Covington, LA: Not A Cat In Sight.... Mardi Paws

On our last day in Lousiana we attended the Mardi Paws Parade in Mandeville. Before Debbie & Richard arrived, MLA and I took a tour of the Otis house, a large mansion located in the park where we are camped. Meant to do it all week however there has been too much to do and see.

Originally this was a 400 acre parcel of land with lots of trees. Guy buys 400 acres for 50 cents/acre and build a saw mill. At one time he employes ~250 men. One worker with an axe can cut about 8-10 trees a day. They earned 20 cents and hour or about 20 cents per tree they cut down.

The two man saw reveloutionized the industry. A two man crew could cut down close to 100 trees per day. Needless to say the sawmill owners became rich and thier house reflected thier wealth. They also installed a steam engine to automate the saw mill which again revolutionized the industry. Another generation even richer than the previous one. Gotta love technology.

On our way to the Mardi Paws Parade we stopped to check out the Fountainbleu State Park. This park is only about 10 miles east of Riverside State Park. However since it is located right on Lake Pontchartrain, it received a lot more damage from Hurricane Katrina. The tremendous power of a hurricane was still on display at this park. Trees down everywhere and lots of damage to building. Most of the infrastructure is still closed and the new campground is behind schedule. Probably in July. Looks like it will be nice however Riverside still wins hands down.

We did check out the remains of a Sugar Mill built in 1828. Gentlemen who owned big parcels of New Orleans real estate (they still have a neighborhood named after him) built the mill and ended up spending much of his time on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain where he enjoyed cooler temperatures and delightful breezes compared to New Orleans.
The Mardi Paws Parade was a hoot. Dogs of every breed and description dressed up in Mardi Gras outfits. Think there would be a lot of fights/scraps with an estimated 500 dogs in attendance? You would be wrong. Hardly a snap or growl all day. The parade itself was a bit too disorganized to tell who won and who lost. Kinda a moot point since the trophy was a Gold Pile of Poop. No one was trying to win too hard. You couldn't tell which dogs were officially in the parade and which dogs were there 'just checking out a couple of hot bitches' while in costume.

Most novel business idea: The Poop Pro's. They come to your home, commercial business or whatever patch of grass you want and clean up the dog poop. For a fee. They are bonded and licensed. For what I'm not sure but it's good to know you are dealing with pro's.

Covington, LA: A Great Cook Out

What a great day. Spent the am doing a lot of nothing and going to the grocery store. Of course, bad idea to shop for groceries on an empty stomach so we had to stop at Sonic for a breakfast burritos loaded with jalapenos (on mine; MLA likes 'em plain). Grocieries consisted of goodies for a cook-out with Debbie & Richard.

Chance did a little fishing / drowning worms. As the saying goes: Fishing was excellent; catching was poor. Oh well, Chance didn't care. Like all kids he just wants to cast and reel in the bobber. Too boring to just watch a bobber and wait for it to bob.

Made Dynomite burgers & hot dogs for everyone along with some cajun sausage. Everything tastes better when grilled outdoors.

Followed with a big camp fire where Chance cooked marshmellows. I should say burned marshmellows. He would stick a marshmellow on his stick, put it in the fire until it caught fire (~3 seconds), pull it out, blow out the fire once blackened all over, scrape it off on a log in the fire and then start over. He did this to three quarters of a bag of marshmellows. He was so excited he shook all over. Too much fun to watch. Where else can a kid have that much fun for 89 cents?

Just got back from an evening walk; most people decorate thier campsite with lights, Mardi Gras beads, and whatnot. Warm day around 70 with a little bite in the air at night. The whole campground has a pleasant smoky smell you can almost taste. Brings back memories of lots of camping trips with the kids.

Another beautiful day planned for tomorrow. Explore anothe state park in the am and meet up with Debbie & Richard tomorrow afternoon. Till then, God bless all of you.

Honey, What Does It Mean When That Alarm Thingy Comes On ....?

Mary Lynn had me doing a bunch of chores yesterday just so I could appreciate the rest of our time. She was successful; the chores were much too much like work. Put together our new grill, the grill stand, installed paper towel holder, etc. The most work of all involved our 'grey' water tanks. RV's have three tanks: 1) Fresh water 2) Grey water & 3) Black water.

Fresh water is just that, fresh; you connect to campground water and/or carry ~60 gallons of fresh water with you. Grey water is the water that drains from the shower, kitchen sink, and bathroom sink. It needs to be dumped when the tank is full. The Black water tank is connected to the toilet and also needs to be dumped when full.

The point is we are in a campground that has electricity and water; no sewer connection. When the grey water tank showed (via a little LED moniter) that it was full we had two choices: 1) break camp (pull in the slides, pull up the levelers, disconnect water & electricity, etc, etc) and go to the dump site in the park OR 2) Use a portable tank to empty the tank and take the portable tank to the dump site. Much easier, right?

Except we had to go buy a portable tank, which meant measuring the basement storage doors and storage areas in order to understand how big of a tank (how many gallons) we could use & store. These tanks are affectionately known as a 'honey pot' in camping circles. Being a fan of honey and not wanting to associate honey and what goes into these tanks I'll just stick to portable dump tank or something along those lines.

