Days Done

With Great sadness I must announce the end of the Great American Adventure I, for Mary and Dan. We have seen and experienced so much the past four weeks that I know I have not done it justice via this blog. I can only say that this is such a vast and wonderful country, that you must experience it first hand, pictures and dialog cannot provide the same experience one would have on the road. There fore I have decided that Great American Adventure II is in planning stage, as we were only able to cover twenty two states during our 6,994 mile adventure. Stay tuned.

day 23 NO continued

Today, after an easy morning and great breakfast, we headed back to New Orleans and the French Quarter. We parked and started walking again, I think we must have covered 3 or 4 miles today. There is a photo of a cannon above, let me know if you see anything unusual about the barrel. The bride wanted to find Margaritaville. We located it at the end of the French Quarter. We enjoyed a great lunch and struck out for Harrah's Casino. Should have stayed at Margaritaville, would have been cheaper. Tomorrow we start the northeast turn to our adventure, toward SC.

Day 22 New Orleans

The trip from Lafayette to New Orleans was pretty uneventful, just a big change from flat and desert to green and trees, to bayou swamps. We arrived at the KOA, on Jefferson Highway, around 1pm local time, got set up and jumped in the Saturn and headed to the "French Quarter". I found the place I was looking for, within minutes, we were seated in the Acme Oyster House restaurant. We finished dinner and Mary got quite a kick out of walking down Bourbon St., with drink in hand. We passed numerous adult bars but I could not get her to go in. We had a great walk past many locations and several unique people. To cap our evening off, we had beignets (french square donuts) and coffee at Cafe du Monde. We retired to the motor home tired and happy.

Day 21 From San Antonio to Lafayette La.

Much as I hated to leave memory lane, we had to. The Great Adventure has to continue. Our travels today were pretty uneventful. Houston is a large city, but with all the chemical and petroleum plants, I do not think I would live here, ditto for Beaumont. We progressed thru Orange Texas and crossed the State line into LA. I tried to stop at several casinos but DW would not let me. By the way, there are no pictures of the bride and me from San Antonio as the person who took them could not handle a camera, the few we had are just plain bad and out of focus. We did have photos made at the tower and will get them scanned and put here later. We are bedding down at Lafayette, La. at another KOA,which is very nice and then on to the New Orleans tomorrow. Oh! the twig thing in photo of me at motor home is a genuine Arizona tumbleweed for one of the grands and the big black cup is genuine Jim Beam for me.

Day 20 of the Great American Road Trip

The trip from Van Horn went pretty well, Old "Windy" tried to overheat on me a couple of times but she pulled thru. We arrived at San Antonio and checked in at a KOA campground just 5.5 miles from down town. This place has really changed in 42 years, but some things are still just as good, like my bride. We went down to River Walk and met one of my son's friends at a restaurant, The Republic of Texas. Today we ate lunch at Casa Rio, a restaurant on the river, that we used to frequent years ago, this restaurant was established in 1946 and still serves delicious meals to this day, at reasonable prices. We walked all over downtown, went to The Tower of the Americas, it is like the space needle, it was built in 1968 for the Worlds Fair held here then. My bride and I ate Thanksgiving dinner in this thing in 1968, High above the city, revolving at a pace of one foot every 6 seconds. This has been a really enjoyable time here and will hate to leave in the am. The only saving grace is the second stop from here will be "The Big Easy". New Orleans here we come. As this trip is starting to wind down I am so thrilled to have seen it all and traveled more than most people will, across these great states. More to come.

Day 19

Well we over nighted in Gallup, NM., and left out this am toward Texas, we drove to Albuquerque and if you have not seen this city, you should, the bridges and over passes make our plain concrete ones look very dull. after we passed thru town, I picked up I-25 South toward Las Cruces, NM. I just thought I had seen some lonely roads but for an interstate, this one was long and lonesome. We picked up I-10 in Las Cruces, NM and drove into Texas. Headed to El Paso and I have not been here in over 40 years and I was astounded how the city had grown from the border town it was. We headed south from El Paso, on I-10 and I had to go thru a large Check point, put on by the Border Patrol, all lanes south on I-10, tried to tell them Mary was illegal, but they ignored me. We finaly pulled into a KOA at Van Horn, Texas, to rest for our trip tomorrow to San Antonio. For those who did not know, that is where I met my bride, some 42 years ago and we have never found time to return here (to the scene of the crime, so to speak). The photo of a river is the Rio Grande, just before it becomes the international border with Mexico. The photo of rocks is from a section of New Mexico called, aptly enough, Lava Land, there is a who valley of black lava pushing up thru the ground. Well, rest time, more tomorrow.

day 18 travel day

This day was fairly eventful, had a water line rupture last night and spent several hours getting repaired. First no repairs near Grand Canyon, move on down to Belmont and found a camping world, no help, did not have right parts. Traveled on to Flagstaff and found what I needed at Home Depot and repaired the water line there. Good stop any way as my bride had chipped a tooth and wanted a dentist to patch it till we got home, found one three blocks from Home Depot and they took her right in, All is well again. Moved on down road, past the Petrified Forrest, hard to believe that this flat desert used to be a thriving forest. Well we spent the night at Wally World camping in Gallup, NM. Plans are to try to make it to San Antonio by tomorrow, in time for Cinco de Mayo, we will see.