New Orleans / Baton Rouge

Friday, April 10 – My first thought this morning was that it was my best friend’s birthday today.  We usually celebrate our birthdays together, so missing you today, Sheila Thomas!!   We had a fairly long trip planned for today, so we got around pretty early.  It doesn’t take long to get the RV ready, fortunately, so we were soon off and on our way.  I briefly had that thought that I used to have every time we left a place we’d enjoyed, that I would miss it (this time Santa Rosa RV Resort in Navarre) and I’d always wish we could just move on to someplace else.  This time, we were pinching ourselves to realize we WERE moving on to someplace else, yay!!!  So blessed.  

We drove out of Florida, into Alabama, then into Mississippi and then into Louisiana.  Sounds like a lot of miles but really only about 275 miles.  That’s about the most we will do.  We like to stop by 3:00 or so… We had originally intended to go to New Orleans for a few days, though we’ve been there several times before, but there is a Festival in the French Quarter going on all weekend, and every RV Park we called was full.  So our backup plan was to drive on to Baton Rouge and then just pop back to New Orleans for a day trip.

 I guess this is what you'd literally call the "light at the end of the tunnel".

We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel, our normal stop when traveling in the RV as they’re the only place you can count on for having enough space to park the RV.  Bad weather had been predicted all around us, and as we walked into Cracker Barrel we had a few drops hit us, we hurried in, and before we were even seated, it was pouring rain.  After we ate, the rain cleared up and it was completely dry as we walked back to the RV.  Later on the road, it rained again a good bit, and Earl never enjoys having to unhook and set up in pouring rain, but what can you do?  We got into the KOA at Baton Rouge, the skies cleared and we were completely dry!  I told Earl he was just lucky he was traveling with me, as I’m God’s favorite girl.  :-)

Saturday.  Today is Orlan Thomas’s birthday (again, we’re missing celebrating with our best friends) – it’s also my nephew, Mark Rainwater’s birthday, so I took time before leaving to get on FB and wish them a Happy Day!   We read late last night, so thought we might sleep later, but actually woke up at our normal time, and soon got around and took off to go to New Orleans for the day.  100% rain predicted on our weather app.  It was gray and overcast but hey, we took our umbrella and set off.   We had a beautiful day!!!  Went to the Museum of Art first, at City Park, left the car there, and got a streetcar to go downtown.  I remember enjoying that from times we were here before.  We went to the River Walk and strolled around, listening to music, and window shopping.   Of course, it was a MUST that we go to Café du Monde for beignets!  You can’t go to New Orleans and not have beignets!  Oh my goodness, they are sooooo deeeelicious!  I laughed at Earl for wearing a black shirt – he had powdered sugar all in his beard and all over his black shirt.  Too funny.   We rode the streetcars down St. Charles and through the Garden District.  Love the homes on this street.  Here are a few photos….scroll past quickly if you're not interested.

 Beautiful architecture.

 Museum of Art in New Orleans.

 Great New Orleans jazz music is played all over New Orleans.

 The famous Riverwalk.

 This guy was a salesman!!  He was trying to give us a sample of pralines and he burst into song and entertained us.  Poor guy, we never did buy his pralines.

 Ahhh the famous Cafe Du Monde.... my mouth was watering at just the thought.

 Wonder how much fat and calories are in these?  Oh well, it's worth it!

A black shirt is NOT the color to wear to eat beignets!  LOL Check out the powdered sugar all over Earl's beard and shirt.

 It was fascinating to sit out on the Riverwalk and watch the barges moving through the water at a surprisingly fast speed. I'm mystified at how they can steer all that length from such a small "tugboat".

 We were astounded at this one with tons and tons of large boulders on it.  Can you imagine what that must weigh?

 Some of the beautiful homes in the Garden District.

 Loyola University in New Orleans.

The famous Bourbon St - French Quarter, New Orleans.

We spent only a few minutes on Bourbon St.  It’s such a destination point for New Orleans, but it is definitely not for the faint of heart.  It’s debauchery at its worst.  I felt such a sense of sadness that the throngs of people there think that is FUN??  We walked less than 2 blocks down Bourbon Street before leaving, having seen more than enough.    

We got the streetcar back to City Park and this time it was NOT a fun ride.  Apparently half the people in the city decided to leave at the same time we did and there was standing room only, as you can see!  CROWDED! And a balancing act trying to hold on to an overhead strap while people are lurching all around you.  No longer a favorite way of transportation. 

