Beginning 2012 Wanderings

The Wandering Adventurers #4 Beginning in the South and Ending in the Badlands
January 22-February 4
We will be driving down through California visiting with family and friends along the way. Heading east, we will cut over on Hwy 10 to Dallas to visit with Norm’s son and family. By February 5^th we will be in Galveston to start our “wandering” for the next 5 months. We have a short visit planned in New Orleans and then on to Florida for a month or so. We are going to be in Macon, GA by March 23 for a Trail Manor Rally, DC by March 30 to meet Allison and Ann to participate in the National Epilepsy Walk, back south through the Carolinas, over to Kentucky and Tennessee before heading north to Michigan by the end of May, on to Chicago, and finally meeting Faye and John in the Badlands in mid June. On the way home we hope to visit with Doris and Ron in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. With our traveling library of AAA and National Geographic books in the back seat, we will be experiencing exciting, beautiful, and interesting places in our United States. We can’t wait to get the show on the road!

Feb 5 & 6
3,000 miles and more than two weeks later, we are embarking on our five month trip. Galveston was our first stop. The 1890’s were the glory days for Galveston when it was the principle seaport and leading commercial center for Texas. It was the wealthiest city in Texas. As many emigrants came through this port as they did through Ellis Island. Grand homes or palaces lined the street which was known as Palace Drive. A few still stand in all their splendor. We toured the Bishop’s Palace built by a leading attorney in 1887. What a beautiful home with gorgeous woodwork and stained glass windows. Tours are great for getting an idea of what those times must have been like. We drove down along the strand and the seawall. Nothing much was there when Chris and Norm were here in the 90’s. Now it is lined with hotels, restaurants and shops. Quite the tourist spot. The film, “The Great Storm,” gave us a real understanding of the hurricane of 1900 that killed over 6,000 people. We saw water markes around the old downtown from Ike in 2008. The downtown area has seen a wonderful revival in the last 20 years. At the end of the day we took a short ferry ride to get out on the water. We spotted a number of dolphins.

Feb 7 & 8
We drove across Louisiana to New Orleans in time to go into the city for the evening. Our senses were bombarded on almost every level walking down bourbon street! Music and bright lights everywhere to say nothing about the assorted smells. I love it but can only take in so much before I‘m on overload. We found a great dinner spot, The Bourbon House of Seafood. Very fun evening.

Today we went into town after breakfast at La Madeline’s, a favorite. Wandering the streets of the French Quarter is such a pleasure with all its charm and atmosphere. It is vibrant and alive after the hurricane in 2008. We walked through the French Market, took pictures of Jackson Square, had beignets and chicory coffee at Café du Monde, and stopped into the Central Grocery Company. Morning is not the time for a muffuletta sandwich so we had to do without this time around. We stopped and listened to street music as we wandered the streets. The Quarter was being decorated with colorful decorations for Mardi Gras. A highlight was a piano concert upstairs at the mint. The pianist was a young man from Tulane University. He played some modern New Orleans jazz stopping between pieces to talk about his background and modern jazz.