Tag: road trips

crossing Louisiana

On Saturday we left New Orleans early and continued westward through Louisiana. Following the historic Old Spanish Trail HWY 90 was the plan so that we could see more of the real area rather than the artificial world of the Interstate. The real world of Louisiana is certainly not a place I need to see again, and the rough roads made it feel like I was riding a bucking bronco most of the day. Took hours and hours to go just 150 miles and the day was supposed to be an easy 300 miler but at 3:30 in the afternoon there were still 15 0 miles to go. Not a fun thing when it’s windy and trying to find the RV park and set up in the dark. After watching many miles off trashy trailers and garbage and dumpy stuff along the old highway we bailed and got on I-10. What a relief that was! The trash gave way to open road and scattered off ramps with the general generic stuff, but at least it was clean.

A bit of a bright spot in the morning included several miles through the swamps off the gulf coast. Found out that the difference between a swamp and a marsh has to do with trees in the water versus herbaceous plants in the water. The swamps were endless, with bayous appearing occasionally. Also found out that the official definition of a “bayou” is a small waterway off a larger waterway with slow moving water. The bayous we passed were trails winding off into the swamp, but didn’t see any boats or people in them, and more often than not there was floating trash. Sad.

Stopped in an historic town called Morgan City, looked for the Visitor Center which for no explainable reason was closed even though it was listed as open. Christmas, I guess. Wandered through the town to search for historic buildings, and found a huge seawall holding the river back all along the main street, which actually had nothing off interest at all. Maybe the view of that huge blank seawall was the draw, who knows. Found an alternate bridge over the river that looked pretty scary, in bad need of a paint job and left the burg behind as we continued west.

Keeping to the HWY90 route gave the opportunity to travel to Avery Island, another bright spot in an otherwise fairly dismal day. Avery Island is the home of the Tabasco Plant, and consists of thousands of feet of old salt dome that forms a hilly landscape that stands out dramatically surrounded by Louisiana flat wet fields. Took the factory tour, watched the video, walked the lovely grounds, and checked out the Tabasco Country Store. While there a couple of guys showed up on bicycles who left San Diego about 20 days ago. Hmmm, same as us in a motor home! They were headed for Florida and it was fun visiting with them for a bit. Tabasco sweet pickles, silk scarves, tee shirts, and recipes filled the store and tasting Tabasco flavored vanilla ice cream is an experience quite unforgettable. I didn’t buy any.

Leaving Avery Island, however, takes you back into the Louisiana boring flat dirty stuff, so getting on the freeway again was a good thing. Finally crossed the state line into Texas at sunset, and it was one of the longest sunsets I have seen. The glow just lasted forever. We both laughed because the minute we crossed into Texas things started feeling better, more familiar somehow, more western, more open. Amazing that even Texas could feel good. Drove by Vidor when my sister used to live and opted out of a side trip to the gulf coast because of her vivid descriptions of smells and trash on the beach. I have seen enough good beaches that I didn’t need to waste time to find out about this one. Thanks Sal.

The campground we chose from the CampClub USA book was right along the freeway, was open, was very small, called Turtle Bayou. The proprietor was a very friendly older man full of helpful conversation and offers off assistance as we set up for the night. The space was right at the front of the park, a pull through so we could get going fast in the morning, so it wasn’t until we left the next day that I saw the really pretty bayou right there in the park.

