Enjoying Our Time at Desert Hot Springs, CA

Well, we finally made it to California for our winter trip, but it certainly wasn't easy.  When we left New Jersey on December 27th Bob had a slight cough and thought he was coming down with something.  By the next day he had full blown bronchitis and was wheezing horribly.  I was coughing as well.  We decided to change our plans and stay in South Carolina an extra day so that we could see a doctor. We were both on antibiotics, but neither one of us seemed to be getting much better. I helped out with the driving for the first time, which gave poor Bob a break - he was so sick!  We continued on to a campground outside of Tallahassee for one night, then pulled into the Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis MS.  Our New Years Eve celebration was a pretty sad affair, but we tried to make the best of it. Bob was getting NO sleep since he was wheezing so heavily.  On New Years day we figured it was time for him to go to the hospital.  There's a large hospital in nearby Gulf Port, so we figured that was the safest place.  The doctor in the emergency room thought that it was best that Bob be admitted because of his heart condition (he has a defibrillator/pacemaker because of a low ejection fraction).  After receiving multiple breathing treatments for two days Bob was released.  He seemed to be doing OK so we continued on.  It was a rough trip the rest of the way due to freezing cold temperatures all across Texas and New Mexico.  We finally arrived in Mesa AZ and stayed at Viewpoint RV Park for a week.  My youngest son lives in Gilbert, so we enjoyed visiting with him and his family during the week.  We took a day trip and drove on the Apache Trail into the Superstition Mountains, and it was as beautiful as we remembered it from our trip in 2010.

View from an outlook on the Apache Trail

Canyon Lake

We arrived on January 18th at Sands RV and Golf Resort in Desert Hot Springs, CA.  We're going to be here for two months, and we couldn't be happier!

We love this park and we really love the weather in this part of the country.  We had a couple of rainy days, but for the most part it's been sunny and in the mid to high 70's.  This week it's been in the 80's, which is just fine with us.  Time for golf, the swimming pool and hot tub!

The Golf Course at Sands RV and Golf Resort

We played golf once so far on the 9 hole executive course.  We're going to try to play at least once a week.  It's a great little course which is perfect for us to try to get our game back since we haven't played for almost two years.

Heated pool at Sands RV and Golf Resort

As far as the pool and hot tubs are concerned, we've been enjoying them nearly every day!  There's a gym in the building behind the hot tubs that we've been working out in.  Perfect!

Hut tubs at Sands RV and Golf Resort

Our campsite has plenty of room, and best of all we have lots of privacy.  All of the sites here have hedges bordering each side, and our site has a great view of the mountains.

Campsite 142 at Sands RV and Golf Resort

Bob enjoying the perfect weather!

View from the back of our campsite at Sands RV and Golf Resort

We've seen some of the sights around here, but we need to do some more exploring.  Here's what we've done so far:

Joshua Tree National Park is only about 45 miles from here, so we spent a day revisiting it.  I love this park - it has its on special beauty.

Joshua Tree National Park

View of Big Bear Mountain from Joshua Tree National Park

We took a walk down the Butler-Abrams Trail which starts from Michale F. Wolfson Park in Rancho Mirage.   The walk borders the Whitewater Wash, and then runs along the Morningside Country Club.

Michale F. Wolfson Park, Rancho Mirage

Butler Abrams Trail

Butler Abrams Trail in Rancho Mirage

Another interesting side trip we took was to Whitewater Preserve.  The preserve includes  a trout farm and some nice hiking trails.  We walked around the paved trail, and enjoyed a lunch by the trout pond.

Trout Pond at Whitewater Preserve

Trout at Whitewater Preserve

Paved trail at Whitewater Preserve

Bob and Mirra at Whitewater Preserve

There's plenty more to see and do in this area, but I think for the most part we'll just be relaxing and enjoying this gorgeous weather!

Skidaway Island State Park

We stayed at Skidaway Island State Park from Sunday May 4th  until Friday May 9th.  I reserved a premium site with full hook-ups.  This park allows reservations for a type of site but not an exact site, so after we registered we drove around for awhile to pick out which site we wanted.  There were not all that many premium sites left, but we found a nice big site to our liking, and set up camp.

The beauty of Skidaway is that it's only about 20 minutes away from Savannah and it's about 30 minutes away from Tybee Island.  This made it a perfect spot for us since we wanted to see both points of interest.

It was very hot and steamy during our stay here.  The temperature was up into the 90's, with bright sunshine all five days.  What a welcome change after the dreary weather we had been having.