We decided we wanted to get some local flavor for dinner.  We had talked to some people on the streetcar who recommended a place called The SwampBox Café.  Hmmm interesting name.  They thought it was one that had been featured on Diners and Dives (is that the name of the show on The Food Network?) so we went in and talked to the server, asking for recommendations.  He said we must try jambalaya and gumbo if we wanted to get a taste of Cajun food, so we bravely ordered.  I asked him about a couple of other things like crawfish pies and boudin.  He sweetly smiled at me and said that boudin was delicious but if he told me about it, I would likely think it was nasty.  Whaaaat??  We decided to stick with the first order.  Haha The dinner was delicious, but HOT, whew that sausage had some heat in it!  My mouth was burning but we kept at it. 

 Portions were so huge, I could only eat about 1/3 of mine, but Earl pretty much polished his off.   We certainly had no room for dessert, so soon headed back to the RV and relaxed for the rest of the evening.  Both of us have great books, so we’re always happy campers as long as we can read!

Oh, and I wanted to tell you, out of that 100% prediction of rain, we never saw a drop!!  It was a little overcast, which actually was a blessing as it kept a nice cool breeze on us, but NO RAIN!!!   I know most people will say that’s all coincidence, but there is definitely reason to believe I’m God’s favorite kid!  J

Sunday -  What a  delightful day!  It was a bit rainy this morning, so we decided to  just watch our own home church via live streaming, and it was great to see familiar faces!  Pastor Dayne had an awesome message after having just gotten back from Armenia.  I fixed a light lunch here in the RV and worked on some paperwork and boring stuff for awhile, then we relaxed and read for a couple of hours, had a nice phone chat with Lisa, and late afternoon we went to a movie.  We saw “Do You Believe?”   After reading very poor reviews, we still chose to go see it, as we simply want to support them and send a message by our support that there is a market for clean wholesome movies!  The movie was AWESOME!!!  If you haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to go see it while it’s still in the theaters!  It was superbly done and was impacting, inspiring and challenging!  I’d turn right around and watch it again!  So good!

There just happened to be a great looking Mexican restaurant right next door to the theater!  How convenient!  So we just walked over there and shared a fajita.  We discovered our server was a student at LSU, so he and Earl were chatting about football and when he realized Earl was a Gator, he literally recoiled like he’d seen a snake!  It was funny.  I told Earl I was glad he didn’t know prior to serving our food – he might have decided to spit in it or something.  Not really.

Monday, April 13^th.    We read late last night, so slept till about 8:30 this morning, which is pretty late for us.  I have slept like a baby ever since we left, but for some strange reason last night, I woke up at 2:30 and finally read and played on my iPad till about 5:00 and then went back to sleep.  It was pouring rain when we got up, so we put our plans for the day on hold until the weather cleared.  We ended up leaving here about 11:00 and drove to Ville Platte in the Evangeline Parish.  How could we be near a city with that name and not go?  Evangeline is the original spelling of my name, but when I was 18, I legally changed the spelling to Evangelyn, as I had gotten so weary of the misproncunciation of it.  People would as often as not, say EvangeLEEN or EvangeLINE, rather than just Evangelyn, so I took care of that.  I’ve met 3-4 other women named Evangeline over the years, but it’s fairly rare, so when I saw a Parish named Evangeline, I was intrigued.

 We learned it was first settled by people from France and Canada around 1781, but the name Evangeline Parish became official in 1910.  The Parish was named Evangeline in honor of the Acadian people who lived further south, and their history was commemorated in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s   narrative poem of its heroine, Evangeline.   People who live in Ville Platte will tell you that NOWHERE in Louisiana is the Cajun food more authentic.  They claim to have the best gumbo, the best boudin and other Cajun delicacies.   We went all over town and took photos of the various businesses named Evangeline.  Quite a novelty for me, as it’s rare to see my name in print.

 I always knew with my love of books and reading, there should be a library named after me.  :-)

 

We then stopped by a tourist center to make sure we weren’t missing anything while we were there as we were about an hour and a half from Baton Rouge.   We told her of our first experience eating jambalaya and gumbo and she said we MUST have some boudin!!!  I was not real sure about it, after reading some really gross details, BUT….she explained to me that in southern LA they eat boudin blanc as opposed to the boudin red (the one with all the blood in the description I read – yuck).  She told us of a place nearby called Duo’s Cajun Corner, known for their boudin, cracklins and beef jerky, and boiled crawfish when it’s in season.  So we found this place, and oh my goodness, we started laughing like crazy – talk about a hole in the wall!!!  I have never in my life eaten in a place like that.  I was glad Earl was “carrying”!  haha  

