Home again

Friday April 10th we left Quiet Oaks and drove north on Hwy 165 . The temperature was 75F and the air felt muggy.  Within 2 hours we went through a rain shower and temperature dropped 9F within minutes!  A bonus of driving through this area were road side stands selling jumbo shrimp for $5.99/lb!  Too bad that we stocked up in Mexico. We will just have to remember it next time. We drove through the states of Louisiana, Arkansas and into Mississippi that day.  We crossed over to Hwy I55 and headed to Batesville  intending to spend the night at the Walmart.  Unfortunately it was too noisy so we moved about a block down the road to the Batesville Civic Center. We boondocked on their parking lot as we had moved after dark.  In the morning we discovered they have 20 RV sites with full services that must be reserved in advance over the internet. Turns out they charge $30 a night so we will stay boondocking.

Saturday we drove through Memphis and headed north to Effingham IL. The weather was a pleasant 65F. Sad to say there were no longer wildflowers at the side of the road or flowering trees and bushes. Texas was so beautiful with their roadside flowers. We traveled through 5 states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois.  Our overnight stop in Effingham was the Walmart.  This place encourages overnight campers with signs directing you to Truck Parking.  There were 14 trucks and 6 motorhomes parked for the night.  We were within walking distance of 6 restaurants and lots of shopping. We took advantage of the location and went out to dinner.

Sunday we left Effingham IL to travel to La Porte IN.  Leaving the city we saw a large roadside sign indicating the home office of our favourite pancake mix, Hodgson Mills. Too late to stop so we will have to stock up in La Porte. We had crossed the Mississippi River 3 times on this trip home:

an early crossing of the Mississippi River

approaching a bridge across the Mississippi (please excuse the bug smear on the windshield!)

the suspension bridge up close

a view of the Mississippi as we cross the bridge

 On our trip up Hwy 421 to La Porte we noticed the Whistle Stop Restaurant with a collection of train cars, railway memorabilia and a museum at Monon. It would be a wonderful place to take our grandchildren! A week after we got home we learned that Monon is the home of our famous Whirley popcorn maker and we could have stopped in and got new replacement gears.

The following photos are of the equipment located on the grounds surrounding the Whistle Stop restaurant:

A real steam driven crane

Checking out the heavy crane

A trailer to a jigger used by rail service crews

Four old dumping cars probably used in mining

Handle used for track switching

An old baggage cart

Wow! I remember the wood stoves when I was a kid

The interior is quite splendid..all wood

Entering the restaurant:

Inside the restaurant, there were 4 tracks of model trains circling the ceiling. There was also a museum of memorabilia but we did not take it in.

Chugga chugga woo woo!

Once we arrived in La Porte, we spent 3 days visiting with family and shopping for some RV supplies. 

We left La Porte Wednesday, April 15th. After crossing the border at Port Huron/Sarnia we stopped in Sarnia for dinner with family then headed to the PILOT/Flying J Travel Plaza in London to stay overnight.  With our PILOT credit card we a get 5 cents/gallon discount on our purchase of gasoline in the USA and 1 cent per litre discount in Canada.  The Travel Plaza is a popular place to stop for RVers on our way home as we can dump our black and gray tanks. 



We arrived home Thursday April 16th before noon.  The weather was lovely and warm -- perfect to unload our motorhome.

Our route home this year was 3,043 miles -- 664 miles shorter than last year when we traveled up the west coast of Mexico to Nogales, Tucson and then across Arizona and New Mexico.

In all,  our total miles traveled since we left home in November was 6,589.

Lake Charles area of Louisiana

Our final night at Hidden Valley was warm 80F at 9 pm!  With high humidity, we turned on the AC for a comfortable sleep.

We left San Antonio about 9:30 am on Tuesday, April 7^th  to drive straight across I10 to the Lake Charles area of Louisiana.

We passed through Houston around noon.  Here are a couple of shots of the downtown skyline.

It was a good day to travel.  Skies were overcast the first part of the day but warm weather. We are happy to still be wearing shorts, t-shirts and sandals.

By the time we reached Lake Charles, the sky had a few blue spots.  Here are a couple of photos taken as we crossed the bridge over Lake Charles:

We arrived in the late afternoon at Quiet Oaks RV Park north of Fenton LA which is northeast of Lake Charles.  It is a lovely campground under shady trees and 10 miles away from the noise of the I10 highway. 

