The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas

Little did we realise when we planned to visit the Alamo in San Antonio today that it is the anniversary weekend of seige of the Alamo. So, it was packed. There were people in costumes out the front of the Alamo re-enacting the battle. I had no idea before I came to Texas what The Alamo was, in fact I'd never heard of it. The Alamo was a fort where some of the Texan Revolution took place in 1836. For thirteen days a small band of about 150 Texan's held out against 6000 Mexicans before finally losing the battle and their lives. Amoungst the Texans who were killed was Davy Crockett. The place is a sacred shrine to the men who lost their lives fighting for control over Texas. Millions of people travel here every year to visit the place. We took a brief walk around it today with some friends of Jim and Pat, who happened to be in the area - Ned and Lorna. It was lovely to meet them and they gave us lots of hints and tips for the rest of our trip. We sat by the River Walk and had coffee with them.

After they left we took a walk up and down the river walk area. It was a cute place filled with little cafes, some live music, and little boats cruising up and down the river. We didnt take a boat ride in the end because we enjoyed the walk. We stopped at a cowboy type shop where Jimmie bought the cowboy hat he has been hankering after since arriving in America. He looks pretty cool in it. I noticed some Japanse tourists taking photos of him!

After our day in San Antonio we came back to the RV to crash. Annabelle has made friends with another 11 year old boy (who looks 14) and they have spent the early evening fishing together in the lake!!

Houston, we have a problem....

Have you ever driven for three days? I have! Ok, so not three days solid without a break. But we have spent three days getting to San Antonio Texas. Last time I blogged we were in New Orleans having a fab time. I never got to blog about the paddle boat ride that we took up the Mississippi River, or the Cajun meal we enjoyed, or having real french donuts and coffee at the french cafe in New Orleans that has been there since the city was built. I could have written a big old blog post about all of that. But we moved on and didn't have wifi, so you can always just look at the photos (see the Louisiana Album link in the sidebar).

Anyway, we are now in San Antonio, Texas. Although, as of yet, we haven't seen any of it as we just arrived and crashed out. We left New Orleans three days ago, and have been travelling since just to get here. The first leg of our journey took us to the edge of Louisiana, just before the Texas border. We drove there and slept over night. It was on the way to our second stop, Houston, that I noticed we had a problem. More specifically, I had a problem. Anyone who read my family blog will remember the time I fell down the stairs and broke my toes. You may also remember that a few weeks after that, I dropped a piano stool on my foot and smashed my big toe up pretty badly. The nail went black, and all sorts of yucky things happened to it. Just before we left for America it started looking like it was healing. The bad nail fell off and new nail was growing. Well, as is common after that sort of injury, the new toe nail started ingrowing into the nail bed and my big toe got extremely sore and red. Then it started developing a pussy blister and got just nasty. So, on the way to Houston I had to stop by a podiatrist and have a little minor surgery to the toe. How pleasant. I had my toe numbed with seven or so injections, then watched in horror as all sorts of torturous looking implements were used, as the surgeon chatted away to me about the horrors of the British NHS and how much better American medicine is. I had to laugh at one point when he brought over this amazing portable xraying machine that showed live images of my broken toe bones. He showed me the workings of my foot and where the old breaks were, as a special treat, because we obviously "wouldn't have technology like that in Ireland". This kerfuffle cost me $175 for the surgery, plus another $45 for a prescription. Not money I had intended on parting with on my drive to Houston. But these things happen. I almost died at the chemist when my prescription came to $45, after getting them for free at home. Still, you get what you pay for ... he has given me the mother of all pain killers. One tablet and you can't stand, talk, or walk.

We stopped just before Houston and slept another night (after countless drives up and down the interstate trying to find the camp site in the most treacherous rain). This morning we started day 3 of our drive through Houston to San Antonio. Houston is a scary place to drive through (maybe not quite as scary as New Orleans). At one point we were driving on a 14 lane motorway (7 lanes each direction) in the most intense traffic. People don't seem to acknowledge the whole "you'd be a fool to break the 2 second rule" thing when driving here and drive right up each others backsides. We had to change lanes countless times, in a 25 ft vehicle. Houstons roads seem to be built one above another. At points it was like spaghetti bridge junction. There were motorways above us, below us, either side of us, and all flying about at 70 mph with no gaps for unexpected stopping. It was scary as hell, but we made it through.

