Cruise on the Red River

One of the things I want on this adventure is to find the unique character of the places at which we stop. I think this was why I was a bit disappointed with our Wednesday morning wander around the downtown area of Shreveport. It just wasn't where we were. 

There are many outlet stores and several large casinos on the opposite side of the river from where we walked, but shopping and gambling are not alluring to me. 

We have driven around a bit, and I am pleased to report there are some nice parts of the city.

I was concerned that if we were at a state park this week we would not have a clear sky for satellite reception. The World Cup started on Thursday, and watching soccer games will be Craig's main interest for a while. 

With that in mind, we caught the 10 AM departure of the Red River Cruise Boat. The weather was very pleasant, in the high 70's, and there was a nice little breeze.  We were the only passengers.

The cruise itself is an hour long. We went up into a bayou which was quite pretty.

We saw Blue Heron,

and Egrets.

This was pointed out to us as "his and hers" houseboats. Apparently they are occupied by a couple who are together, but need their own space!

I wonder if the tent on the top deck is a summer house or a sleeping loft.

We were back to the Alfa by noon and watched the Spain vs. the Netherlands game. Spain was supposed to be the best in the world, but lost badly.

We took an evening walk last night and enjoyed seeing fireflies in the trees.  The KOA keeps the mosquitos under control by fogging. I heard the truck the other night.  I'm not sure what I think about that. I don't like the though of the poison in the air and on the grass, but I also hate mosquitos. 

Spray or not? 

Shreveport Day 1

As the dawn light filtered between the slats of the closed mini blinds next to our bed, we were serenaded by a most exuberant mocking bird. 

The windows were open and I think he was in the tree just a few feet away from the Alfa. 

How many songs can one mockingbird copy? 

Do older mocking birds remember more songs than younger ones? 

Do mockingbirds have a song of their own? 

As I drifted slowly up from sleep I started to guess what the origin of each call might be. I think I heard a tree frog among them.

On Wednesday, we went to the Shreveport Visitors Center and, following their instructions, found a couple of interesting places to see. In general, the parts of downtown Shreveport that we saw today felt very much like they died some years ago. 

A very pretty overflow fountain in the river walk area

Although there are several large hotels and casinos along the river, and a very nice pathway along the river itself, the old streets one block off the river were lined with vacant stores and business. There was little traffic, few pedestrians, and almost every parking lot we passed was close to empty. On the other hand, the streets were clean with no graffiti or homeless beggars that are often found in urban areas.

We had planned on stopping for a nice lunch. But, other than going into the casinos, it didn’t seem there was much hope of finding anything on foot, so we returned to the car and Craig used his phone for recommendations and directions. The first one we tried to find seemed to be at a run down airport. Even the Air National Guard buildings had for lease signs on them. Our next try was for a place that came up four stars on the phone and was on the list provided by the visitors center. We drove on some well-maintained streets that had what seemed like abandoned warehouses on both sides. Some of the streets had sidewalks and stairs that went to empty overgrown residential lots. We saw lots of boarded up houses as well. The churches, on the other hand, seemed new or renovated and very well maintained.

Herby K's did not live up to my expectations as a lunch stop. Although it had "character" in that it hasn't changed much since it opened in 1936, the food was not that good and seemed overpriced. 

I wold not recommend it. I may be too picky, but there are so many good eats out there I hate to waste a meal at a so-so place. 

Speaking of eats, we had an interesting supper back at the Alfa.

On our way home we stopped at a Walmart for a few things and were surprised by this big tub of live crawfish in the meat department. 

The butcher was on hand to bag them up and tell people what spice mix to buy and how to cook them. 

I was a bit leery at first, but after seeing that they were fresh enough to be still moving, I let Craig talk me into getting a couple of pounds.

Trying Crawdads was on my "Louisiana List", but I didn't expect to be cooking them myself!

Craig and I both recall catching similar critters, which we called crabs, in the creeks near our homes in Wisconsin as children. Neither of us could remember our mothers cooking them for us. Perhaps it was because we would only bring home a few at a time. Not enough to bother cooking.