New Orleans

This morning we woke and made a plan for “what to do in New Orleans if you have one day” from the Frommer’s internet site about the city. The plan worked fairly well and we walked to the French Quarter and began out day with Café au Lait and bignettes at the famous and historical Café Dumonde on Decatur Street. Classic New Orleans experience, with lots of street actors, street art in the square, and people sitting around drinking coffee. Then a walk along the Mississippi on the Moonwalk to the ferry that took us across the river to Old Algiers. Didn’t get off the ferry and just rode it back, but got a great view of the city from the river and some historical information about Mardi Gras displayed well in the terminal.
The fog was lingering, in fact it never lifted all day so I bought a warm fuzzy jacket that said “bourbon street” and we explored some of the shops on Royal Street and ate the traditional “Muffaletta” sandwich at a restaurant that was probably as old as the city itself. The sandwich is a treat of ham, pastrami, salami, some cheeses on a soft big round seeded roll with olive salad pickles and peppers piled high. One was plenty for two people and the internet search had already warned about this so it wasn’t a surprise. Walked through the French Quarter winding our way home and had a chance to visit the oldest above ground cemetery in the United States at St Louis Cemetery. It was fascinating, and in the fog made for way too many photo opportunities. We even found the tomb of a big family who emigrated from Malta in the late 1700’s and produced some very prominent New Orleans citizens.

We took a nice long break at home, reading and watching some tv, resting our feet, writing, and left on the little golf cart one more time to walk to the Canal Street stop for the street cars that go to the Garden District. The St Charles streetcars are historic electric trolleys, just like the ones in San Francisco without the hills of course. Interestingly, most of the passengers were local working folks and not a lot of tourists. Another noticeable thing about the part of New Orleans that we visited is the lack of Hispanic people, The news reports that the black folks aren’t coming back and the Hispanics are here now, doing the work, but most of what I saw in New Orleans were black people.

The streetcar took us to the Garden District where the houses are huge magnificent southern mansions with their very own New Orleans character. Walking through the streets reminded me so much of the novel “The Witching Hour”. Reading that story by Anne Rice was so graphic to me, in her detailed descriptions of the sights, smells and feeling of New Orleans in the steamy summer. The Anne Rice house called “Rosemont” is right there where I walked on First Street but I neglected to look up the address before our travels there. Looking at the photos later on the internet, though, showed her home to be similar to many that I saw in that neighborhood. It was the house that she wrote about in all her books about the Mayfair witches. Made me want to read the book all over again, but at the moment I am reading Gone With the Wind and thinking about Charleston and Savannah as Margaret Mitchell writes about them with a new mental picture.

Rode the car back to town and began the adventure of Bourbon Street in the early evening. What can I say, it’s Bourbon Street. The most famous on-going party in the country, I guess. I can’t imagine how it must be late at night or especially during Mardi Gras, but it was enough for me to see it as I did, in the early evening. We had a Cajun dinner at Le Bayou while watching the people walk by on the street, most of them laughing and carrying their plastic beer glasses and making a lot of racket. Stores filled with kitchy stuff, a voodoo shop, and of course the bars, bar after bar, all pouring music into the streets, and hotel rooms above the bars with people hanging over the rails made for a great image of what New Orleans is all about. Drinking, I think, and maybe eating is next. I’m glad I got to see it, and probably don’t have to do it again, but it was fun. Wandered back through the streets to the “safe” information center where we phoned the golf cart to pick us up and ferry us across the dark empty abandoned parking lot to our home. Very tired even though it wasn’t that late, but glad to be done and glad to have seen New Orleans In a Day.

Florida to New Orleans

We packed up early this morning and didn’t take much time to get ready since we took showers in the heated and lovely state park bathrooms right next to our campsite in addition to having a pull-through site eliminating hook-ups for the baby car.

The white sand was so lovely on the beach, but a bit less so stuck to everything. The sugar sand actually sticks like sugar if there is the least bit of moisture in the air, and there is ALWAYS moisture in the air!

We drove west on HWY 90 which is the Old Spanish Trail and actually traverses the southern US from coast to coast. Driving in Panama City Beach was the Florida From Hell that so many people equate with the state, Mile after mile of high rise condos between the road and the beach, with limited views of the water and kitchy stores and bars and seafood restaurants. We kept trying to find a place to go for a walk with Abby along the beach, but all the access points said no dogs. Finally we stopped along a place on the Inland Waterway and made grilled cheese sandwiches and let abby run a bit, but it was windy and really too cool to enjoy much, and the waterway water isn’t nearly as clean and beautiful as the beach water.