We stopped on the way at a place the podiatrist had told me to stop at. Buc-ee's. I'm not sure how to categorise it as a shop. It sells fast food, drinks, snacks, but there are no tables or chairs. It sells gas, cowboy hats, every imaginable type of jerky known to mankind, souvenirs, things made of beaver or cow, and postcards. But it was a great place to stop. There are signs all along the I10 saying "Buc-cee's - 247 miles". The fast food section works like our Argos at home. (Except Argos sells household furniture). One just uses the computer touch screens to order food, then a wee receipt comes out with an order number on it, and you wait to be called. Someone leaves your order in a little hatch area and there is no need for human contact what-so-ever. We could do with this at home where fast food servers rarely smile and have no manners at all (not like here in the US where all restaurant staff are delightful).

Anyway, Im waffling. We arrived at our RV park near San Antonio at 6pm and spent the evening bathing Barney, tidying up, and planning what to do over the next three days. And beyond. As of yet, I'm not sure what the plan is. I like Texas from what I've seen so far (just the I-10) On the way here there was the most amazing sky I have ever seen. It was just so blue and covered in amazing fluffy little clouds. It looked like a peice of artwork. Except if you saw it as artwork, you'd think the artist got carried away with the clouds and made them far too quaint, painting them the shape that kids would paint clowds. The grass is so green at the moment, and as spring has just started there are little red flowers blossoming all along the interstate. We noticed a lot of cactus in the grass too.

The kids were exceptional on our three day drive. They just sat in the back playing, reading or drawing, and we never heard a peep out of them. I was so proud of them and told them so too. We have about 12 days now to explore Texas and I'm really looking forward to it.

Oh, by the way...

I woke up this morning and remembered a few things I wanted to say in last nights blog, but forgot. We spoke to a few locals about the effect of Katrina on New Orleans yesterday. Most people seem to feel very bitter towards the government here. They feel let down, unprotected, and forgotten about, it seems. Over 300,000 people have not returned to New Orleans since they evacuated. One man we spoke to said that he thought the figure was higher than that. He said that people need to return to set up businesses, but that no one will return as there are no businesses or jobs for them. Apparently there are areas here that are just desolate ghost lands. I'd like to find them and take a drive there.

The man at Destrehan mansion house told us that at this time of year they usually expected more than 100 visitors a day to the house. Consider that its not summer either. But now, he said, they are lucky if they get 20 a day. And those 20 or less will all be foreigners. We asked him why, and he said because there are no residents any more. It's certainly not easy to see this from within the bustling French Quarter, so I hope we are able to find these desolate suburban areas where people have not returned.

One local told us that the government and the insurance companies are fighting over who should pay out. Because of that, no one is receiving any funds to rebuild with. The government say the damage was caused by the hurricane, so therefore the insurance companies should pay. But the insurance companies say that it was caused by the flood, which was the fault of the government. So both are able to get out of paying anything to the poor people who's homes and businesses were washed away. It's no wonder that the people here feel let down and uncared for.

New Orleans

I love the sound of the city at night. It's really hot and humid tonight, and sitting in the RV with the windows and doors open, the fly screens closed, listening to the sounds of the interstate traffic, and the odd police siren, feels kind of cosy and snuggly - the way it does when sitting inside during a rain storm. Having just typed that, I've heard a huge clap of thunder. It feels like the weather for a big storm. Really humid and muggy. I heard a shop keeper earlier mentioning something about the big storm coming.

The city is New Orleans, and tonight is our first night RVing in the heart of it. I had heard that the French Quarter RV resort was right in the city centre, but I was surprised at exactly how central it is. The huge superdome that became famous across the globe during the floods of hurricane Katrina, is literally next door to us. I remember seeing these images on the news after the levee broke and New Orleans was flooded - image 1, image 2, image 3. So that's right where we are staying now. Just under the interstate bridge, a stones throw from the RV park, are hundreds of homeless people living in tents. It's a bizarre site to see. I tried to get a photo of it from the RV whilst driving, but it didn't really show the magnitude of the amount of people living there.

We set off from Covington at 8am this morning, and our drive took us onto the longest bridge over water in the world! At 26 or so miles long, this bridge drives over Lake Pontchartrain heading right into Louisiana. We were all very excited about this, and the drive across it took about 25 minutes. Again I tried to take a photo from the RV to show just a tiny section of the bridge. You can see that photo by clicking here, if you want to. If you look closely you can see the tall New Orleans skyscrapers in the distant mist.