I followed the butcher's instructions to soak them in salt water for an hour and then boiling them with Zatarain's spices. 

We ate them out on the patio table.

We ate them dipped in  some melted butter. 

Interesting, much like very tiny lobsters, but it
sure seem like a lot of work for each little tail. 




I'm really looking forward to eating fresh Maine lobsters someday.

Quick Update and some Blogging Thoughts

Update:
After a very nice meal and visit with the couple who had bought much of our audio equipment, we spent one more day in Dallas and then drove to Shreveport Louisiana. A short 220 miles on a sunny day. We are settled in at the Tall Pines KOA for the next five days. It is an average KOA, clean, level pads, pool etc. for almost rice the price of the older park we were at in Texas. But it was easy to find and had good recommendations.

We will be doing tourists things for the next few days. The weather has gotten just a tiny bit cooler.

Thoughts about blogging:
One of the blogs we read every day is The Bayfield Bunch, as much for Al's down-to-earth words as for his wonderful images. He has written about what he considers interesting or not about other blogs. He often makes me think about what I write.

I ask myself why I write a blog.  He encourages other bloggers to write about what they think, and not just what they are doing. Sometimes I do, but most of the time if I write a post about what I think, I keep it as a draft, ask myself if it will offend or influence anyone in any way, and then delete it. Unfortunately I'm not as good at deleting my comments on other people's blogs for the same reasons. Oh well, I think comments are more like conversation.  I offend people all of the time with my big mouth.  :)  When I write a blog post I have time to think before I push the publish button. Most of the time I realize I cannot change what other people think if I disagree with them, so it is only an aggravation to try.

For me keeping a blog has several functions. 

• It's a personal log which I can look back on in the future. Where we go and where we stay are keystones to my memories. 
• It's a letter to my friends and family. Instead of sending dozens of postcards, I post the pictures and tell the story of where we are and where we are going.
• It's a way I can share what we are learning about living in an RV full-time. I know I learned a great deal from reading the blog posts of other RVers. They helped me make up my mind about doing this, and prepared me for both better and worse days.
• When I write a post and keep it in draft form, the blog becomes a place to vent or just to mull over things that bother me.

I cannot control who reads or follows my blog. I wouldn't know how to if I wanted to. I know there are some who I will never meet, and probably some who I will never know read it at all. But there are a few that I write for.

• My son and daughter. I want them to know where we are and what we're doing. I read my son's blog to keep up on what he is doing. I have to rely on weekly phone calls from my daughter, but that works too.
• My sister-in-law and her 90+ year old mother-in-law that lives with her. She reads the blog aloud to Grandma Flora, which helps her to remember her own travels and adventures from long ago.
• My brothers and their wives. We don't talk on the phone very often, but the blog is a way of reaching out to them.
• My daughter's in-laws in New Zealand. I hear they enjoy hearing about what we are doing.
• Friends from the Los Gatos Mountains. 
• And many members of the RV community.

Why do you blog?  Why do you read mine?

What To Do in Dallas on a Hot Humid Day

I'm beginning to recall how we managed to live in the Dallas area in the summer months 36 years ago. We went from our air conditioned house to our air conditioned car to the air conditioned stores and back again. We ventured out of doors in the early morning or to our back yard pool in the evenings.  

It has been very hot and humid here this week, but the thermometer tells us that it is still much cooler than it is going to be.

So .... What to do in such muggy weather?  Find a cool venue other than a shopping mall.

Both Craig and I enjoy visiting aquaria. When we lived here in Texas, he kept a large tank of beautiful marine fish. When we moved to California we donated the very healthy fish to the Dallas and Ft. Worth Aquaria. We never got around to having an aquarium in California. Perhaps it was because I was afraid of it breaking in an earthquake!

On Friday we were greeted by this unlikely fellow at the Dallas World Aquarium. He's called a shoebill stork. 

The layout and exhibits are some of the best I have seen.  I say "some of" because it was hard to compare this River Rainforest with the Open Ocean, Kelp Forest, or the Jellies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. 

