After leaving Alamogordo, NM we headed to AZ and the Tucson area. We stayed in a campground in St. David for about a week.  It is another campground part of our membership.  About an hour from Tucson but for $10/night I don’t mind driving a little.

Our first destination was the town of Tombstone, AZ.  Tombstone is an old wild west mining town that makes you feel like you are back in the days of lawlessness and old movies.  You have probably heard of the “O.K. Corral”, “The Bird Cage Theatre”, “Wyatt Earp”, “Doc Holliday” just to name a few.  You can read the entire history at this site.  For the most part it is just a tourist trap.  We only spent about 2 hours here and since we don’t spend money on tourist stuff much there really wasn’t a lot to do.  I wouldn’t make a special trip here but if you are in the area it is a neat place to walk around for a few hours.

We only took one day and went into Tucson.  In Tucson we walked the historic walking trail to see some of the sites.  Tucson is such a beautiful area with all the brightly colored homes.  I think Polly and I have decided we would like to have one of these one day.  For lunch we ate at the El Charro Café which claims to be the birth place of the Chimichanga which is my favorite Mexican dish.  The Legendary Monica Flin, who opened her El Charro Café in 1922, is well‐known as the originator of the Chimichanga. While frying her now famous El Charro ground beef tacos, she accidentally dropped a burro into the frying pan and when the oil splashed up she was about to lash out a common Spanish cuss word starting with “Ch”, but because she was amongst her young nieces and nephews, changed it to “Chimichanga”, the equivalent of “thingamajig”.  It was good but not quite as good as our old favorite Mexican place back home.

Our last stop was Saguaro National Park.  When you think of Arizona you think of the cactus.  The saguaro catus is the well know tall cactus with “arms” that you see in all the AZ brochures.  Since 1933 the saguaro cactus has been protected by the park.  The park is in the Sonoran Desert with temperatures commonly climbing above 100 degrees and gets less than 12” of rain a year.  Many of the saguaros can suck up as much as 200 gallons of water which is enough to last then an entire year.  Many of the saguaros we saw were over 150 years old.  Of course being from the east coast we had never seen real tall cacti like this so it was a treat.  While in the park we did about a 3.5 mile hike through the cacti (was suppose to be less but we missed a turn).  The kids also got their Junior Ranger badges.

Once again another great time.  The weather was mostly nice and certainly much better than NC.  We would certainly like to come back here again in the winter.

Next stop will be north of Tucson near the town of Casa Grande, AZ and the Case Grande Ruins.

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After leaving the Carlsbad, NM area we headed towards Alamogordo, NM to visit White Sands National Monument.  On the way we went through Cloudcroft, NM which is high in the mountains and the kids god to get their hands in some snow.  Actually the first real snow we had been in.  In the area we camped at the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park and had an excellent spot with great views.  The state park was at the bottom of Dog Canyon where there was a very nice and long hiking trail.  While staying at the park we hiked the trail twice.  Two miles one day and then 4 miles another.  It had some pretty steep grades so it was not that easy.  The kids did good (for the most part).

The main purpose for visiting the area was the White Sands park.  White Sands is a 275 square mile gypsum sand desert.  It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The gypsum that forms the white sand was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea covering this area 250 million years ago.  Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains formed.  Then 10 million years ago the center of this dome started to collapse, creating the Tularosa Basin.  Rain and snow in the mountains dissolve gypsum from the rocks and carry it into the Tularosa Basin.  The water with the gypsum gets trapped in the basin and turns to crystals.  These crystals then dry and fall apart into sand.  The wind then blows this sand into the large dunes you see in White Sands.

One of the best parts about White Sands is the ability to slide down the dunes.  So we purchased sleds and hit the dunes.  We all took our turns going down with many roll-overs at the bottom.  The sand is much finer than beach sand so it was nice and soft.  Also, since the sand is so white and bright (much whiter than beach sand) we got a lot of sun during the day. Even Bella had a good time running in the sand and digging holes.  While at the park the kids got another Junior Ranger badge.

Once again another fun stop and great park.  We will continue to do National Parks as we travel.  Now we head toward AZ for a week or so.

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After leaving San Antonio, TX on February 12^th we headed to Carlsbad, NM.  On the way we spent the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Carlsbad before going to the Carlsbad RV Park and Campground for 2 nights.  While in Carlsbad we visited the Carlsbad Caverns National Park to see the amazing formations.  The park contains 116 caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America.  The natural entrance trail was a twisty one mile journey into the heart of the caverns.  Once at the bottom there was another mile of paths through the “Big Room” where you could see much larger formations.  While in the caverns I was constantly thinking about the people who were brave enough to journey into these caves many, many years ago before flashlights. Luckily the journey out of the caverns as a quick elevator ride straight up.  The kids also received their Junior Ranger badges.