This sign was on the door.   :-)

 So we went in and told them we wanted to just taste the boudin, and that we’d never tried it before, etc.  They were SO nice and friendly and the girl said, “Oh sure, we’ll just give you a link to try” and we agreed.  I am picturing a normal sausage link – like maybe 4-5 inches.  Well she pulled out this huge 18-20 inch “link” and proceeded to cut it with these big shears into 3-4” pieces.  We were told it is a concoction of pork, rice, onions and spices.  Sounds ok to me. She said it was put into a sausage casing (we later found out the casing is actually the pig intestine lining!!) hmmmm   While she was getting that ready, the owner/cook (chef?) said people generally eat it with cracklins and we told him again that was new to us, so we tried eating that (is cracklin singular for cracklins? Or is even one still a cracklins?)  Anyway, it was quite tasty, but really greasy!!!  I would imagine that’s a real artery clogger!  While Earl was paying the girl, Jean (pronounced szhawn) told us he also makes hogshead cheese  and we must try it.  So he cuts us off about an inch square for each of us and hands it to us on a little Styrofoam plate. NASTY!!!!!! Cold and gelatinous and spicy hot!  Yuck!!  I was SO very thankful he had turned around giving me time to spit it out on the plate!!!  I know that was rude, but y’all!!!  It was gross!!!  Well, there was no place to sit down in this eating establishment, so we carried it out to the car and proceeded to eat the boudin.  I have to say it was actually quite good!  Nothing at all distasteful about it. So accompanied by a couple of cracklins we drank lots of water with our lunch.  I thought, being so fond of Mexican food, I was accustomed to spicy, but the spicy here is HOT!!

Tomorrow we head over toward Texas – I’ll keep y’all posted on our adventures.  Thanks for traveling along with us.  We are having a blast!

           

Monday April 6th

Monday April 6th – we had a slow relaxing morning and late morning we took off with Jeremy and Kristin Gates – what a special day we had! They took us all over the area – all down 98 and 30 A – this area is perfectly beautiful. We ate a delicious breakfast at The Donut Hole and then went to Seaside, so I can now check that off my list. Here are some photos of this beautiful place. 

Jeremy, Kristin and Miranda Gates

 Some of the beautiful homes at Seaside....

 Check out this rosemary plant!  Wow - they're all over the place, and smell delightful.

 Check out the PRICES at Seaside!

 Wherever we go, we love finding quaint bookstores.

 Awesome iron work on a large gate leading to a grassy park-like area.

 

 So glad we didn’t try to take the RV down there – way way too congested! We came back to Navarre, after stopping at the beach for a while. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of looking at this emerald water. Just breathtaking. I was curious what makes the water here so green, so we researched it. The sands that compose the beaches of the Emerald Coast are among the whitest and cleanest in the world, and the perfect oval shape of each grain of sand makes the beach “squeak” when you walk on it. We can thank the Apalachicola River, 130 miles east of Ft. Walton Beach, for the type of sand found here. The quartz-sand material, delivered to the Gulf of Mexico from the Appalachians via the river was deposited along the shores when Santa Rosa Island began to extend like an arm from Destin. This extension continues today as these small, white quartz grains move to the west before reaching their final destination at Pensacola Pass. Interesting, huh? 

Dinner was delightful at a Mexican restaurant (you know I’d love that!) and then back to their RV for us to see it, and then finally ending at ours, looking at photos of their mission trip to Haiti. They have such a passion for Haiti and the mission work there. We loved hearing their stories. We enjoyed the day so much we were talking about they set the bar awful high for all that is to come. We are so blessed by good friendships. 

We left Emerald Beach on Tuesday, to head west. Had to stop to get a few groceries and just on a lark drove through a RV park just a few miles away that happened to have a place available right on the water, so we impulsively decided to stay here for a few more days. I think we found paradise for sure – temps about 75, breezy and sunny and the water glistens all around us. 

Feeling incredibly grateful for this amazing opportunity, we just “chilled” here, grilling out -hot dogs for lunch and grilled chicken and asparagus with wild rice for dinner and eating here at the RV, reading by the hour as we sat outside overlooking the water. I think Heaven might be just a little bit like this. Today we head to Louisiana.

Leaving Eustis - beginning our trip.