The design and traffic flow is interesting. We started at the canopy level of a very large open aviary. Most of the birds are free to fly as they please within the structure. Some have netted enclosures, but we hardly noticed their confinement. There are monkeys, sloths, and marmosets living high and low with colorful jungle birds of many kinds.

As we wound down along faux stone passages we stopped and peered into glass enclosures built into the walls housing frogs, toads, tarantulas, and snakes. 

Looking down, we saw several large pond areas with water birds. As we passed over one of them, we noticed a pair of enormous prehistoric-looking white reptile tails in the water below the bridge we were crossing.

When we got lower we could see the front ends. This pair of Orinoco Crocodiles are the first breeding pair in North America.

The integration of the habitats and animals was well done.

The Jaguar had a nice sized space with a small clear pond. He is fed in part by putting fish into the pond and letting him catch them. He had just finished eating one when we arrived and was quite active going back into the water to look for another.  He ignored all the people who were just on the other side of his glass wall.  Big kitty.

About the time we were wondering whether this aquarium included any fish, we found them, both fresh water and marine. In one large tank exhibit there were very large river fish and a Manatee. We only go to see the manatee for a few minutes before he went "back stage."  There is a passage on the side of the tank, which leads to a holding tank. One of the docents explained that often when people were doing things back there he went to check them out.  Maybe he was looking for a treat.

One of our favorite tanks was the tunnel. This is a glass passage through the tank holding the sharks, rays, sawfish, and other large guys. We later were able to view them from above water as well. 

We were surprised by the fact that the penguin exhibit was outside. Who would think penguins would be happy outdoors in Dallas, but they seemed to be! 

I have seen many flamingo colonies at zoos. These were the healthiest I can remember. Flamingos get their color from their food. These were beautiful and vibrant.

No aquarium seems complete without a few tanks of Jellies. Here they had their own small corridor with black light that made a colorful glow.

Overall, I give the Dallas World Aquarium a big thumbs up as a  COOL thing to do on a hot day.  The only improvement I could make, would be to wear personal headphones that blocked out the people sounds around me as I enjoyed the exhibits. Perhaps with a soothing music soundtrack. I don't mind the bodies, but it seems the sounds of people and children chattering away is magnified by the walls and water.  But we are people too, and added our comments to the sounds around us.

After our aquarium visit, we went over to the Dallas Farmer's Market. It is currently being renovated, so only a small area was open. We bought some pretty good produce for slightly less than at the local large grocery.

We ended our day out with a stop at Trader Joe's for fresh basil. There was none at the Farmer's Market, and the tiny packages available at the local grocery were past their prime. Trader Joe's sells really healthy living basil plants for $3.99 each. I never bought them when we lived in California because we could buy large fresh bunches of basil in most grocery stores for less almost year round, but this may be the way to have this essential fresh herb on hand in the RV. 

We also needed to restock some of our favorite items for next week. We will be going to Shreveport, LA on Monday, and there is no TJ's there.  One thing that has not changed in our lifestyle is our love of good homemade food. A well stocked larder is very important to us.

Dallas Arboretum

[From Craig]  When we lived in Dallas from 1979-83, we never visited the Dallas Arboretum.  As busy young parents, plants and flowers just weren't important enough.  Today (Thursday) we made up for that.

The Dallas Arboretum consists of two estates on the east shore of White Rock Lake, on the east side of Dallas.  The two houses involved were built between 1930 and 1950.  We toured one of them, which was quite impressive. The owner updated his home with items from a William Randolph Hearst estate sale in California in the 1950's.

As gardens go, the place isn't much behind Versailles in France.  The gardens of the "front" estate, closer to the entrance, put more emphasis on flowering plants as well as AAS "trial" plots where new varieties of flowers are tested.

Perhaps the most spectacular features are two topiary peacocks whose "tails" spread out into beds of flowers.

Typically of Dallas in summer, it was warm and humid.  The front house was said to be the first air-conditioned home in Dallas, but before such amenities, the only refuge from the heat and humidity were well-designed shady places like this beautiful walkway with trees arched over it.