Anything you buy has to fit in the RV so you can take it with you. Earlier this week we bought two nice outside lounge chairs only to find out they would not fit in any of the basement storage areas. Not good. Could have strapped them to the coach's ladder on the back but I think that makes you look like a couple of gypsy's going down the road plus you have to worry about things getting blown off, hitting the toad and/or traffic. Not to mention the road grime that gets on everything when the roads are wet. Maybe in the future but not now.

In any case, went to a camper store to buy the tank and found out these things are huge compared to the storage area of the RV. Bought the next to the smallest tank. Means more trips to a dump site when we have to use it but I found a way to get it into the basement. Tilt the front just so, raise the back while twisting the wheels around, raise right arm and left leg, tilt your head back, mumble something about your spouse taking long showers... you get the picture.

Anyway, it holds 22 gallons, which mean when you fill it it weighs (8.3 pounds/gallon of water * 22) wow: 182.6 pounds. Which translates to: I better find a way to tow the tank with the CR-V since I'm not making even one trip lugging 183 pounds to the dump, yet alone several. BTW: the largest tank I've seen is 40 gallons which equals 332 pounds. Ouch.

The point being, we now have a bright blue portable dump tank sitting under the coach and $150 less in the wallet. Doesn't seem like a good deal until your RV tanks are full/overflowing. Then $150 Vs cleaning up sewage from the RV sounds like a bargain.

The reason for telling you all of this was not a tutorial on RV holding tanks and/or a long winded discourse on RV sewage options. The point was this. It took me so long to get all of the measuring and research done that by the time I bought the tank it was late on a Friday afternoon. Got stuck in rush hour traffic on a Friday. Decided I didn't miss work and the associated ill's one bit, so I guess we'll continue with our extended travel plans. Just not during rush hour.

See ya!

BTW: Yesterday we heard that Mary Claire's procedure proved the bone cyst to be benign. This is great news. Her bone graft operation will be next Tuesday at Johns Hopkins. You go girl!

Mary Claire - Get Well Soon!

Drove over to Baton Rouge to visit the Rural Life Museum, which is a part of LSU. Museum was very interesting with lots of typical outbuilding for a working plantation and several styles of homes located on site.

Interesting however I like the approach used at Williamsburg better. At Williamsburg they have a 'working' farm (& community) where actors portray a number of roles on the farm. For instance the blacksmith dresses in period and stays in character no matter what. The best part is you can ask questions about their life, their work, etc.

Lots of fun, especially watching some folks trying to 'trip them up'. For instance someone might ask how they light the fire and then ask why not use a lighter. The blacksmith then states they have no knowledge of a lighter, or any other item/substance/person not from that period or before.

After that we drove north into Plantation Country where we toured the Rosedown plantation. Simply incredible. Almost everything there is not only correct from a period standpoint, 90% of the items are original to the plantation. One person on the tour was amazed the large mansion was built in six months for about $13,000 until it was pointed out there were 450 slaves on the plantation. After the war, about 290 slaves stayed at the farm and became share croppers. Go to the library and get a book on Louisiana plantations. The variety is amazing and the pictures are stunning.

All in all, my recommendation is if you get a chance to visit Louisiana, do it. Go explore. And plan to spend more that a couple of days exploring; there is a ton of places to see and things to do. Not to mention good food just about anywhere you go. Must be that French influence. It's all over this place.

See ya!

BTW: Our niece had a procedure done yesterday that left her sick from anesthesia and in a lot of pain from the procedure itself. She will need an operation on her knee in the next week or two. Here's a big shout out to Mary Claire. Sweetheart, you are in our thoughts and prayers. I included a picture of our family including Racheal, Christopher's girlfriend and Tony, one of Christopher's best friends and a great friend of the family.We Love You Mary Claire -- Get Well Soon!

A Doggie View of the US

Here are some additional pictures of the coach for those of you who asked for them. Things coming together as far as setting up the RV for our needs. Installing everything we bought has been relatively easy.

MLA is getting really good at walking the dog and talking with neighbors while I unload, unpack, and install these items. She is, however, always happy to provide input after the fact about me installing something too high, too low or not in the 'right ' place. Oh well.



See the small window in the second picture of the coach? It's at floor level and it's for the driver to look out and see the corner in order to better judge exactly when to begin your turn. MLA told me I'm wrong. Clearly she says, Tiffin installed that small window as a doggie window. She promply put the dogs blanket on the floor and Dobbie the Wonder Dog now has her personal view out of the coach.

Had a late lunch at Morton's today. Another great meal. The shrimp & crab bisque was amazing. Later this week we will try a place on the river Debbie recommended with a comment about 'watch out for the alligators' or some thing to that effect. We'll see.



Louisiana divides itself, at least for tourism purposes, into 5 regions: 1) Sportman's Paradise 2) Crossroads 3) Cajun Country 4) Plantation Country 5) Greater New Orleans.



Tommorrow we head to Plantation Country, which is about 1.5 hours from base camp. There are a number of restored plantations and state historic sites. Plus we'll hit the Rural Life Museum near Baton Rouge which has been authentically reconstructed to show all of the activities on a trypical 19th century working plantation. The complex of buildings supports a 450 acre farm: commissary, overseer's house, kitchen, slave cabins, sick house, school house, blacksmith's shop, sugarhouse & grist mill. Can't wait; see ya!