Monday we took a walk on one of the nature trails with Mirra. 

We decided to check out Tybee Island on Tuesday since it was a perfect beach day.  We got there around 1:00 PM, easily found public parking, and sat ourselves on the beach for a couple of hours.  We finally got to go swimming - the water felt really good on such a hot day.

The beach at Tybee Island

Thursday was our sight seeing day in Savannah.  We decided to do the Old Savannah Bus Tour, and took the one where you can get on and off at any stop.  We got off to have lunch when we got to the river, then hopped back onto the bus figuring that we could go through the circuit again and get off at the points of interest.  That was a big mistake.  We got off to see the fountain, and by the time we got back on it was too late to get off at any of the other stops.  Still, we enjoyed the tour, and got to see lots of interesting things.  Savannah is probably one of the prettiest cities I've ever seen, and so full of history.  It's really worth a visit.

The Waving Girl Statue

Fountain in Forsyth Park

Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist

Mercer Williams House

One of the mansions that we saw was owned by the Mercer family.  Johnny Mercer wrote the famous "Moon River" - a river that we got to cross many times coming out of the campground.

 

We intended to go back to Savannah and go touring on our own for another day, but never got there - we just simply ran out of time.  Perhaps sometime in the future we'll be able to return and get to visit this lovely city again.

Henderson Beach State Park, Destin FL

We stayed at Henderson Beach State Park May 1-3.  This was our third visit to this wonderful campground. The extremely large and private campsites and the beautiful beach make Henderson State Park really very special.  Our campsite was a giant pull-thru which offered nearly complete privacy. 

I wish that we could have stayed here longer, but we were on our way home, so I only booked us for two nights.  The weather wasn't all that great - a bit cool and cloudy, so even though the water looked inviting, it was really too cold to swim.

Henderson Beach has paved paths leading to a boardwalk that goes down to the beach. 

It's a pretty walk down to the beach.  The magnolias were out, and brightened things up a bit.

Bob and I actually prefer Henderson Beach State Park to some of the other parks on the Florida Panhandle.  Even though you don't have sewer hookups as you do at Topsail Beach, the park offers much larger and nicer campsites.  We'd love to return and spend a couple of weeks here if we get the chance.  It would be especially nice to stay here in the summer and get to swim in that beautiful emerald water.

Bayou Segnette State Park, New Orleans and the 2014 New Orleans Jazz Fest

Campsite 14 at Bayou Segnette State Park

We arrived here at Bayou Segnette on April 19th.  We stayed in this park 10 years ago when we visited New Orleans for our 10th anniversary.  Our 20th anniversary is coming up this June, so we thought is was a great time to re-visit New Orleans.

Bayou Segnette is located in Westwego, LA which is about 15 minutes away from downtown New Orleans (on the West bank of the Mississippi).  The sites are very large and well spaced.  There's no sewer, but the sites have electric and water, and the campground has free wifi.  The bonus feature is that the campground has free laundry rooms.  I think that all of Louisiana state campgrounds offer this - what a nice feature!

Everything in this park is about flood control.  There are concrete levees all along the road where the Bayou runs, and it looks as if they've built new gates.

The levee wall at Bayou Segnette State Park

Levee Gate at Bayou Segnette State Park

The Bayou is very pretty, with lots of wild flowers growing along it - wild Iris and I think the pink ones are Mexican Primrose.

There used to be 20 cabins along the Bayou, but Katrina took them all out, and all that's left are pilings.

Remains of cabins after Katrina - Bayou Segnette State Park

On Monday, Mirra had an appointment for an "interview" at Camp Bow Wow where we would be boarding her for two separate nights - one when we went out to dinner, and another when we went to the Jazz Festival.  She got a few hours of free play time so that they could see how she behaved with other dogs.  We took the opportunity to walk around Lafayette Cemetery Number I in the Garden District.

Lafayette Cemetery Number 1 New Orleans

On Tuesday we decided to take the drive to "the end of the world" as they call the town of Venice.  It's pretty much as far as you can go on Highway 23 (the Great River Road), which is the only road that runs that far into the Mississippi Delta.  Hurricane Katrina devastated this area, and you can see that by how many mobile and manufactured homes there are.  Most homes were underwater, and only one school survived.  Most people lost their homes and simply couldn't rebuild.  Here's a picture of what Venice looked like after Katrina..

Wikipedia Commons - Venice after Katrina

It's not hard to image the place flooding so badly when you see how close the water is to the road.  This picture was taken from the truck, and the water comes pretty much right up to the highway.

