Saturday, April 9, 2016

#22 - Coveys Great Adventure - March 2016 - Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida

Eastward Ho! – March 2016

Even by our standards, March was a whirlwind. We pulled out of Mesa Arizona on February 29 headed for Florida to visit Kayeanne’s brother Grant. The first move set the pattern for the rest of the month: drive 200 – 300 miles and set up housekeeping in a new place for two or three nights. We also decided to stay at as many Escapee parks as we could, so the first stop was Dream Catcher SKP Park in Deming New Mexico.
Dream Catcher RV Park

The park turned out to be a spacious gravel parking lot within sight (and sound) of I10, but it offered full hookups (water, power and sewer) and easy in/out for a reasonable price. Deming isn’t the most interesting place we have been by a long shot, but we discoverer a great family Mexican restaurant and a very interesting museum.

The restaurant is called Taco Mirasol, true family enterprise where grandma and daughter turn out really good food at very reasonable prices.  The refried beans were as good as any we can remember. They even make fresh squeezed lemonade.

Volunteers created the whole museum
As you may have gathered, we both like museums and the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum was an unexpected find. Housed in a vintage National Guard armory that is itself worth a visit, the museum is the only one in the country that is operated solely and completely by volunteers. Over many years they have assembled a fascinating, eclectic collection of photos, artifacts, vehicles and art that covers the history of the region from the pre-Spanish Indian cultures through the early 1960’s. Rather than just laying out material for viewing, the volunteers designed and built displays, period settings and dioramas that put many of the objects in historical context. All of them were interesting, but the one that really caught my eye was the recreation of a hardware store from the turn of the century that sold everything from thread to bullets. We had no expectations when we walked in and ended up spending over 3 hours.

Tethered Aerostat Radar System used for drug and
immigration  enforcement near Alpine, TX
The next stop was Alpine Texas. We picked Alpine because it was not on I10, was roughly 300 miles from Deming on the back way to San Antonio, and had a few RV parks to pick from. BC Ranch RV Park didn’t quite live up to its website pictures or description, but it was reasonably priced and quiet so we decided to stay for a couple of days. Alpine is a pretty neat small town, big enough to have one of most everything and small enough to see in a couple of hours at most.

Fantastic food from this little trailer
We are always on the lookout for local places to eat and the bright yellow trailer parked on a lot near the center of town caught our eye. The Smokin’ Cajun served up the best Cuban sandwich I have ever had. The woman on the grill is Cuban and learned to cook in Miami from her mother and grandmother. I don’t remember how they found their way to Alpine, but I’d return just to get another one of those sandwiches.

We both looked forward to visiting San Antonio, primarily to see the Riverwalk and, of course, the Alamo. After Deming and Alpine, we decided to treat ourselves a little and pulled into the Green Lake RV Resort in south San Antonio about 20 minutes from downtown. Green Lakes is just a few years old and has all the things people look for in a modern RV park: wide streets for easy access, large paved pads and patios, intelligently positioned utility connections, cable TV, usable WIFI, a pool, a spacious laundry and a great staff.  About all it needs is a better dog park.

We liked San Antonio. The Riverwalk lived up to expectations. The river itself is a couple of stories below street level. It meanders through the city center and is lined with restaurants and bars of every kind. Large trees and the shadows of the downtown building provide plenty of cool shade to stroll some of the 13 miles of walkways that border the river. We visited the Mexican Market one afternoon. Think mini-Faneuil Hall: lots of shops to browse, a food court and a local band that could really rock and roll made for a very pleasant visit.

I have to say that I was underwhelmed with the Alamo. Admission to the mission building itself is “free”, but everyone is forced to stand in long lines while obligatory pictures are taken that are then “offered” on exit. I refused to play that game, so we focused on the museum and the grounds, both quite interesting. Based on some comments that I overheard from people who had gone inside, I don’t think we missed much.

When we unhooked the car tow dolly at Green Lake I discovered that both fender/tail light brackets had broken. The fenders were holding the brackets and lights on, the reverse of what was supposed to be the case. Closer examination revealed that the steel bars had fractured, probably from vibration. The staff at Green Lake quickly contacted a local welder and the next morning I met Joe Luna at his house. An hour later Joe, a retired oil field maintenance supervisor, had fabricated and installed much more robust replacements. After some hemming and hawing, he asked me if $30 sounded fair; I thought that was a bargain, quickly paid him and headed home.

The neighbors at Rainbow's End
The Escapees RV Club is headquartered at Rainbow's End in Livingston Texas, sort of on the way between San Antonio and New Orleans. We had been hearing stories about “the mothership” since we      we joined the club and couldn’t let the chance to visit slip by. Site 134 is located in the “new” section of the park. As you would expect from an organization started by and committed to full time RV’ers, access was easy, the site was large and it took little time to settle in for a week.

One of the first things we did was go over to the mail service building to pick up a month’s accumulation of mail. We had no idea how large an operation the mail service is, but got a strong hint when the US Mail tractor trailer truck passed us to deliver the incoming mail to the service center. The mail service handles about 13 tons of mail a day, so much mail that it has its own Zip code.

Livingston is the Polk County seat and our domicile address for taxes, vehicle registrations and insurance, health care and voter registration. We registered to vote so we are now official Texans, ya’all.

