Hammond, LA

Denham Springs, LA

OK, I foolishly thought my mistakes were behind me. Well, this one was technology related and not trailer related. But it is equally as painful a lesson.

So the story begins……..

Baton Rouge is the State capital, and this morning I visited the beautiful gothic Old Capital building now a museum and rental venue, and the new capital building where the State Senate and House of Representative sit.

Then this afternoon I headed just south of Baton Rouge along the Mississippi to Nottaway Plantation. The largest of the preserved antebellum houses in this historic region.

And of course, I got some great pictures (despite the grey day) ………. And then this evening, while importing them from my camera, I accidentally deleted them all. Sigh. I was tired, didn’t sleep well last night, and I know exactly what I did wrong, but once the delete button is hit all you can do is turn the air blue.

I have been told before, and confirmed with the GEEK Squad at Best Buy this evening that I can possibly retrieve the pics as long as I don’t reformat the card. So I’ve taken it out of my camera and set it aside to deal with when either I have time on the road or when I get home to try and see if that will work.

So, I may not have any energy to do a blog this evening, I’ll have dinner, and try and gather my thoughts and remember as much as I can and see if later this evening I have the patience to write. I use the pictures a lot to jog my memory so it’s a little difficult, but if I don’t get something down now, I will forget it later for sure.

I’m sorry, in particular, to disappoint Dane who is from Louisiana and who is along for my journey vicariously. Sigh.

Denham Springs, LA

Louisiana – It’s the 7th new state for my trailer and my 2nd new state on this trip. And so far I’m liking what I’ve seen. Of course, mostly what I’ve seen is what you can see from Interstate 10 as I follow it along southern USA. I left it for a while when I headed south into Texas, but have now reunited with it.

When I started off this morning from Galveston Island, I couldn’t see much more than 50 feet in front of my nose it was so foggy. It was extraordinarily warm and damp yesterday and I figured we were in for rain, but glad to have the fog instead.

The fog was unfortunate because I took an interesting route first thing this morning. Instead of travelling up towards Houston from Galveston Island, I took a small, free ferry ride from Galveston Island over to Boliver Peninsula, along the Texas coast. And from what I could see, we followed the beach pretty much the whole way along the peninsula before heading north to meet up with Interstate 10. The stilt beach homes on Boliver were built even higher than the ones on Galveston, I’m assuming since there is no seawall protecting them. Some of them had the actual dwelling built on the 3rd floor of the place with a huge deck area on the 2nd level, without any walls. They looked a little odd, until you realized the context.

Then it was not terribly interesting driving until I got into Louisiana. Almost as soon as we hit the state border, the landscape changed. All of a sudden we were right into bayou country. I wasn’t expecting that so far north of the Gulf. I had read that Interstate 10 was raised along this section and I thought it would be just built up earth, but no, it was causeway like, with trees and plants and water on both sides and sometimes just down the middle. For miles and miles. It was quite odd. But beautiful. Would be lovely to be here in the spring when the trees were in leaf but before it got too hot.

West and south of Baton Rouge is “Acadiana” territory. I have to do some more reading because some of what I’ve read said they didn’t come here directly during the expulsion from the Canadian Atlantic provinces, but rather left Atlantic Canada for England and France and then came to Louisiana from France. Others said they came directly. Perhaps it was both. I suspect I’ll have time to investigate that more fully. In any case, the reference to Evangeline on this sign reminded me of the poem of that name written by American poet Henry Wasworth which memorialized this historic event, and which I learned about when I was in Grand Pre in the first month of my North American journey, so long ago! (June 13th to be precise).

Just before entering Baton Rouge, I came over the Mississippi for the first time this trip, and expect I’ll do so several more times before leaving this state and Mississippi. I first saw it much further north on a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota a hundred years ago. I hope to go exploring along it, north of Baton Rouge after enjoying some time in New Orleans. Or maybe tomorrow.

I drove through Baton Rouge on the freeway to get to the RV Park, and got a couple of glimpses of downtown while dodging transport trucks and changing freeways, but I will go back in tomorrow to see the State buildings etc. It’s supposed to be rainy and cold tomorrow and in fact the temperature has already dropped 5 or so degrees from when I arrived. So I’ll see how the day turns out tomorrow and then decide.

