New Orleans

Our RV park in New Orleans backed up on an inlet of Lake Ponchartrain, very nice visually and close to everything we wanted to see. Becki and Walker joined us for several days here.

We would highly recommend the Mardi Gras museum to all, adults and kids.

It's at a warehouse/factory that manufactures and rehabs floats for the major Mardi Gras parades, that begin several weeks before Fat Tuesday

The tour director mixes in Mardi Gras and New Orleans history and myth, along with the process involved in building the floats. We were there at a perfect time, as the floats were being finished for this year's events.

We followed up that visit by going to one of the early parades, called "The Little Rascals", and aimed at young people.

Before it was over, Walker managed to collect over 70 strings of beads that were being thrown from the floats.

We went on a swamp tour. Beautiful weather and saw lots of

wildlife, including turtles and all kinds of waterfowl.
Unfortunately, the guide told us the water was still too cold to
bring out the alligators, so the plastic one in front of the lodge was the only one we saw.

No visit here is complete without a trip downtown. The French Market sells everything from mouth watering "benets" to all kinds of apparel.

Several cannons from the colonial days line the Mississippi River waterfront.

We boarded a horse drawn carriage for a tour of the French Quarter and some history, then ended up watching the mimes and musicians at Jackson Square and enjoyed some of the courtyards with statuary and murals.

There are several old plantation buildings lining the Misissippi southwest of the city. We picked this one to see. The land was settled by a French aristocrat in the early 1700's, and the oak trees that canopy the entrance paths date back to then. The present mansion dates back to the early 1800's, when the plantation largely grew sugar cane.

If you look closely at the last picture, you can see Peg standing at the bottom of this enormous oak.

Houston - Galveston, TX

In Houston,we visited the Johnson Space Center, which is not to be missed. It is command central for all of our manned space fights since the beginning of the program. The museum details every launch, with biographies of all the astronauts. You get a look at the command center (left), and the are full size models of all the rockets and vehicles.

In addition, a film explains all of the launches.

The San Jacinto monument commemorates the battle during the Mexican War that gave Texas and other southwest Spanish territories their independence. The museum in the monument details all of the history, and the view from the top shows much of the Houston oil port and refineries.

A drive through Galveston includes these carvings made from what was left of giant oak trees, felled and submerged when hurricane Ike devastated the area. In addition, we drove past the spectacular Galveston beach area.

Across West Texas to San Antonio

We crossed West Texas as snowstorms were pummeling the midwest and east coast. Although it didn't snow during the day, we had some overnight on two occasions, and the temperature was low enough to freeze up our fresh water connection. It warmed up enough to solve the problem during the day.

The weather improved enough by the time we reached San Antonio that we took a trolley tour of the area that included this beautiful Mission San Jose, built during the time the Spanish missionaries were in the area.

The same tour included Market Square, billed as the largest collection of Mexican products in the US.

Of course we ended up at the Riverwalk, did some shopping and ate dinner before some rain hit and we had to return.

The cold hit again, but we did do some exploring in the Hill Country, including Canyon Lake, a very picturesque water retreat for locals in good weather.

Las Cruces, NM

Las Cruces is a city located in the southeast desert area, but has many interesting venues to visit.

LaMesilla is a village that was settled before Las Cruces proper, first by the Spanish Catholic missionaries, then by settlers who were looking for land to ranch and mine for the minerals in the mountains. It's main claims to fame are the trial and conviction of Billy the Kid, and the holdout of Cochise and other Apache indians in the back country.

The native cliff dwellings at Gila are about an hour drive to the

northwest. Archaeologists think that only one or possibly two

generations of people lived here, and that drought or over

harvesting of the local plant life forced them to move on.

The construction of the walls inside the caves shows a fairly advanced knowledge of building techniques.

This is typical of the mountain scenery in the area.

The White Sands area is northeast of the city. The scenery is quite amazing as the desert dunes are indeed pure white. This is also where the White Sands Missle Proving Grounds are, and we were told that at times all traffic is denied access while tests are being done.




The museum in Alamagordo near White Sands archives the activities at the proving grounds. Rocket engines that have powered our space program were developed and tested here, as well as ICBM and anti-missle weapons.

This is a very interesting area to visit.