On Wednesday April 8^th we drove back to the Lake Charles area to spend some time touring

around the Creole Nature Trail.  There are viewing areas along the route, with an informative visitor center and a boardwalk for bird watching and viewing alligators.  Unfortunately at this time of year, many of the birds have started their journey north.

a young alligator beside the boardwalk at the Visitor Center in the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge

Walking the Pintail Boardwalk at the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge

a Snowy Egret

the Snowy Egret in flight

a Black-necked Still in flight

a Black-necked Still hunting for food

a Laughing Gull

alligators in the waterway beside the road

this black King snake was hidden in the grass where we first stepped onto the boardwalk!

 We had planned to stay at Quiert Oaks 2 nights but the severe weather warnings for our route north have delayed our trip to Memphis another day.

San Antonio

We enjoyed our 2 weeks stay in Donna TX and plan to stay there a month in the fall.  We even had a produce vendor come into the park on Tuesdays.  The wagon on the far right was dedicated to bags of onions only -- up to 50 lb bags!

We were able to purchase a bag of key limes for $1.50, a bag of fresh yams for $2.00 and wonderful ripe beefsteak tomatoes from the vendor (only Roma tomatoes are available where we stay in Mexico) .

We left Donna on April 5th (Easter Sunday) to head to San Antonio TX.  We stopped north of McAllen to fuel up the motorhome at a Pilot Truck Stop on Hwy 281. Pilot's price was $2.09 /gallon but thanks to our Pilot discount card we paid only $2.04/gallon.

On our drive we noticed birds with very long tails similar in shape to a magpie but quite different in coloring.  They are called Scissor Tailed Flycatchers and are about 13" long:

Driving north to San Antonio was lovely with all the spring wildflowers out in bloom along the highway -- Texas bluebonnets, brown-eyed susans, daisies, white prickly poppies, just to name a few.

We arrived at Hidden Valley RV Park in mid afternoon.  This park is a true gem.  It's nestled in a little valley with a river running through.  Peaceful and quiet, yet only a 20 minute drive to downtown San Antonio. This is the second time we stayed at Hidden Valley.

We visited the River Walk 3 years ago but never took the boat ride or saw the area lit up at night.  We decided to go out for dinner and then take a boat ride after dark.  It was the perfect evening to do so as the weather was warm -- 75F (23.8C) at 9 pm.

On our walk from the parking garage to the River Walk, we spotted this carriage.  Our grandchildren would love a ride in this! After dark, it is all lit up in led lighting...quite a sight.

We enjoyed fine dining at Ostra along the River Walk. A few photos of the River Walk taken while seated at our table.

There were many ice cream parlors along the River Walk but we chose the Ben and Jerry's on the upper level to share a scoop of Butter Pecan ice cream.

A view of the river walk from Ben and Jerry's

waiting to board the riverboat for a 35 minute tour

aboard the boat

The next day we spent the morning taking photographs of the wildflowers around our campground.

Verbena

Really ting blue flowers

Prickly pear cactus

lots of new growth on this cactus paddle

flowers on the tree seen in the photo above of the laneway into the campground

A whole field of wildflowers

white prickly poppy

looks like a little face on this Day Flower

A cluster of Day Flowers

winecup flower

Lots and lots of wine cups

Texas Star

Texas bluebonnet

 Texas bluebonnets proliferates along the highways throughout Texas. The grow in big clusters and we saw a whole field of them that was easily 3 acres in size!

Huisache Daisy

Vic photographing the flowers in the next picture

Pink evening primrose

A Monarch recently returned from wintering in Mexico

the river running through the campground - we spotted gar and catfish in the river- our rig in the background

In the afternoon we took a car trip north to New Braumfels to browse through the PPL RV lot and pick up their latest parts catalogue. From there we headed towards Lockhart which is famous throughout all the land for their Barbeque Brisket. Lockart is located about an hour northeast from San Antonio towards Austin.   

On the way we passed the Texas Waterski Center.  A pretty amazing place! There are no boats. What??? The skiers are towed around the man-made lake by a cable tow. There are ramps and jumps and a pipe to ride. If you fall, there is no boat to come and get you. You have to get out of the water and walk back to the starting area to get another grab at a tow line handle.

We arrived early in Lockhart so walked around the historic downtown area.  The old courthouse was truly amazing! It has been totally restored and looks like it was just built.When it opened in 1894, it was state-of-the-art and had electricity.

Then we dropped into a wine tasting bar to try some wines from 4 Texas wineries.  While there we met some very interesting people visiting from the Netherlands. The guy we were talking to had just been married the day before.

There are 4 famous BBQ restaurants in Lockhart.  We tired Black’s for their barbecued brisket and sausage.

Simple, clean and concrete floors and 82 years in biz