My RV Park tonight is a newish and small KOA. My favourite kind.

Lafayette, LA

Lake Charles, LA

Port Arthur, TX

Bolivar Peninsula, TX

La Porte, TX

I want to thank Vancouver friend, Dane, for suggesting I make sure to stop at the San Jacinto Battlefield Monument. I would possibly have missed it if he hadn’t dropped the tip.

”Everything is bigger in Texas” is what you’ve heard about this state, and the monument to the San Jacinto Battlefield in La Porte, TX where the independence of Texas was finally won, confirms that impression and demonstrates their fierce belief in independence. The whole monument is super size. The doorway to the building at the bottom of the monument is huge but is dwarfed by the building itself and the building is dwarfed by the monument’s height. It was built between 1936 and 1939 and is the world’s tallest masonry column.

You’ll recall from my San Antonio blog post that the Mexican General Santa Anna defeated the stand by William Travis, Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo. Santa Anna (who reportedly had a rather big ego, called himself “The Napoleon of the West”) then went on to attempt to stamp out the rebellion and defeated the rebels at Goliad as well. The courageous stand at the Alamo helped to motivate the troops under Sam Houston who finally defeat Santa Anna here at San Jacinto. Houston tried the patience of his troops because of his repeated withdrawals but he was looking for the best advantage against the Mexican army which outnumbered his men two to one, and this was finally the opportunity. Houston mounted a surprise attack, taking advantage of a bad positioning decision made by Santa Anna. A small rise in the land where the monument stands and an oak forest helped hide the rebel forces. The battle lasted only 20 minutes and Houston forced Santa Anna’s surrender and secured the safety of the colonists and rebels throughout Texas.

There is a great movie in the museum at the base of the monument that explains the battle itself and puts it all into context. With that base of information, I headed to the observation deck at the top of the monument, right under the Texas star. The observation deck is 486 feet high and I got a great view of the battlefield but also the whole Houston harbour area. (I didn’t realize the Houston harbour is the busiest in the country).

Then I headed over to see the USS Texas, the last steam powered battleship, which is on display nearby. It was a much smaller ship than the one I’d visited in Corpus Christi, but equally interesting. One of the things I noted was how they used every square inch of space on the ship and bunks were stuffed into every possible spot.

I hadn’t really spent any time on the beach since arriving in this beach community!, so I headed back to have some lunch and wander the beach for a bit. It was overcast and humid day, about 22 degrees, not too much wind. Couldn’t have been more perfect. I lunched at a Galveston institution called The Spot. Great burger, chaos for service. Then wandered the beach and told some pictures.

I have also included some pictures of oil/gas installations and some random pictures of the beach houses just to give you a sense of what it looks like.

I’ll be pulling up pegs tomorrow morning and heading north and east and on to a new state for both my trailer and myself.

Galveston, TX

So, unknown to me, there are Mardi Gras celebrations in Galveston this weekend and next. It’s the largest celebrations in Texas according to the Galveston Chamber of Commerce. So I decded to get warmed up for next weekend in New Orleans in a more “gentle” environment.

There were mulitple parades all weekend, and the biggest of the parades was at noon today and I was there for it. Along with thousands of my closest friends. I can’t believe how much effort people went to in order to party hardy. RVs and trucks with trailers have parked on the Parade route for the past 2 – 3 days staking out their spots. People brought huge bbqs, and folding tables laden with food, and drink… Lots of drink. They look like they’re planning on staying a month, not just for the weekend.

I paid a donation to a local charity to get a great parking spot nearby and felt good about it too. I plunked down my folding chair in an empty spot near some other folks and in no time I was surrounded and talking to locals and visitors alike. They explained all the techniques involved in getting beads. Thankfully, none of them involved taking off my shirt. Some of the folks were pretty aggressive about it. You’ll see Johnny in many of my pics, the guy in the cowboy hat. His wife was practically falling over with the weight of the beads around her neck. One of the other ladies standing with us was joking around with him trying to get around him to get the beads instead of him. She managed to score a fun hat that lit up with LEDs. In the end, I had about 5 people all grabbing beads to give to me since I was a Mardi Gras virgin.