The French Quarter
Visiting New Orleans was one of the must-do’s on this trip, but the downtown RV park is really expensive. Bayou Segnette State Park turned out to be a great place to stay to visit New Orleans. While it is across the Mississippi River from the city, it is just 20 minutes from the French Quarter. Big spaces, lots of trees, good facilities including free laundry, and great dog walking for $18 a night; we even had great OTA TV reception.

Two beauties
We both liked New Orleans. Over three days walked all over the French Quarter in the rain and stuck our noses in every shop in the French Market. We roamed around a very old cemetery in the Garden District, which is much more interesting than it sounds, and took a cruise down the mighty Mississippi River on a real steam paddle wheeler.

Oak Alley Plantation






One day we set off down the River Road, following the river past farms and plantations to Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana. I’m not sure you can get bad food in this part of the country, but the
B&C Seafood Market and Cajun Restaurant was a real treat. A true locals place, we drove by and decided on the spur of the moment to make a u-turn and have lunch. The alligator burger was quite good (tasted like turkey) and the stuffed gator had a big grin. Seriously, stop here if you are in the area.

Pushing on to the East, our next stop was the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park in Summerdale, Alabama. Neither of us had been to Alabama (or Louisiana, now that I think about it), and had no idea what to expect. Southern Alabama is quite beautiful. The coastline around Mobile is some of the prettiest we have seen. Summerdale is just east of Fairhope, a strikingly lovely town with a long commercial fishery and coastal trading history on Mobile Bay.

Rainbow Plantation is a very attractive, spacious park. We stayed a couple of nights and really enjoyed the site, the park itself and especially the people who lived there. Every SKP park seems to have happy hour around 4 pm and this one was no exception. We met several very nice people and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The park has only developed about a third of the land that they own, making dozens of acres open to walk the dogs, and they loved it.

Real waterfront camping
When we started planning this trip I was looking forward to visiting the northwest coast of Florida, the so-called “lost coast”. Looking on the Internet for RV parks in the area popped up Ho-Him RV Park in Carrabelle. With a name like that, we had to go there. Ho-Hum is anything but. Several of the sites are so close to the Gulf that there is no beach at high tide: the water comes right to the low seawall that the RVs are parked on. The view through the windshield is ocean to the horizon. We weren’t able to get one of those sites, but we still had ocean views from our coach. The site itself could have been a little wider and it could certainly have used more gravel because it got pretty muddy when it rained, but being able to walk down the beach a half a mile or so at low tide made up for any it.

Carrabelle is a pretty little town with limited services and one small market. It does have a couple of stores selling locally caught, fresh seafood. One day we bought and cooked shrimp that were swimming that morning. They were the best I’ve ever eaten.

Deeelicious!
The next day we drove up the coast to Apalachicola, a much larger town with many neat stores, several good restaurants and a small maritime museum and boat building school. We spent some enjoyable time wandering through the museum, looking at many vintage photos and pouring over a couple of the boats that the school had made. A couple of the shops were a cut above the usual tourist traps and we made a small contribution to the local economy.

Apalachicola is famous for oysters and we went to Papa Joe’s for lunch. Between us we made short work of a dozen and a half, a pile of fries and beers. We agreed that the local oysters lived up to their billing; boy, that was really good.

The last stop this month was another SKP park, Sumter Oaks in Bushnell. The park is in a very rural area about 5 miles out of town. Our site was large and partially shaded, but could have used some landscaping and fresh gravel. In fact, the whole park was in need of some attention. The trees needed trimming and the roads needed re-grading and fresh gravel. The dog park fence had been damaged and never repaired. Several signs were just hand lettered on cardboard, giving the place a slightly seedy appearance. It was also the quietest SKP park we have been to. There was no happy hour or any scheduled activities. The pool hadn’t seen water in years.

Glass bottomed boats 
On the plus side was the donkey herd on the adjacent farm that was just as interested in Lucy and Schroeder as they were in them. Every time we walked by the donkeys came right to the fence to exchange sniffs. We didn’t see the resident alligator in the swamp behind the park, but we certainly heard him at night, and a couple of times I think I caught his eyes way back through the trees with my flashlight on our late evening walks.

Algae is destroying the springs
Bushnell is not far from Ocala and I had been looking forward to revisiting Silver Springs State Park. In 1958 we stopped at the park and took a glass bottomed boat tour of the extensive artesian springs that deliver over 500 million gallons of fresh water a day. I distinctly remember looking down through 80’ of crystal clear water and shoals of fish in every shape and size to a white sand bottom so brilliant it was dazzling. Today’s experience couldn’t be further from that memory. Algae caused by agricultural runoff coats everything in a dull green slime. Eel grass has invaded almost the entire spring. The fish population looks like maybe 1 or 2% of what I remember. I can’t imagine how people let this happen, it felt like sacrilege.

A small fraction of Garlit's fascinating collection


As we approached Ocala a sign on the side of the highway declared that the Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum was just ahead. I couldn't pass that up! Big Daddy is arguably the founder of modern drag racing. He is responsible for many of the inventions still in use today, most notably the first rear engined dragster. He held innumerable records over his long career. The museum is housed in two large buildings and is packed with cars, motorcycles, dragsters, engines, vintage cars and a host of memorabilia. It is a fascinating place that I could easily revisit. Kayeanne was a good sport about it, too. 

We are looking forward to arriving in St. Petersburg next month to see Grant, Kayeanne’s brother. More soon.

Bob





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