We didn't head straight to the RV park though, as we wanted to visit one of the sugar plantation mansions along the Mississippi River. The closest one for us to drive to was Destrehen. The house was built 200 years ago on 62 acres of land, which first was used for indigo crops, and then for sugar plantation. It housed the Destrehan family, who bore 14 children, of which only 3 survived to adult hood. Life was hard in those days, even for the rich. They owned many slaves who were skilled workers. The slaves were worth a lot of money, and were treated well if they were skilled. Slaves built the mansion, totally by hand, in just three years, and then worked on it and maintained it for many years after. We were give a tour around the house by a man who was obviously very passionate about the place. He was dressed in authentic clothes from the period. Destrehan house was eventually left desolate and fell into disrepair. Looters broke in and stole every thing of value, leaving only one thing - the marble bath (which was too heavy to take away). They even stole the fire places. It wasn't until recent years that the historical society took it over and raised funds to restore the building to its original state. We really enjoyed the tour around it and all learnt a lot from it. After the tour we watched a cooking demonstration in the old kitchen, then were able to stroll around the grounds. There are lots of photos from the house in the Louisiana photo album.

Since starting this blog post the most amazing thunder storm has started. I had an awful headache and went to lie down (I always get bad headaches during humidity when an electrical storm is about to break). I have never seen anything like this. Constant lightening, constant thunder and rain drops the size of bullets. From my window here I can see one of those big advertising billboards above the freeway. Its all lit up from underneath, and the rain is lashing against it in a way I've only ever seen on the movies. All the time I watched those American films where I thought the rain fall looked so fake and obviously added for effect, I never realised that this is actually what the rain fall looks like here! Like rain from a film set. Anyway, the rain is so heavy, and the lightening really doesn't stop for a second, and I'm rather worried about Dan. He went out for a walk about 2 hours ago, and is obviously sitting the storm out in a cafe somewhere. I get the feeling he may need dry clothes when he gets back.

So anyway, after our tour of the mansion house we drove along the river road to New Orleans. We were desperate to see the Mississippi river but there was only one point at which we could view it as the levee between the river and road is too high to see over. When we did eventually stop to see it Jimmie ran over as he wanted to be the first to put his hand into the Mississippi River that he'd read so much about.

The drive into the RV park was memorable, and scary. New Orleans roads seem to be constructed of mostly high bridged freeways. With lanes that chop and change, slip roads entering and exiting everywhere. I'm sure that without the sat nav we never would have made it. And whilst I was supposed to be navigating Dan to the RV park, I was also snapping photos of the super dome and homeless people and marveling at all the sites I'd seen on the news at home. Poor Dan had to tell me to stop and concentrate on which lane he should be in.

The French Quarter RV park is somewhat of a posh RV prison. It is walled, with barbed wire on the top, has a gate with a security code for entry, and has a security guard patrolling the grounds 24 hours a day. It makes me wonder what the area we are staying in is like. But the park itself is very nice. It's much posher than the nature loving places we've been staying in. Theres a pool and hot tub, gym, and showers & lounge area fit for a king. Along side the park is the interstate which goes over a bridge, so I can sit here and watch all the motorway traffic driving by.

Not long after settling in here we took a walk down to the French Quarter of New Orleans. The French Quarter is on higher land than the rest of New Orleans so it wasn't effected so badly from the floods. I've never been in a place quite like it. It was only a Monday afternoon, and once we got onto Bourbon Street there was music coming out of every pub, cafe and shop along the way. Walking along we just went from one jazz tune to the next, whilst the bustling bars and cafes looked so busy for the time of day. There were voodoo shops selling all sorts of weird and wacky paranormal paraphernalia, and shelves upon shelves of hot sauce - all with weird rude labels on!

We walked right down to the Mississippi River and watched the paddle boat getting ready for a tour. Tomorrow we will spend the day walking around the area and hopefully plan to take a cruise along the river. I'm hoping to try out some good Cajun cuisine, but this will be dependent on funds, and Dan's mood. The architecture in the French Quarter is just stunning. I spent all afternoon taking pictures of buildings that no ones gonna want to see. Don't forget to check out the Louisiana album for all the photos though. There are some of Barney holding a lizard that he caught himself! Well, I guess that's enough for now.

Louisiana

I've updated our map. The red lines are where we have been, and the green lines are where we are going over the next 2 weeks. The black dots are our stopover points.

If you haven't noticed Annabelle's post, it is just below this one.