Finally stopped at a County Beach park along 30A near Destin for my white sand beach fix. There were huge high rises all around that were built in the Italian Villa style, pretty ritzy area, and still no dogs allowed on the beach, so Mo walked abby along the walkway while I went down to the beach. The wind was blowing hard, but warmer, and the sky was filled with long slim clouds. Suddenly as I turned to the Gulf, it was as though I had stepped into another world entirely. Everything behind me became irrelevant in the view of the pure crystal water and perfect blinding white sugar sand. In the wind I couldn’t hear anything at all behind me and as long as I was on that beach I couldn’t see any of the buildings. Just water and sand. It was a truly magical moment and illuminated for me the draw of that area that looks so awful when you are on the roads, and yet it’s filled with row after row of condos. People just go there for that beach, that water, that sky, and like me, when they are sitting there watching that water, all the development becomes irrelevant. It was a magical and eye opening moment for me.

We continued along the coast trying to get through Destin and Pensacola, with mile after mile of busy roads and 4 lane highway with traffic signals. It was starting to rain and we approached Alabama in a deepening storm. The rain started coming down in buckets with the side roads filling up with brown muddy water and the wipers struggling to keep up. Mo held on to the wheel while the rain poured and the lightening struck here and there. It continued like that all the way across Alabama, so we didn’t really see much of that state except for rain and mud and more rain.

Into Mississippi is was much the same way, but we decided to stay on HWY90 hoping that we could see a bit of the Mississippi coast. Approaching Biloxi, the rain continued, but started to lift just enough that we could see the devastation left behind by Katrina. The waterfront area across the entire state of Mississippi was gone, just completely gone. There was sand and mud at the same level as the gulf all along the highway, just flat, with construction cutting the road down to a single bumpy lane with big piles of sand that would appear unexpectedly. On the left was the gulf, and on the right was the most eerie landscape I think I have ever experienced. Mile after mile of neighborhoods, with driveways, and street signs, and huge old live oaks, still alive, but nowhere was there a house still standing. No street lights, to telephone poles, just these driveways going nowhere, and then a big casino would appear all lit up. I guess they rebuilt the casinos first.

Then, as I have seen on CNN reported by a woman who is from Biloxi, every now and then would be a huge mansion left standing, with nothing around it for miles, lonely and a faint beacon of light surrounded by darkness, and more miles of driveways and trees. I think the part that was most devastating to me was the enormity of the area destroyed, the miles and miles and miles of it, all along what was once a magnificent coastal area lined with really beautiful homes. Sometimes there would be a FEMA trailer parked next to an old foundation, and sometimes the trailers were covered with Christmas lights, trying to appear optimistic in the midst of the devastation.

Katrina hit 2.5 years ago, and looking at this landscape, I have no idea how it will ever rebuild. The only thing that may rebuild are the casinos, the money makers, but what will rebuild the history and family and neighborhoods. Seeing a followup story on Katrina, a gentleman talked of how his home had survived and that it was the worst thing that ever happened to him because he got no compensation, and couldn’t sell it, and his neighborhood and friends and community were completely gone. I remembered that story vividly as we drove for mile after mile along that coast.

Finally at Gulf Port the road left the coast and the devastation was less apparent. The rain lessened a bit as we approached New Orleans, but it was still dark and very wet and the roads were a nightmare of bumps and construction. We crossed the Twin Span bridge that had also been destroyed in the hurricane and was recently repaired, but oh my goodness, I thought the motorhome was going to jump right out of the lanes with every bump. Somehow the cement paving was buckled and twisted and still really awful to drive. Thought for a bit we might lose the baby car, but everything held together ok.

New Orleans was dark and scary at first, but we found our way to the French Quarter Motor Coach Resort after dark.