Which led to a delightful courtyard with four frog fountains at the corners. Merikay says this one is for Karen who does not like frogs.

The other estate had fewer flowers but more flowing water and graceful landscaping.

Other features of the Arboretum included displays of bird houses and bird feeders.

Not to mention an owl play house:

Despite the heat, we found the Dallas Arboretum to be a place of beauty, peace, and tranquillity.

From Merikay:  a few more delightful flowers.

And for the other Karen in Wisconsin some Coleus

As mentioned earlier, the day was very hot and humid, but the gardens were well worth putting up with the weather. I knew that there were very few places in the USA that had as perfect  weather as the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, but that's OK. 

Everything has a trade off.  

Eight Dead Armadillos

As we drove south through Oklahoma City towards Texas, we noticed another big landscape change. The large brown wheat fields with rocky outcroppings and scattered mesas dwindled and gently rolling hills became more prevalent. Sage brush and juniper was replaced by more and more deciduous trees.  Along Interstate 35 the much wider roadsides were covered with lush green grass, and in many places wildflowers were plentiful.

[From Craig] It felt like we were driving through a golf course...

Now then, I'm not inclined to count roadkill, but I happened to comment when I saw the first dead armadillo.  We kept count for the rest of the day and the total was 8.

OK,
 a dead armadillo picture was too gross!

With not much else to post about, I have to relate my dead armadillo in the freezer story...



Thirty-six years ago we moved to Texas from Wisconsin. I was already making animal head sculpture wall hangings and decided that I should make an armadillo. When creating new designs I would look at pictures and if possible go to a museum and look at taxidermy specimens for details.  Early one Saturday morning, while driving down a quiet country road, I spotted a dead armadillo on the side of the road.  I pulled over to take a look at it. Just to look at it, mind you.

But, oh my, it was so fresh and didn't have a mark on it.  I had some plastic garbage bags in my van, and I was only a mile or so from home. 

So, I bundled it up and took it home so I could take some measurements and maybe do a drawing or two.  

Now then, we had a very large chest freezer in our garage. Craig had gotten a good deal on it because few people really need a 26 cubic foot freezer. There was lots of room to keep things separated.

When I got home I put the armadillo on a tray and wrapped him in some clear plastic.  He was to one side, and not mixed in with the packaged side of beef and other food we also had in there.  

[From Craig] Merikay then went back out on her errands. At the time I was working at a company that had quite a drinking culture, and I had quite a hangover, and went looking in the freezer for some of the frozen [non-alcoholic] Margarita mix that I had learned helped with a hangover.

I opened the chest freezer and was confronted with an armadillo. NOW I KNEW I HAD GONE OVER THE EDGE INTO HALLUCINATIONS!  So I closed the lid, went back in the kitchen and made coffee, and tried to work out how to deal with my problem.

The kids had fun showing their friends their mother's dead armadillo. 
I hope no one got the idea we were planning on roadkill for dinner!
He was in there for a long time.

We are at the Post Oak Place RV park in Denton Texas. I looked in my resource books and the internet to find our next stop. There was a nice sounding place in Carrolton, a public park near Lake Lewisville, and this place in Denton. The reviews for this one were rather negative saying it was old, full of large, low hanging trees and not "big rig friendly". When we were about 100 miles out we started to call for "availability." My first choice in Lewisville was full, and the Carrolton site didn't answer their phone. This place did and said yes they had a couple of spots that would fit our 35' motor home.  The lady also told us not to try to pull up to the area where the office was because of all of the trees.

When we pulled in I could see there were four or five back-in spaces open right along a fence close to the entrance. There were trees, but there were a couple of spaces without trees directly over the rig or blocking the southern sky, which has become  priority now that we're using our satellite system. 

All of the rest of the place was wooded with rather small spaces, that were full of smaller trailers that mostly looked like they were there on a more permanent basis.  There was a loud train that goes past the fence on the far side of the park, but the trees muffle the sound quite nicely.