Shrimp boats at Venice, Louisiana

This whole area is about fishing - sport fishing and shrimping - and OIL!  The oil and gas companies are down here in force, with refineries, natural gas plants, storage facilities - you name it.

Bob got a great picture of a Spider Lily while we were on our way back to the campsite.

Spider Lily

On Wednesday we dropped Mirra off at Camp Bow Wow and after touring the WWII Museum, enjoyed a delicious pre-anniversary meal at Emeril's Delmonico Restaurant.  Bob and I both got a cup of Gumbo, followed by the Shrimp Clemenceau , which was excellent.  After that we went gambling at Harrah's on the waterfront.  Neither of us won, but we managed to gamble for a few hours without spending much money.

Thursday we made an excursion to get andouille and boudin sausage.  We found excellent andouille sausage not too far away at Jacob's Smokehouse in LaPlace, but we had to drive another 65 miles into Cajun country to get boudin sausage.  Boudin is a combination of cooked rice, pork and onions. We finally ended up at Don's Specialty Meat Market in Scott, got our Boudin, and headed home to have it for dinner.  What a treat!

On Friday we took a hike in John Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.   We walked about two miles through some interesting swamp land with beautiful cypress trees.

Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve

This cypress must be hundreds of years old - a real giant!

On Saturday we took the drive down River Road to see the plantations.  We decided to take a tour of Laura, a Creole sugar plantation dating back to 1804.  Laura was owned by the French Duparc family.  You can tell immediately that it's a Creole plantation because of its bright colors.

Laura Plantation

What made this tour so interesting to me was that the guide (who was a Creole, and whose family had also owned a plantation) placed a huge emphasis on how horrible slavery was.  You got a feel for the suffering that the slaves must have gone through.  This tiny cabin actually housed two extended families, one on each side - possibly as many as 16 people crammed into this small space.

Sunday arrived, and Bob and I headed out for the main event of our Louisiana stay - the New Orleans Jazz Festival.   We were lucky to get perfect weather - partly cloudy and about 84 degrees with a nice breeze.  If the sun had been out all day we would have really felt the heat, but the sun hid behind the clouds most of the day.

We saw some great acts as we walked around and visited the different tents. One of them was John Boutte who sings the theme song from HBO's show "Treme".   There was lots of dancing going on around the Sheraton tent, featuring the Cajun band Fais Doo Doo.

We had a great time just roaming through the Fairgrounds.

I caught a parade going through the Fairgrounds:

At 5:15 the headliner, Eric Clapton came on, and blew the crowd away.

Here's a picture that I got from the Jazz Fest's Facebook page:

But here's all that we could see being so far back in the crowd:

What an outstanding performance.  Even though I could only see him on the screens, it was still great hearing him.  He's as good as ever, and hasn't lost anything.

It's been a great time in Louisiana, and I feel that we really got to see and do a lot while we were here.  It's one of my favorite states to visit.

Return to Gulf State Park

We pulled into Alabama's Gulf State Park on April 5th.  We camped here last year, and were really looking forward to our two week stay.  Things went a bit sour when we checked in, however.  Last year the policy was that you could rent the the Canal campsites on a first-come first-serve basis.  This year it ends up that you can only get those sites if you reserved them ahead of time.  Unfortunately when I reserved our campsite, you couldn't reserve the Canal sites - they changed their policy in mid-stream.  Much to my chagrin we were assigned a site on Quail Road.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that our pull-through site was absolutely wonderful, so my grumpiness about the whole thing quickly abated.  We set up camp and settled in for two weeks of beach and biking.

Unfortunately, neither the weather nor our health cooperated.  Bob and I both came down with some kind of upper respiratory infection that had us both under the weather for the entire stay.  Bob ended up going to a doctor to get antibiotics, and both of us took it pretty easy for the whole two weeks.  We did get to the beach a couple of days, but it was too cool to go into the water.  We didn't bike at all since neither one of us really felt up to it.  We did get to do a few things that really needed attending to - grooming Mirra and washing the RV.  Both were getting a bit dirty!

We went out to get a bird feeder since there were so many birds in the park.  Most of our days were spent sitting in our chairs reading and enjoying the many birds that were at the feeder - lots of cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, finches and even a red-headed woodpecker.

Although I was disappointed that we didn't get to do more, I have to say that if we were going to be under the weather, at least we had a pretty site and a beautiful park to recover in.  Gulf State Park is still one of our favorites.