The parade was great. Lots of floats and a dozen or more high school marching bands, flag spinners, and dance troops. And all of them had something to throw to the crowd. Mostly beads, some small and cheap, others larger and more intricate, but still cheap. Some had frisbees, others plastic footballs, and the odd one threw out an odd Mardi Gras hat! The High School bands from throughout the area were fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed the music.

And as usual, it was the people that made it interesting and fun.

Johnson Space Center, International

Yup, you guessed it. I was at Space Centre Houston, the official Visitor Center of NASA Johnson Space Center today. And yes the above is actually the correct line used by the Apollo 13 crew rather than “Houston, we have a problem” which became popular folklore after a couple of incorrect lines in movies.

The visitor centre is set up just outside the perimeter of the Johnson NASA Space Centre. It has all sorts of static and interactive displays, theatres, movies, and live presentations.

It was Astronaut Friday which meant that there was an Astronaut speaking about his experience in one of the theatres. Today it was Michael Foreman, who was on two shuttle missions, in 2008 and 2009. He did so well at the spacewalk portion of his tasking on the 2008 mission that they sent him back in 2009 with two rookies to teach. He had been a Naval aviator and trainer before becoming an astronaut after applying 18 times. His message to young folks in the audience who wanted to be an astronaut was not to give up trying.

One of the two most popular of the exhibits at the Center is the Tram ride which takes visitors on to the Johnson Space Centre property for 3 stops. I had booked a “timed ticket” for this attraction which saved a lot of time spent standing in line.

The first stop on the tram line is Building 30, the Houston Mission Control Centre, which is now designated as a National Historic Site. Seems like just yesterday, not historic! This is where all the Gemini and Apollo missions, (incl. full mission control from liftoff to splashdown of the moon mission Apollo 11). There were literally rotary dials on the consuls and the buttons and switches seemed so ancient. They said there is more technology in one of the new watches than was in the whole room in 1969, and they sent man to the moon. Pretty amazing, really. The Mission Control currently being used for International Space Station monitoring is on the second floor of Building 30 directly below where we saw the historic one.

An interesting piece of trivia is that after the Apollo 13 mission, the mission astronauts were so thankful to the folks at mission control that saved their lives, that they awarded them with something special. It’s a plaque mounted above the water fountain with a mirror in it. The inscription said something about indebtedness they felt to each and every one whose face appeared in the mirror as the mission control staff took a drink.

The second stop was at the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which is a training facility for astronauts. I found it fascinating. There are bits and pieces of various components of the shuttle, international space station, and new Orion, as well as the Canadarm, rovers, and space suits that the astronauts use to learn and practise using in this facility. It’s also the place were if something comes up on the mission that needs to be worked out, they can use the facility here to try things out.

Orion is the next big thing, with its first planned 2 year trip to Mars, anticipated to be in 2030 or 2035 latest. Pretty small capsule for 4 – 6 astronauts. Orion had its first test flight on Dec 5, 2014 and it was blasted into space from Florida for 2 orbits, only 4 hours, to test the first set of critical parameters.

The third stop was to see one of the historic rockets, which I didn’t stop at in order to get back to the Space Centre as I had timed tickets to the second most popular exhibit which has only been open for a week. It was really interesting to see the exhibits inside the shuttle and 747 in Independence Plaza but I was starting to get information overload. I wandered through some more of the static displays and one presentation of what life was like on the shuttle and is like on the International Space Station.

On my way back from south Houston, where the Space Centre is located, I stopped at a Boardwalk and Marina in the town of Kemah on my way back to Galveston. I succumbed to the Bubba Gump chain of restaurants for lunch and had my first Po’ boy of this trip – a battered, deep fried shrimp one. I should have taken a pass. Well, that’s checked off my list and don’t need to do that again. But it was a beautiful day and I got to watch the boats come and go from my window seat overlooking the channel from the Gulf into the marina.