Our plans changed a bit at the last minute.  The plan was to leave Wednesday, April 1, but my best friend’s stepfather died and his funeral was on Wednesday, so we delayed our plans so we could go to Hobe Sound for the funeral.  The upside of funerals is seeing old friends you haven’t seen for eons.  I love all of Sheila’s family like my own,  so it was great to see her mom of course, as well as Kevin, Stephen, Larry and Kendall and their families, as well as some old friends we knew from our days at Hobe Sound.  The service was lovely with beautiful music!

We left after the service and on our way home, stopped for lunch at Cabo Flats, a Mexican restaurant in Stuart that we’d never been to, and it is definitely a must to go back and eat  again when we’re visiting Sheila.

Thursday we met Ryan, Vicki and Connor and Lisa, Justin and Hannah at Hollywood Studios for one last family day.  Mark had to work, unfortunately, so we missed him being with us.  When we left, we had to say goodbye to Ryan, Vicki and Connor, knowing we won’t likely see them for some months, so it was sad. 

 

Y'all will have to bear with me - I'm a long way from really knowing what I'm doing, so I'll have to ask Kayla why these are posting this small and figure out how to make them show properly.  But you'll get the idea.

We then dropped off Earl and Justin and Hannah at their house, and we had to say goodbye to them.  I had been dreading that.  Knowing Justin and Hannah, ages 6 and 4 don’t even really know what’s happening.  Mark told Justin we were leaving to go on a long trip in the RV and Justin said, “Grammy, will it be more than 100 days?”  awwww  I hugged them tightly and they went on their merry way with no  difference  than if it had been “see you tomorrow”.  I’m going to miss those little munchkins.  We left for some Mother/Daughter time…. Lisa and I went to see the movie, Cinderella.  SO GOOD!  I was almost surprised it was so good.  Definitely a chick flick.  :-)  Lisa took me back to the RV and after a few minutes we knew we couldn’t delay our goodbyes any longer.  Shewee, ripped my heart out to leave my baby girl.   Hoping they can fly out to see us at some point and we may have to fly back a time or two if we just can’t stand it.  I took a shower with tears pouring, but the long awaited time for our departure had finally come.

Friday, April 3, we left mid-morning and after stopping for lunch at one of our all time favorite restaurants, The Ivy House, in Williston, we drove to Perry, Fl, staying just overnight at the KOA park there.  

 Today is Good Friday, a weekend our thoughts always turn to the spiritual significance of the weekend.  So very thankful for the sacrifice God made for us, that we might have an abundant life. May we live every day with a grateful heart.  He gave everything for us – that’s amazing love!

Saturday, April 4 – we drove to Navarre, FL, stopping at the Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee.  Wouldn’t you know this is a rare one that did NOT have RV parking!  Yikes.  You cannot take a big rig into tight quarters and towing a car eliminates the ability to back up at all, so you have to think ahead.  Fortunately, there was a convention center right next door and we were able to park in that lot and walk over. Close call.  Earl chose a great route of good roads but very light traffic.  Forgetting that this is Easter weekend as well as Spring Break – we found the RV parks mostly full.  We wanted to be right on the water for this week of just relaxation.  We got a site right across from the sound in Emerald Beach RV Resort in Navarre.  We chose this park specifically because this is where Jeremy and Kristin Gates live, and we wanted to go their church tomorrow.  So anxious to see old friends.  

After enjoying a couple of hours sitting outside reading and enjoying a slight breeze, we went over to Navarre Beach.  Gorgeous!!!  NOW I see why they call these Emerald Beaches!  Photos just don’t do them justice!  

We walked the beach for awhile, and then went to eat dinner at East River Smokehouse BBQ – so good!! 

Then we went back over to the beach to walk the longer pier on the Gulf and stayed there to marvel at the beautiful sunset.  God is an incredible artist!  The colors were exquisite. We just kept feeling like we had to pinch ourselves to realize this is really real and we’re off on the adventure of our lives!  Now back to the RV to shower and relax for the evening.  Tomorrow is Easter!

Easter Sunday – for Christ-followers the most important and spiritually significant date ever.  To think about the ultimate sacrifice God made for every one of us – because of His great love for us – it defies all reason, and can only be paid by our recognizing the great Gift and thanking Him by living our lives, devoted to our Lord.  So thankful that the world changed in 3 days – Thank God for Sunday!

Today we surprised our dear friends, Jeremy and Kristin Gates at their church in Ft. Walton Beach, Wright Baptist Church.   What a great Easter message!  Excellent service all around.  We’re happy to see them pastoring such a nice church with delightfully friendly people.  We spent much of the afternoon and early evening recalling old times.  Love our friendship. Looking forward to spending most of tomorrow with them.  Hope y'all had a blessed Easter Sunday.