It’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll mostly let my photos do the talking. Suffice it to say, we fell in love with this struggling but spirited city, and actually spent a day looking at neighborhoods and apartment listings…and almost stayed. But, we decided we weren’t yet ready to end our adventures, and are now in Columbus, TX, hoping (if all goes well with the Let’s Go) to hit San Antonio tomorrow, and perhaps sleep tomorrow night in one of the numerous (and from the sounds of it, fabulous) Texas state parks. Before I move on, I feel compelled to post one last photo of beautiful Blackwater River State Park in Florida. This one is on Intestate 10, somewhere in Lousisiana, on the way to New Orleans. Just outside of New Orleans – you can still see many of the trees broken down from the hurricanes. Now it gets fun – here we are on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street in the French Quarter (and I thought New York was sin city!) We drank a couple of beers, heard some Blues standards and some fabulous old-time Jazz, and had a good laugh at the sheer number and variety of strip joints and peep shows! The feet in the window of this one swing back and forth – I had to hold the camera steady and time my shot to get the feet sticking out of the window. This is one of the many colorful buildings in the French Quarter, snapped the following day while driving around town. We also hit upon one of the amazing old cemeteries for which New Orleans is famous; spent a good hour photographing in there… Once we got back on the road, we couldn’t pass up a shot of this incredible gas bargain we spotted in Texas. And in closing, here’s Peter in our motel room this evening, writing his earlier post.

So, about ten years ago, I pulled away from my friend Dave’s house in a different VW camper. A few minutes down the highway, I noticed something missing. Raced back to Dave’s house to get the dog! Poor Ceili, being tethered to me by an invisible bungee cord, was distraught, and I felt awful about it. Whenever we’re packing up our campsite, Ceili gets agitated and wants to be in the van BEFORE all the other stuff, which makes getting all the other stuff in there more or less impossible. “Don’t forget the dog!” she seems to be saying. Last week Teri and Ceili and I visited Dave in Florida, and before we left he gave us these custom-made t-shirts with a picture of Ceili and the caption “Don’t forget the dog!!”, which we’re supposed to don before hitting the road: In other news, while traveling through a huge rainstorm between Houston (which, being New Yorkers, we have to keep reminding ourselves isn’t pronounced “HOUSE-ton”) and San Antonio, the LetsGo’s oil light started blinking. Since I checked the oil about two hours before and it was fine, the most likely cause was “the engine has blown all her oil and is about to impersonate a hand grenade”. I shut the engine and coasted down a well-placed offramp without power steering or brakes, stopping in a gas station parking lot. Got out and checked the oil, but the rain was so intense that it spattered the dipstick before I could get it into the flashlight beam, and I couldn’t read it. Soaked and convinced that the engine was in the process of self-destructing, I went back into the van to get some oil, and a Texas State trooper came up fast and stopped right next to us. We hadn’t done anything remotely wrong, but you never know, and interest from police doesn’t usually add to one’s enjoyment. Happy happy joy joy. The trooper went into the gas station (whew – several more showed up and ran in after), and I added a bit of oil. Started the engine, and no oil light. Hmmm. There was nothing but the gas station at this exit, and all the cops rushing in suggested that it might not be the most peaceful place in the world at the moment, so we got back on the highway to find lodging and look at the car. The oil light came back on just about the time that no lights/exits/etc were visible. Then it went off. Then it flickered. This could be doom. We pulled into a nice motel at the next exit; the oil light was still flickering, and the van was idling rough. Ugh. As Teri checked us in, an upset woman came in to see about a room, then her equally upset husband came in to say “forget it” – their uhaul with car-on-trailer couldn’t get all the way into the parking lot, and couldn’t turn around. I went out to block traffic so he could back the whole thing onto the road and go look for a place with a bigger lot, and they told us of getting stuck in the mud and towed earlier today. As they pulled away, I thought “well, we don’t have it so bad today, do we?” Upon parking the Vanagon, I spied…another blue Vanagon in the lot! Must be a good omen! I had a beer and snack, then went out to worry about the car. Naturally, it started right up and ran just fine with no oil light or any other problem. Took it ten miles down the road, got it up to its top speed of 65ish, and it ran like a top (that is, a top with a valve tap and lots of wind noise). Someone on thesamba.com (the definitive VW enthusiast site) suggested that the cause might be the oxygen sensor’s poor placement – right in the spray zone from the rear driver’s side tire. I have a new one stashed somewhere inside the van, I’ll replace it soon… It all worked out just fine, and in the morning we’ll be sure to NOT FORGET THE DOG.

All sorts of strangeness…being in a city after all the time in the woods, and seeing New Orleans’ cultivated shabbiness run amok. The collegey/yuppie neighborhood with the Whole Foods (where we reprovisioned) was lovely, and Bourbon Street is pretty much as I remember it (Jazz ain’t that “smooth and lite” crap on the radio!), but many of downtown’s big buildings are clearly storm-damaged and Canal Street is full of boarded-up businesses. The ‘hood, squalid before, is now unspeakably depressing where there are people and eerie where the only lights are streetlights and headlights. I’m sure we’ll have lots of photos to post tomorrow…now gotta get ready for checkout.