This is one of the reasons we have decided to keep our 35 foot Alfa instead of trading up to a 40. Personally I like these older, somewhat run-down parks. 

The people here are "real." I met a nice gal at the laundry the other day that told me her story. She and her young husband are just out of the Marines. They are living here while he gets experience in his new job. She said that living in their 22' trailer gave them an opportunity to save some money for their future home.

I also chatted with an older woman who lives here so she can be near her grown children.  She said she really didn't want to live with them, but liked to have them nearby. Not all seniors can afford nice condos.

This park is not really "big rig friendly" except for one of the few spaces where we are. If you want more information, best to call ahead. Post Oak Place RV Park, Denton Texas. With 15% Escapee discount, $23.80 per night.

On Tuesday we enjoyed driving around and seeing how the area has changed in the 35 years since we left. Everything is so different. Where there were large sheep pastures there are now shopping centers, and all the little back roads are boulevards between subdivisions. 

The house we had lived in looks rather sad compared to some of the larger, newer homes on surrounding streets. The lawn is patchy and the curtains in the windows hang at tattered angles. Perhaps it is a rental. There was a huge new-looking boat in the driveway, and we could see a trampoline and many bikes and toys in the backyard around the pool area. The residents may enjoy playing more than tending the grass and landscape. Other homes in the area had beautiful lawns and trimmed plants.

We were delighted to see that the water tower still displays the delightful school team name "Fighting Farmers."  Craig took this with his new zoom lens zoomed all the way in.

[From Craig] Tamron 28-300mm, better performance than the Nikon equivalent that costs almost twice as much :-)

We will be here for several days so that we can visit a friend.  We're looking forward to visiting some Dallas area attractions.

Alabaster Caverns Oklahoma State Park

Friday evening, we visited with a very nice local couple who were camped in the site just across from us at the Black Mesa State Park. Being from Oklahoma, they had camped at many of the state parks. When asked where we were headed next, I said we were going  about 250 mile east called Boiling Springs. It was their opinion that it was not the best choice and that we should consider another park called the Alabaster Caverns State Park. It has a very interesting cave that can be toured.

That night there was a really loud thunderstorm with lots of heavy rain and some small hail. We felt sorry for the tent campers, and for one guy that drove in during the height of the storm with a pop up camper.  By morning we noticed most of the RV spaces were filled. Several more boats had arrived in the night.

We pulled out around 9:30 AM, and were able to stop for gas, diesel fuel, and a few groceries on the way. It was a good thing I consulted the Rand McNally Navigator for these services early in the day, because there was only one town, Guymon, on the way that had larger stores.

The Alfa at the end of this empty row of spaces

When we arrived at the Caverns I felt a bit foolish for having called ahead,  and paying the extra $5.00 fee for a reservation.  I do feel more comfortable knowing we have a space, but in this case the campground was almost empty! I took the above picture on Sunday morning. There had been a couple of other rigs there the day before. When we pulled out on Monday, we were the last to leave.

In addition to some cottontails and birds, we left this guy to hold down the fort so to speak.  He, or she, is the first Horny Toad I have seen. He was a lot smaller than I expected. Not much bigger than the regular toads I am accustomed to.

We joined one other couple on the tour of the cave on Sunday. 

Cave entrance

In this image the rocks look purple. Although they did have a slight purplish cast it was not this intense.  I found it impossible to get the color right in any of the images I took with my little camera. No flash was allowed.

This picture is a close up of a translucent section of the cave wall. The color is fairly accurate. The slight green is algae.

Our guide was a young local gal now working for the park service. She spotted this salamander and kept her light on him while I took his picture. She said that when she was a kid she would catch salamanders like this in the water meter holes and play with them. I remember checking the water meter at our house in Texas and finding a scorpion.

It was an interesting cave tour. Later in the day we saw many people waiting for the next hourly tour outside of the ranger station.  I'm glad we went early.  

It became quite hot, probably in the 90's, later in the day. Too hot for a walk. We relaxed in the Alfa, Craig watching a soccer game, and I doing some stitchery. Just a laid back Sunday afternoon.

Life is good.