As you can see on the map, Texas alone is almost the size of the states we have already travelled put together. We could easily spend a whole month there but just don't have that much time. Dan has put together the Texas route as I pretty much planned everything we've done so far. We will be stopping at various places including Big Bend (this is a stunning place - look it up on google images), San Antonio, the Rio Grande River, Guadalupe Peek, and wherever else takes our fancy.

So, as Annabelle posted earlier, we are now in the state of Louisiana. We got here two days earlier than planned. We had planned another two nights in Mississippi, but when we left our RV park and started driving (with no RV park booked for the night) we found that the rest of the gulf coast was just a desolate wasteland, totally destroyed by hurricane Katrina. The beautiful sea side areas that were there are now gone, and so we ended up driving until we hit Louisiana. So we looked through out RV book and found a site that had spaces for 2 nights, up in Covington, Louisiana. We have already booked 2 nights in the French Quarter RV park, right in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans for tomorrow and Tuesday, so we had to find somewhere to stay till then.

This RV park here in Covington is one of the oddest so far. Its like RV city. There are 270 lots here, and half of them are permanent residents while the other half are travelers like us. It is a nice place, don't get me wrong. It's in a lovely wooded area, with ponds, a kids park, a games room, a shop selling more than any other RV park shop I've been in. During the summer there is a swimming pool and water slide. Theres a little beach with a creek. But the people here just make me laugh. The RV behind ours must be a permanent resident and his RV lot looks like the local pub, with beer signs, tables n chairs, and American line dancing music blaring out! But the thing that made me chuckle was the gang of hard core golf carters. It was the most bewildering thing I've ever seen. A young dude, about 23 years old, looking 'well 'ard' drives around in his modified cooler than anyone elses golf cart, with his ghetto blaster chugging out American country tunes at full volume... wait for it... followed by a posse of fellow golf carters who are the strangest looking bunch I have ever seen. They ranged from age 2 to about 70. One carting couple looked well into their retirement years, whilst the guy in the next cart was about 18. In another cart was a 35 year old man with his 2 or 3 year old kid, then in the next a married couple, and in another a woman of about 50 or so. There must have been about 9 carts in total. They just drove in their carts, round and round the park, in a gang, blasting out music. Even my kids stopped to take a second glance, then came in to ask me what they were doing. I was totally puzzled by it.

Anyway, today we did absolutely nothing. For the first day in a month. Yes, we've been here a full month now! Considering we are all living in each others pockets in a 12ft space with no rooms except the tiniest toilet, I think we are all getting on pretty well. When I say we did nothing, I mean we went no where. Dan spent a few hours planning the route through Texas that we will take in 3 days time, and I took the kids to the park and games room where Barney learnt to play snooker in his own special way. He plays it a bit like crazy golf, bless.

Tomorrow we are doing a part of the trip that I've been really looking forward to. We are heading down to New Orleans where we have booked two nights in an expensive (by comparison) RV park right in the heart of the French Quarter. We are going to leave pretty early in the morning and head to the Mississippi River, following the river road past the sugar plantation mansions. We plan to stop at one of the mansions for a tour, and spend some time along the river, before driving to the French Quarter. On Tuesday we are going to spend the day wandering around the French Quarter shops, cafes, restaurants etc. It should be great. Then we have one night at a quick stop over RV park on the edge of Louisiana before heading into Texas for the 2nd quarter of our trip (see the map above).

After one month of traveling none of us are ready to go home yet, but there are things we all miss. All of us, without exception, miss our beds. Barney misses his toys. I really really miss marmite on toast (they don't have marmite here and we don't have a toaster). We all miss nice bread, British chocolate bars, and proper chips. Dan and I really miss having a bath, and I'm fed up of wearing the same two sets of clothes day in day out. I'm sure in another 3 months time the list of things we miss will have lengthened considerably. I do not miss the weather, working in the shop, or cleaning the house. And none of us miss the TV.

Edit - I forgot to mention that last night we all cuddled up on the bed in the living room area of the RV (ahem - if you can call it that) with pop corn and watched Forrest Gump on the laptop. Dan fast forwarded the dodgy bits so the kids couldn't see that, but we all really enjoyed it - especially since we have now been through Alabama, seen the bayous, and learnt a bit about shrimp boating. It made the film so much more exciting to watch.

louisiana by Jude

We said goodbye to Mississippi, and set off for Louisiana. The RV park we are staying in has mini golf, a mini beach, a shop, a park, a games room and a swimming pool with a water slide. But because it is winter (even though its hotter than our summer!) it is closed and covered in green slime.
In the games room, there are four pool tables, loads of game machines, a football thing, two sofas and a T.V.
Over here they sell coke milkshake, ice cream and all sorts. Me and Sam got a coke ice slushy. Luke got a Fanta one.
Me and Sam had to make the bed when Sam lifted up the side of the mattress to find bugs and mold! My Dad took the mattress off and he cleaned it, while my Mum sprayed the bed with bug spray and cleaned it.