Finally tore ourselves away from Blackwater River after 5 days…Christmas day we got too late of a start, then made some friends so we stayed for dinner…then the next day I didn’t feel up to a long drive. Now we’re in New Orleans, in a motel, which is rather surreal after five days in the woods. About to head over to Bourbon St. still smelling of woodsmoke. Here’s a few pix - River soon after dawn: Holly bush: A Cardinal: Our campsite: Campsite by night:

After visiting friends in Paisley, FL (where we found this incredible bargain on green peppers at a local Wal-Mart), we headed north. About 20 miles east of Tallahassee, FL, we found another lovely KOA – less like a parking lot (they actually had some trees), and with incredibly nice and friendly people. I couldn’t resist snapping a photo of one of their trees… After a couple of days at the KOA spent catching up on laundry and work-related projects, we headed west, intending to hit another KOA just outside of Pensacola. About 40ish miles from our intended destination, we passed a sign for Blackwater River State Park and decided to check it out. We’ve stayed for three days. Turns out, Florida isn’t all about Disney World and spring break, like we thought. Between Ocala N.F. and Blackwater River S.P., I think we’ve gotten a taste of the REAL Florida (which, coincidentally, is the slogan for this park). The park is absolutely beautiful. The campsites have water and electric hook-ups, fire pits and clotheslines, and are spaced far enough apart to give campers some privacy amid the tall longleaf pines. We’ve seen lots and lots of birds – including more woodpeckers – and last night by the fire, we could hear the coyotes howling in the distance (fortunately, Ceili couldn’t). So, this catches us up to the present, on Christmas Eve. Tomorrow morning, we’ll get an early start (after opening our Christmas stocking that Santa so generously left) and plan to have Christmas dinner in the French Quarter in New Orleans, before continuing further westward.

At last, we finally got to do some REAL camping. Out in the woods, all by ourselves. Peter has already posted about it, but I wanted to add some of my own photos. I can’t even describe the feeling of being out in the middle of the forest, all by ourselves. No people, no facilities – just us, the forest and its dwellers, and a dog that wouldn’t last 5 minutes on her own. It’s an experience I can’t wait to repeat. Afternoon in the forest: Our morning visitor: Some sort of really cool-looking mushroom: Saw palmetto – it’s all over down here: Woody the woodpecker:

Since our internet access has been a bit sporadic, we still have a collection of photos from earlier phases of our journey that we hadn’t yet gotten around to posting. So if you will, return with us now to early December, and Michigan… Near Bear Lake, Michigan (northwestern side of the lower peninsula), we hiked a trail back to this beautiful spot overlooking Lake Michigan. Since it was hunting season, we all had to wear ORANGE… …including our very deer-like dog. A couple of days after our hike, we had a big snowstorm (still in Bear Lake, visiting family). This was the beautiful view we had upon awakening the next day. On our drive to Michigan’s upper peninsula, we had a slightly nerve-wracking crossing of the Mackinac Bridge, on a very windy day. (Someone was actually blown off the bridge once!) When we saw this, we knew we were actually in the U.P. – these signs were everywhere! (No, this is not the type of store you think it is – pasties in the U.P. are like meat-filled pies.) And, here is how we REALLY knew we were in the U.P. – the gorgeous sunset over Lake Michigan. Now, we’ll skip forward a bit in our trip… After our stop in Charlotte, NC, we headed south through South Carolina and part of Georgia. We found this amazing sky on our way out of North Carolina. Ever since seeing the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” I’ve wanted to see Savannah in person. So, of course we had to make a detour into the city. The historic section is absolutely beautiful – lots of little parks, and traffic circles to keep car speeds low. We both agreed that if we had any desire to remain on the east coast, we would have to consider Savannah. We got a kick out of the sign on the back of this truck, spotted somewhere around the Georgia-Florida border. Next up, Florida’s Ocala National Forest, which deserves its own entry.

Finally, some real out-there scary-at-night camping! Davenport Landing is a primitive (ie, no facilities) campsite in Ocala N.F., several miles down a forest road from the pavement. Here’s the “road” into the site, about half a mile from the unpaved Forest Road 77: This Lushness in the middle of December, especially after a few weeks in beautiful-but-frigid Michigan…ahhhhhhh! Here’s our “house”: And a strange bug…at first I thought it was two bugs gettin’ jiggy, but it seems like the back half wraps up over the back: This slow-moving river was just down a little hill from the campsite: A very scary looking spider – at first I thought he was being eaten by some sort of beetle, but the carapace is definitely his. I’m glad he’s only about 1cm long One morning as I made coffee, I noticed Ceili straining at the leash…looked up, and saw this:

So we’ve been a bit remiss in keeping up with the blog…on the 10th, we stopped for a day in Charlotte, NC, to visit a good friend of mine from my high school years. It was great catching up – the second time in this journey that I’ve seen someone for the first time in 20 years and had a blast. From there, we headed South, stopping again at a KOA in South Carolina which Teri blogged about below. Much nicer than the parking lot vibe of many RV parks, and did much to improve my opinion of KOA in general. It’s nice, and we can get internet access there to work and blog, but still nothing like real camping (some of which is coming up in the next post). We got to Florida on the 14th, intending to stay in a “primitive” campground in Ocala National Forest (ie, no facilities – REAL camping), but it was late and dark and I hadn’t researched things quite as well as I could have. After an hour of jouncing down unpaved forest roads in the dark, we ended up getting a room at a Quality Inn in Palatka. I paid about a hundred bucks for shoddy planning, and Teri was incredibly tolerant of the whole fiasco. It was a pleasant respite, and resulted in a few wildlife sightings: Bat hanging out at the Quality Inn: Owl irritated by my wee-hours photo mission: The bridge to Palatka:

Despite the truth in Peter’s previous rant about many KOA campgrounds being more like parking lots, we found a perfectly lovely KOA last night in Point South, South Carolina (just off I-95). I woke up this morning in a beautiful wooded lot, with the birds chirping and the smell of live trees and vegetation (i.e. not killed off by winter temps). Takes me right back to summer camp days. If I could post the wonderful scents of fresh air and trees here I would, but instead will have to make do with a photo of our campsite this morning: The only drawback we found here, was the warning that the alligators in the lake have been known to attack dogs. I can just see Ceili now: “Hello, what kind of strange squirrel are you?” CHOMP! So we’ve kept her well away from the lake.