There were brick walls and cast wrought iron gates for full security at the park, which turned out to be behind the huge parking lot and empty shell of what had once been a big Winn-Dixie supermarket. The staff at the RV park offered to shuttle us to the French Quarter any time of the day or night, just a phone call would bring their little golf carts zipping down to the beautiful new information center. Just across from us, beyond the abandoned parking lot were row after row of project housing, and on the other side of us was a fenced in area of FEMA trailers. It was surreal. We could see the tall buildings of New Orleans just a few blocks away, and couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just walk the 1000 yards or so to the center ourselves, until we did in the next day in the daylight, and saw some things that helped us understand. We made use of that shuttle several times and were glad to have it.

The park itself was a strange walled in world of brick and coach lights with brick cobblestone parking areas, a lovely recreation room and complex, and many rows of truly big rigs. We were right next to the I-10 freeway as well, with all the associated sound effects and lights. The funniest thing of all is that this was the most expensive park on the route so far, at 69 per night, and they wouldn’t honor the CampClub rate for Friday night since there was a big football game in town.

In spite of the fact that it was New Orleans it had been a very long day and we were tired and just turned on the tv and computer where I again finally had good reception, and ate crackers for dinner.

Florida’s Nature Coast

After being in Ocala Sunday evening through this morning we said goodbye to Bel and headed west across northern Florida. I had a hard time deciding where to stay this evening, because I had too many things planned for the time we really had to do what we want to do. I decided to let go of Indian Pass and Manatee springs and tried to get into Panama City Beach, but then decided instead to go to St Joseph State Park because it would be on the white sugar sand beach with clear water without all the people and it was closer and we could settle in by evening.

Tomorrow will be a long day trying to get to New Orleans, and we may have some weather to deal with, but we need to get a bit more west if we are going to get home as I planned on Jan 2. Mo wants to look at a new motorhome in San Antonio, and we both want to spend a couple of days in New Orleans, so we need to get moving along. Sigh. This part of Florida lends itself to lazy beach days and dark starry nights, it’s really quiet and there’s lots to see and do that is part of the nature coast, especially the springs and rivers and beaches. I really hope that when I am retired we can come back here and spend the time it takes to really relax into this place and enjoy the water and the quietness and lack of people. I do hope that by the time we do get back here it will still have as few people as it does now. This is the Florida that I know and love that isn’t anything like the Florida that is in everyone’s mind. It is still quiet and empty with long stretches of roads through the forest that are even and straight and sometimes you see a car now and then and sometimes not. After all the hustle of living in California I just can’t get enough of these long quiet empty forested roads with no traffic. People don’t really get it when I talk about Florida this way, and sometimes I even think I am making it up, but today I was reminded that it’s real.

Quiet dark night on the beach on a narrow spit of land between the gulf and the bay, listening to the low sound of gentle waves.

The Silver River

http://www.clubkayak.com/cfkt/trips/silver_river.html

Today I fulfilled a dream I have had since 2000 when I first started visiting Bel in Florida and saw the Silver River. I wanted to float my kayak down that river in the midst of the wonderful sights and smells of Old Florida. Of course, I didn’t even have a boat at that time, so it was only a dream. I remember one day hiking out the ¾ mile trail from the Silver River State Park one afternoon and seeing an old woman come floating down the river. It’s a 10 mile paddle with no place to put in except that one spot and she laughingly said she had to pee so bad she thought she would die. I talked a bit with her and listened to her stories of traveling alone in her motorhome with her kayak, and how much she loved the Silver. I’m not sure when that was, but it’s been awhile, before I got the kayaks, at least.

Today we paddled the Silver River. It was still a bit cool for December in Florida, but I knew that I didn’t want to miss the chance to do the thing I had dreamed of doing for so long, no matter how cool it was.

I guess I always get a little bit worried before we start down a new river or a new place we haven’t paddled before, something about the unknown part of it, and especially here in florida with alligators and strange water and such. It’s certainly an unknown, and that adds a bit to the allure of it all.

By the time I was in the water it was noon, and the sky was still overcast, but not too chilly at all, maybe in the mid 60’s. The put-in place is at the Row Park off HWY 40 not to far from Silver Springs. The launch area is rather simple, with cement boat ramps that pour into a quiet pool lined with willows. It was still and quiet and Mo managed to get in her boat without too much trouble, although we weren’t sure how the getting out would be. Her rib is healing slowly.

