month. A win/win situation! | We drove downtown, specifically to eat at Cafe du Monde. The Original Cafe Du Monde Coffee Stand was established in 1862 in the French Market. The cafe is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It closes only on Christmas Day and on the days that occasional hurricanes pass by. They seem to be always busy with people happily waiting for up to an hour to get served. |
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| Cafe Du Monde is a traditional coffee shop consisting of dark roasted coffee, served black or mixed half and half with hot milk. Their Beignets (pronounce ben-nay) are square French-style doughnuts, lavishly covered with powdered sugar. We ate a bunch here and got some more to go. | After our afternoon treat of Beignets, we walked along the mighty Mississippi River that runs through the city. The Cafe du Monde is not more than a block away, but once we crossed over the dike, we could not believe the thick fog. Here we are trying to watch a big cruise ship leave port. |
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| After a couple of days in New Orleans, we moved to Biloxi, MS. It was a beautiful day and as soon as we saw the white sugar sands of the gulf coast, Larry was ordered to stop the bus so we could all dip our toes in the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Biloxi casinos and free buffets filled our evenings. | The next day we toured the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, also known as the Beauvoir, which is French for “beautiful view.” Davis was the first and only president of the Confederacy from 1860 to 1865. These folks still refer to the Civil War as "The Cause for Southern Independence." |
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| We got to pet the sharks and sting rays at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulf Port. Its focus is to care for sick and injured marine mammals in the Mississippi-Louisiana-Alabama region of the Gulf Coast. The hurricanes that whip through this area keep them mighty busy. | The Institute has programs on conservation, education and research of marine mammals with displays on the damage done by hurricanes and the British Petroleum oil spill. We were all amazed at all the devastation that is still visible along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. |
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| On to Alabama and Gulf Shores State Park. After Katrina wiped out most of the piers in the Gulf, Alabama decided to build the longest fishing pier out into the Gulf of Mexico. It is so long (1600') they put restrooms half way out and included fish cleaning stations along the way. | Years back, Nancy spent some time here in the Gulf Shores and talked about this place called Florabama. Back then, it was out in the middle of nowhere and is now surrounded by high rise condominiums and tee shirt shops. It still serves $1.00 beer and well drinks. Somethings never change. |
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| Florabama is proud to call itself a five-star honky-tonk bar. No cover charge, two floors of continuous entertainment, dining and dancing. We heard that the $1.00 drink specials end during spring break, which is most of March, so we made it under the wire. Great musicians and great music. | On a ferry ride to Dauphine Island we past this oil platform--one of 80 off the Alabama coastline and one of nearly 460 in the Gulf of Mexico. This rig drills for natural gas and sits in 11 feet of water, but drills to depths of over 20,000 feet. Gas is then piped to the mainline for processing. |
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| Dennis just finished building a "tiny house" in his back yard in Arizona and was fascinated with these two-story skinny homes on Dauphin Island. Each had a covered boat dock behind them. We wondered how people got up to the second floor and decided it is not a 55 and over community. | When it wasn't raining, regardless of the wind, we walked the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores State Park. As you can see, not a soul could be found, so it was all ours. Beach combing reaped some cute clam shells, but the washed up jelly fish and star fish remained were we saw them. |
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| After a challenging walk on the beach, we took another stroll along State Park trails. Nice paved paths gave us options of one mile or five mile treks--we chose the first. Along the way we spotted this alligator resting on the "other" side of the creek. What a great find! | We took this tour boat out into one of the bays to see birds and hopefully catch some dolphins swimming nearby. Wow, were we amazed at what we saw--dozens of dolphins swimming, diving and doing acrobatic tricks for us. The tour guaranteed we would see some and they delivered. |
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| We had three cameras going and Glorine caught this prize winning photo of three dolphins, each at differing points of diving. CLICK ON THE PICTURE to watch a video clip of these beautiful creatures playing with us. | After our great dolphin experience, we heard people talking about these guys "fly boarding." We learned it is a device that is attached to a Jet Ski and once attached you can fly like a bird. CLICK ON THE PICTURE to see for yourself. |
February's web page includes February 1 through February 28.