Souvenirs From The Road: Hill Country Spring and New Orleans Fun!

I will apologize up front - this is a longer than normal blog post. But heck - it's my trip diary for my memory! Getting caught up as we are starting to travel once more!

March and April went by in a blur, but there really wasn’t much excitement to write about. The wildflowers were beautiful. We enjoyed a couple more potlucks on the LBJ Ranch. Friends we met last year in Colorado, Claudia and Gene, and Debbie and Casey, came and stayed a month in Stonewall and we got to visit with them. It was good to catch up with them!

Nothing prettier than our Texas Bluebonnets!

Ron, Claudia and Gene

One of the things on our area bucket list was to stop at the Buggy Museum in Blanco and also the Chess Club for lunch. The museum was interesting. The Chess Club food is to die for! And we topped it off with a visit to the Ben Milam Distillery, which is pretty good stuff. Brother and sister-in-law Don and Rene’ came down to join us for a Wednesday night dance at the Albert Dance Hall. Fun times!

Lots and lots of buggies here!

Very good tasting!

It was great that the Rangers we work with came to Albert to celebrate us volunteers!

Joan, Dianne, and Jerry

Don and Rene'

The twins Ron and Don with wives Mary and Rene'

Sure love the Albert Dance Hall and the band!

We celebrated the Easter season, shared lots of family fun times and also my birthday!

Ran into my BFF Peggy at her workplace!

Lucy and Aiden! Getting ready for a Chris Tomlin concert.

Eating dinner out!

A re-make of a picture. Sure have grown, but they still love each other.

Concert fun!

Lucy caught a big catfish in the pond!

Me and my step-great grandkids Marshall and Riley, and my grands Aiden and Lucy

Palm Sunday getting ready for church

Mr. Baseball!

Special delivery out to the ranch for my birthday!

Yep I feel special! Two birthday cakes!!!

Before our volunteer neighbors hit the road, we had a movie night using our outdoor TV. We watched “O Brother Where Art Thou”, a funny and timeless classic! Popcorn was great! The next day we drove to Alamo Springs for burgers and then went out to Luckenbach as they had not ventured out there before. It was a good send off.

Volunteer appreciation breakfast and gift. These are the great folks we got to work with this spring.

Lined up to watch a movie!

Great movie, campfire and popcorn!

Burgers at Alamo Springs

Ron tried! Ha!

Watched a trail ride come through Luckenbach

We were the only volunteers at the ranch for the next 2 weeks. We stayed pretty busy! But we did travel back to Sweeny one weekend for the annual town festival and bbq cookoff. We ended up letting Amy and James take us bar hopping to Bay City. Had fun but man it was a late night! On our way back to the ranch on Sunday we stopped off at Hostyn for their annual picnic. Yummy food and I even won a plant!

Festival fireworks!

Fun time at Neon Moon with our kiddos

Donnie and Ron

Me and Amy

Silly Aiden!

On Wednesday May 8, they evacuated the park due to flash flooding on the Pedernales River. However, where we’re parked we’re high and dry so we were able to stay. Quite amazing to watch all that water! Our volunteer time finally ended at the LBJ Ranch and we went back to Sweeny. Original plans were to go ahead and move to Fentress, but the San Marcos river had also flooded. And we had more doctor appointments. We enjoyed making lunch for Ron’s mom on mother’s day. We moved on out to Matagorda Nature Park and enjoyed some rides on the beach. Water was very muddy due to all the rain.

We've never experienced flooding like this while here.

That's the bridge you cross to come into the park.

This is LBJ's low water crossing.

Getting close to the cemetery.

Entrance gate

Somebody's trying to escape the flood!

Entrance gate

Finally made it to Fentress and boy have we enjoyed it! Lot of clean up to do from flooding but that’s all good! Ron was able to catch us some catfish and I enjoyed swinging in my chair over the river. Memorial Day weekend all of our family and Billie’s family showed up, plus a few extra friends. We had a great time! Cooked and ate way too much as usual. Enjoyed games and dancing on the patio!

Our family and cousin Billie Jean's family!

Getting all the toobs tied on to take to the river

An early birthday party for Lucy and Aiden

A little dancing on the patio!

Everyone likes my tree swing over the river!

That boy Aiden! He likes to play games.

Another remake of our favorite Fentress picture with Aiden and Lucy.

Headed back to Sweeny after the holiday so I could have another surgery on my ankle. It seems the permanent suture knot he put in back in November doesn’t like me and is trying to come out, which is making an open wound. I just thought it was complications from swelling and being on my feet so much. Oh well, he promised me I’d leave out walking in my boot for 2 weeks and I can have the sutures removed anywhere. So we are still planning on leaving June 2, heading east and taking a month to get to Mattamuskeet NWR in North Carolina where we will spend the summer! Hope it will be fun and interesting!

At least riding shotgun in the motorhome is quite comfortable!

But before we left, we got to watch Aiden show his heifer in his first cattle show. He did awesome! He’s a natural with that showmanship. And he got reserve grand champion.

Our handsome grandson Aiden

Sweating it out with Amy

Liberty, the heifer, along with his winnings.

A great support group for Aiden!

We kicked off our month long travels to North Carolina by stopping for a few nights in the Big Thicket National Preserve near Beaumont, Texas. We’re staying at Village Creek State Park. Original plans were to do some paddling here and a couple of trails, but with this dang ole walking boot and a small fear of getting my incision wet, we found some alternative things to do. We drove to the Big Thicket Visitors Center, watched the movie and checked out their exhibits. This is a very lush and dense forest and encompasses 9 habitats ranging from arid sandylands to pine uplands to wetlands.

We wanted to go to the Spindletop Museum, but alas it is closed on Mondays. So instead we took in the Beaumont Botanical Gardens. They have really done an awesome job and it was enjoyable. We were very impressed with the 9/11 Memorial Garden, the first one in the USA.

911 Garden

Next up……catching up with our camping buddies in New Orleans and Gulf Shores Alabama! And literally, we caught up behind them on Interstate 10 heading towards New Orleans. What are the odds of that? (We did go buy lotto tickets because we felt like we had good luck!)

Yep, that's our friends the Gregurek's right in front of us. Big odds!

We stopped off at Poche’s RV Park and Fish Camp for a night. Very nice park here. And of course we had to go have lunch at the Poche’s Market.

Ron had stewed rabbit while I had some etouffee. Very good!

We arrived at Bayou Barataria RV Park in Harvey, Louisiana. Nice, but not very scenic. We hit the French Quarter for a couple of days seeing the sights. The weather is rainy so spent a few hours going through the Cabildo and Presbytere Museums on Jackson Square. One of the best things was getting coffee and beinets at Café DuMond. Have really enjoyed some great meal experiences. For sure there is no shortage of that in this area.

First stop for a cool beverage!

Added another stamp to my Passport book!

St. Louis Cathedral

The big and wide Mississippi River

One of those signature drinks that wasn't good enough to remember the name! Ha!

Best breakfast at Cafe DuMond

Death mask of Napoleon in the museum

Jackson Square

Greg and Donna at the Carousel Bar

We also toured 2 plantations: Destrehan and San Francisco. Definitely if you get an engaging and enthusiastic docent it makes the experience so much better! Destrehan wasn’t so great, but really enjoyed San Francisco.