The caverns are also the home of thousands of bats in the summer.  These Mexican free-tailed bat’s live in Mexico in the winter then head to Carlsbad Caverns in the summer.  Every night they leave the caverns by the thousands in search for food.  These bats are very important to the area as they eat tons of bugs.  Later that night we went to Pizza Inn for a little Valentine’s day dinner with the kids.

The next day we went to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  The Guadalupe Mountains are part of one of the finest examples of an ancient marine fossil reef on Earth.  The mountains formed 260-270 million years ago.  During this time a vast tropical ocean covered portions of Texas and New Mexico.  Over millions of years, calcareous sponges, algae, and other lime-secreting marine organisms, along with lime precipitated from the seawater, built up to form the 400-mile-long horseshoe-shaped Capital Reef.  While visiting we toured the visitor center where the kids received their Junior Ranger badges and Polly and I received our Senior Ranger badges.  We also hiked the Smith Spring Trail.

Our time in Carlsbad, NM was short but full of activities.  Now off to White Sands National Monument for a few days.

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After leaving New Orleans we headed towards Houston, TX were we dry camped for the night at Camping World.  We had the whole lot to ourselves.  We got up the next morning and headed to New Braunfels, TX just north of San Antonio.  We stayed at The Summit Resort near Canon Lake at a campground that was part of our membership.  It was a nice little park with very few others staying.  When we arrived we found out that we had no wifi and a very weak Verizon signal.  Makes it very difficult to work on the road without internet.  Later that week we had shipped to us a wireless antenna and amplifier system that greatly helped boost our signal.

While in New Braunfels we mostly worked and home schooled but did get a little time to do a few activities.  The RV park had a really nice swimming pool with slide that we were dying to use.  The problem is that the water was about 45 degrees and it was freezing.  So we did what any smart family would do we put on our swim suits and went in.  The water was so cold it took your breath away when you jumped in.  We lasted about 30 seconds and that was it.  Off to the hot tub we went.  We also played basketball which was really fun. I must say that was one of the best times we had had in a while.  Sometimes doing something crazy can be lots of fun.

We also took a day and went to eat at the Salt Lick outside of Austin.  I had eaten there once before on a trip to Austin and wanted the family to try it.  Zachary calls it his new favorite place to eat.  After eating we went and took a tour of the state capital building.  We took a guided tour and went to were the Senate and Representatives meet which was neat.  We also learned more history about Texas while visiting the capital.

About the only other thing we did was drive to about 10 stores looking an electric heater.  I guess they don’t sell heaters much in south Texas after January.  We finally found 2 returned ones at Lowe’s which we ended up taking back because they didn’t work.

After a week in New Braunfels we went to San Antonio, TX to meet up with the Valentine family on Saturday.  On Sunday we went to the market district and walked through the shops then we met some of Polly’s relatives for lunch at Mi Tierra Café & Bakery.  Polly had not seen them for years and since they lived in Corpus Christi they were nice enough to drive to San Antonio to meet us.  That night we watched the Super Bowl and had a little party while cheering for the Saints!  After just leaving New Orleans we were pretty excited.

Later that week we went to see the site of the Alamo and also do the River Walk which was near.  We also visited the Mission San Jose and did the Junior Ranger program with the kids.  The rest of the week was spent with the kids playing with the Valentine kids.  It is really nice to see the kids get a chance to have quality play time with other kids.  We also enjoy hanging out with “grown-ups” too.

On Friday we said goodbye to San Antonio and headed west for the long journey to our next stop Carlsbad, NM.

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After leaving the flood swollen Styx River at the Styx River Campground in Alabama we were on our way to Westwego, Louisiana to the Bayou Segnette State Park. Although we first thought that our trip to Louisiana would be delay since, the river at crested 11’ the day before we were scheduled to leave and the campground manager told us that hopefully we would be able to leave on Saturday, January 23^rd.   The manager was correct and we were able to leave on our next journey to Louisiana.

The drive was uneventful but much cooler than the previous week. After a stop at Walmart to stock up on groceries we arrived in Westwego, Louisiana just around sunset. The GPS tried to instruct us to make a sharp left turn into the entrance of the Bayou Segnette State Park Campground. Due to this mishap we had no choice but to drive down to the next intersection to do a u-turn.  If you are driving a normal vehicle a u-turn is no big deal but driving a 40’ motor home towing a car makes this driving procedure slightly more difficult. Brian was able to make the u-turn miss a road sign and get back into the right lane with no problems.  We arrived at the campground and found our spot as the sun was setting. The campground was located about 20 minutes from the city by car or 40 minutes by ferry which made it one of the closest state parks to New Orleans.

