On Tour with J&B, Week 2, 2017 - All Inside RV Storage

On Tour with J&B Week 2, 2017

Click on photos to enlarge.

This week we drove from Galveston, Texas, to Montgomery, Alabama —
only 705 miles. Finally slowing the pace down a bit.

RV Parks:

Galveston: Dellanera RV Park on the beach, Galveston Island. Great location.

Baton Rouge: Baton Rouge KOA, very nice with plenty of room around each site.

New Orleans: The Ponchartrain Landing RV Park was a big disappointment. Check out the pic from their website (complete with trailers, RVs, and greenery photoshopped in, and junk photoshopped out) and our pics. Oh well, that’s the beauty of traveling in your own home, we were comfortable inside, just didn’t spend any time outside.

Mobile: McCoy’s RV Park. A large grassy area with hookups and that’s about it. But, that was all we needed and it was close to the golf course.

Montgomery: The Woods RV, very nice, open, large pull thru’s, close to downtown. A nice surprise.

Keeping up with the blog as we go down the road.

We’ve taken the wrong fork in the road before, so we stopped to exam this one closely!

Crossing the Mississippi River.

More than 20 miles of highway in and around swamps, weird.

The big Mississip’.

Galveston, TX —Although it was overcast and windy the day we arrived, we took a nice long walk on the beach with wind blown waves rolling in.

Our second day weather was perfect! A little windy — hey, we’re at the beach — but sunny and not hot, not cold — perfect for a bike ride. Betty has a brand new Trek electric bike and has been ready to ride. There was a bike path along the strand and it was easy peddling east to the historic Galveston Pleasure Pier.

The ride back was a breeze, according to Betty, but a bit tiring for John — against the wind! Well, that was the whole idea of getting an electric bike for Betty . . . so she could keep up with John. Betty swears she had the battery off for about 50% of the ride, in low about 45%, and medium just a few times. Who can dispute it . . . and why would you??? It was a pleasant 13 mile ride and we’re finally getting some exercise.

Highway 10 took us over the Atchafalaya swamps and river, for about 20 miles!

Galveston Island Beach.

Galveston historic pleasure pier, only open on weekends, and quite pricy.

Proud Betty and her new bike.

An engineering feat building miles and miles of roads through swamps in Louisiana.

Baton Rouge, LA — This was just an overnight stop for us. After a five hour plus drive, we were pooped. We took a ten minute walk to a Bass Pro Shop, which was typically huge with unbelievable inventory. John shopped larger motors for the pontoon boat (yep, apparently we need more power). Their bar and restaurant looked inviting, so we stayed for dinner. It was lousy, but at least we didn’t have to drive . . . or cook.

The drive from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to New Orleans was a memorable one. We crossed over the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, roughly twenty miles of raised bridge interstate over bayous and swamps, punctuated with Spanish Moss-draped Cypress trees, and, at least in our minds, filled with crayfish, alligators and swamp poop! We had a good laugh as we recalled that Jake on Two and a Half Men talked about having “swamp ass,” — we think this is where you get it!

Pontchartrain Landing, a very old, rundown facility.

The approach road to Pontchartrain Landing RV Park. Oh dear.

This is from the Pontchartrain Landing website, it doesn’t look anything like this in reality. I see lots of photoshopped images. Got to be careful.

New Orleans, LA — We have tried several times before to connect with this city and wanted to give it another try. Our first time here was a New Year’s Eve on a flight from home to the Bahamas. We arrived after dark and hit Bourbon Street around 11pm. Wow, crazy! This time we went to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street about 5pm, and it was a whole different crowd. Oh well, we are a wee bit older now and not quite running at the same velocity as before. Anyway, interesting atmosphere — people, shops and restaurants everywhere. (Found a great t-shirt for John and you, Terry Karsh, that will be great on our boat trip.) We had a drink or two (who’s counting) and a bite to eat — and got home before the crazy’s came out.

Bourbon Street -- lots of people -- will get crazy after dark.

Next day we visited the Lafayette Cemetery and browsed the headstones. There are many cemeteries like this in the city, and they are very interesting, and a bit sad. They are pretty run down, sites crumbling, no care given. We saw names dating from the 1700s to the early 2000s. Finally John said, in the words of our grandson, Nick, “We gotta get out of here, this place is creepin’ me out!” Had lunch on Magazine Street in the Garden District. Lots of beautiful old homes, well taken care of.

Very rundown and neglected. Births and deaths dating from the late 1700s to early 2000s. After a short while, John quoted grandson, Nick, “we gotta get outta here, I’m getting creeped out!”

Lafayette Cemetery.

Mobile, AL — And the signs for the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail begin. Our first stop on the trail is Magnolia Grove. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming (love the Southern hospitality), the club house and grounds beautiful and well maintained. We played the Crossings course — there are two 18-hole courses and an 18-hole par 3. The weather was perfect, no wind — we’re off to a great start with the golf.

After golf, feeling lazy, and nothing but fast food in the area, so John called a Domino’s to see if they have gluten free pizza. YES, great! So he says we’ll eat there. I say I think it’s take-out only, so he calls and asks if they have tables and chairs. “Well, sir, we do have one table and two chairs, but most people take the pizza to go.” Pretty funny. However, we ended up cooking at home after all.

Montgomery, AL — Nice drive from Mobile. All set to play our second round of golf on the RTJ Trail in the morning.