A day in Biloxi, Mississippi

Here's a map update of our travels so far. The red line is where we have been, starting from Orlando Florida, and the black dots are the places we stopped along the way. So far we've been through the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Next we head on to Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico.

Today turned out to be a really good day. This morning we decided to take the self-guided walking tour of Biloxi's historic district. However, when we got to the street where the Visitors Centre is supposed to be (containing the maps we needed and the start point of the tour) we discovered it had been completely blown away by hurricane Katrina. It took us some time to locate the new temporary visitor centre. The walking tour took about an hour. Luckily it was a really pleasant day. Taking the walk really opened our eyes to the devastation that hurricane Katrina caused, as many of the old listed buildings were destroyed or just not there any more.

The tour started in the Biloxi Green, a patch of greenery that once housed the visitors centre. Here stood a memorial to the people who lost their lives in 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit the coast of Mississippi. The memorial is made of bits of possessions found in the buildings that were totally destroyed. The wall of the monument is exactly 12 ft high, to represent that the flooding in Biloxi Green reached 12 ft deep during the height of the storm. We took a photo standing next to it to help show how deep that really is.

The tour took us round the quiet old streets that were once the heart of this city. The buildings that remained were Victorian, as well as Creole.

At the end of the tour we stumbled across the huge Hard Rock Casino and Hotel. Dan couldn't resist going inside for a peek. Although children weren't allowed in the casino, we could see right into it and walk along the edge. The noise from the lines of hundreds of fruit machines was horrific. I'd go totally mad if I had to work there. The machines were lined with so many people, mostly extremely overweight I noticed, staring like zombies and filling slots with coins. It was a disturbing sight really. So many people, who looked as if they sat there every day of their lives, totally transfixed by a machine. Once we passed the casino, still inside the Hard Rock hotel, we discovered the best all you can eat restaurant on the planet! Had it been the evening we wouldn't have been able to afford to eat there, but it was still serving the lunch menu, and we were starving. For a cost of only 6 pounds per adult, and 3 pounds for the big kids (Barney was free) we were treated to the finest buffet in the land! A meat carvery, an asian and chinese section, proper huge shrimp, an Italian and pizza section, plus a huge bakery. I just don't know how they afford to make the food and pay the staff for that amount of money. Even the drinks were included. We all had a plate of chinese food to start, followed by meat from the carvery with potatoes and wedges, plus loads of shrimp and then deserts. We could hardly walk by the end of it. Barney ate his own weight in shrimp, and Annabelle suddenly went off of shrimp once she found out what it looked like unpeeled! I had to laugh at Barney who thought he was actually killing the shrimp himself to eat it. He sat with a plate of them, and a knife, and said to each one "I'm sorry, it's time to die now" before cutting off their heads and passing them to me to peel! Each time he picked one up he said "poor fella!" before stuffing them into his mouth. That boy really does like his shrimp!
After our mammoth feeding frenzy we headed to Gulport were I had discovered the most amazing discovery centre for children. Usually admission to the centre is $7 per person, whether adult or child (which, I have to say is good value now that I've been there), but on a Friday evening between 5-8pm admission is free, due to a local business who have sponsored for this to happen. Well, happy days! I love free stuff. This place was something similar to the play section of W5 in Belfast. My kids had the most amazing time there for three hours, and it didn't cost me a cent! It was packed with exciting things for kids, and Dan & I spent most of the time wondering why there was nothing like this when we were kids. Outside were some great tree houses, and inside were all sorts of things from climbing areas, to shrimping boats, to dressing up areas, a Mexican cafe, and a Winn-Dixie supermarket. We headed back to the RV at 8pm with three shattered kids, and two shattered but happy parents. And none of us were hungry!

Tomorrow we are moving on to another part of Mississippi (not sure where yet) before driving into Louisiana where we will be staying right in the heart of the French Quarter. as well as visiting the Mississippi River, touring a big sugar cane Mansion, and driving through the Bayou's.