Once you put in, there is a narrow canal lined with lily pads and overhanging trees that leads to the confluence of the Oklawaha and the Silver Rivers. I used the GPS because it would be easy to miss that canal on the return trip, everything blends together.

Once we turned up the Silver River the water showed that legendary clarity. There are springs all along the entire reach, not just the big Mammoth Spring at the headwaters of the river. Some of them are 30 feet deep, some of them are 80 feet deep, and as you float over them you feel the boiling churn of the waters and can see huge fish, including the prehistoric looking alligator gars that are 6 to 8 feet long.

The river winds and turns through what feels like a tropical jungle, with a 5 mile per hour current that didn’t feel as difficult to paddle as I thought it might. I knew that we would make the return trip a lot quicker than going upriver, so wasn’t too worried about our time. We planned 3 hours to the spring, and originally didn’t think we would necessarily go all the way, but once we went a few miles it just seemed silly to not actually go all the way.

The last mile or so of the river is amazing because it seems to get bigger instead of smaller with more and more springs. Some of that water must be going underground again, because downriver has quite a bit less volume. The most amazing part of the paddle though was the wildlife. Every bend would reveal dozens of water birds, not just a single bird here and there, but cypress trees on either side of the river filled with white Ibis by the hundreds, that would take off ahead of us in clouds. Sometimes they just stayed in the trees and it was a bit disconcerting to see the huge plops of bird poop that were falling in the river under those trees, and sometimes you just had to take your chances and hope you wouldn’t get bombed.

In the midst of the Ibis were Great Egrets by the dozen and Great Blue Herons, and they would fly in front of our boats 2 or 3 at a time. Rounding one curve I remember the spectacular vision of 3 Great Blue Herons, at least 6 Great Egrets or white herons, not sure which,, several hundred Ibis, a dozen annihingas and 5 turtles on a log. It was overwhelming to see so much at the same time. Another bend revealed our only alligator, a 6 foot baby, dark chocolaty gray, sunning on a log. He didn’t move at all while I took his photo from a healthy distance. About midway along we saw the monkeys that are wild now in the Silver River State Park, released either from some concession in the 30’s or from the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies that were filmed there about the same time.

When we finally began the approach to the Silver Springs Park, it was surreal. The Jungle Boats and Glass Bottom Boats were coming down the river with the captains telling the stories of the springs on the microphones, the train ride in the forest was hooting the horns while the conductors called all aboard, and Christmas music was wafting through the trees. After so many miles on this seemingly wild river I felt as though I was in some kind of strange Disney ride. We paddled all the way into the main area of the springs, looking deep into that chasm of blue and boiling white water. I have been to Silver Springs several times, but on this day I saw it from a completely different perspective. I can only imagine how the Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto felt back in the 1500’s as he paddled up this magic place for the first time.

The Indians of course, used the river for hundreds of years and considered it sacred. Mammath Spring is called just that because the mammoth bones that have been found there also showed spear marks, and they believe that the springs have been inhabited by humans for more than 10,000 years. Silver Springs is a magical place, a piece of old Florida with a beautiful ecology and a campy recent history of movies and theme parks that makes it unique in the world. I loved it, and I loved being there in my kayak.

Reluctantly we turned back downriver, realizing suddenly that we were looking at nightfall and darkness and that we needed to get moving along. The ride back downriver was twice as fast at least, with the 5 mph current gliding us along effortlessly. It was difficult to keep from just letting the boat glide along listening to the silence, but we managed to get back up the canal, out of the boats and get them loaded onto the top of the Geo just a bit before dark. A perfect paddle, a perfect day, a perfect dream. I felt like it was some kind of jungle ride, but because of the frost the night before, we didn’t even have a single bug to worry about. Maybe green trees in the summer would have been a bit more colorful, but I’m not sure the price of bugs would have been worth it.

Ahh. Another reason for the trip.