After getting setup we visited our new friends, the Valentines family, to plan our visit into New Orleans the next day. We left the campground around 10:00 am the next morning to catch the ferry to visit New Orleans.  The ferry ride was a little windy but the kids enjoyed watching the barges as the passed along the river.  Once we arrived in New Orleans we were able to see the New Orleans Saints fans getting ready for the big game later in the day. The kids enjoyed walking around together and visiting the Jean Lafitte National Park and learning about New Orleans from the beginning when the area was owned by the Spanish through the present including the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleans is a very history rich city and you could spend weeks learning about the history and culture of the city.  The kids enjoyed making a native boat, watching a historical account of New Orleans and listening to jazz music in the national park visitor’s center.

There were so many choices for lunch and we finally found a sandwich shop that we later learned had been a long standing breakfast and lunch spot for locals and tourist.  We had lunch at Johnny’s where we enjoyed a Shrimp Po’boy with Cajun fries, although we could have selected alligator, chicken, or oysters for our sandwich. Everything that was served was fried except the gumbo and you could chose either breakfast or lunch until closing time which was 3:00 pm daily.  Johnny’s has been serving breakfast and lunch in the French Quarter since 1950, and it is now being run by the third generation of the De Grusha family, making it the oldest family owned po-boy  restaurant in New Orleans . This landmark in the French Quarter has only a bout 30 tables and people line up out the door to experience the variety of po-boy sandwiches and homemade side dishes.

After lunch we continued walking along the streets of New Orleans and kids were able to catch some beads that were being tossed from balconies above the streets of the French Quarter. The French Quarter was crowded with people showing off their Saints jerseys and other attire and getting an early start “partying” before the game. Our afternoon snack consisted of beignets and coffee at Café De Monde which has been at the same location since 1862. Café Du Monde is open 24 hours a day serving Café Au Lait (coffee mixed half and half with hot milk) and hot Beignets (French doughnuts), year round.  The kids really enjoyed the beignets which were covered by powdered sugar. After our snack we walked along the river back to the ferry around 3:00pm. We had fun-filled day in New Orleans and we started discussing our next visit into the city.

On Monday we went walking around the campground and got an “up close” look at an armadillo which Carson tried to touch when it walked within a few inches of him sitting on the ground. We also learned about scaling catfish from a local fisherman who had two in his bucket. The kids enjoyed playing on the playground and playing Lego rockband with their friends.

On Wednesday, we decided to get up early and make one last trip into New Orleans. On our way out we stopped by the front office to see if we could extend our stay through Saturday, since we were supposed to be leaving on Thursday. We were fortunate to be able to extend the stay but his involved moving to another site, so we packed up everything for the short move, made a stop by the dump station and then moved across the street from the Valentines. After all this moving our early morning start for New Orleans ended up taking a couple of hours we decided to eat lunch before going into the city.  So on our way into the city we stopped at Copeland’s for lunch before going into the city for a less crowded look around the city.  Copeland’s was a restaurant that we discovered in Atlanta on a business trip and we love their Cajun and Creole dishes.  The lunch was good especially the macaroni and cheese and biscuits.

Once in New Orleans, we enjoyed a jazz concert performed by the Rangers at the New Orleans Jazz National Park.  Carson and Beca were picked to play the tambourine as the rangers played guitar and harmonica to New Orleans based jazz songs.  One more drip to Café De Monde for beignets and coffee and this time we purchased a box of mix so we could make beignets later in our travels.  On Thursday, we decided to pickup some local seafood and have a cookout with our friends the Valentine family. So on Thursday night we enjoyed grilled shrimp, grilled chicken, chips, salad, and about 4 loaves of French bread ( the six kids enjoyed the bread). After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made smores. Brian and I enjoyed sitting by the fire with Aly and Dave and talking while the kids played Wii inside the motor home.  It was beautiful clear night, with a large moon, and we heard coyotes howling in the distance.  The week went by quickly and we made plans to meet with the Valentine family, again in San Antonio in a couple of weeks. The last major adventure was washing clothes for the week, this would not be worthy of adding to the blog except for the fact that the washers and dryers were “FREE”.  We pulled almost everything we could find to wash (this included the couch covers and blankets) and spent most of Friday in the laundry room taking advantage of saving about $30 on laundry for almost the last two weeks. The laundry was next to the playground so the kids were able to play once home school in the laundry room was finished.

We had very nice dry weather while we were in Louisiana until the Friday afternoon, then it turned into a very soggy day. The rest of the day was spent planning our next stops which included New Braunfels and San Antonio, Texas.  We are hoping for warm dry weather in Texas.

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