Antiquing Slidell

Wednesday, March 17, at 7:00 when I got up I reset the Daylight Savings Time on the digital picture frame. I missed it coming on automatically in time for me to enjoy my morning coffee and rediscover of all the places we've been. It rained all night and big puddles are everywhere. That was not predicted! I get on-line and set our map coordinates and update our location on my Earthlink homepage. I took a walk and stretched before breakfast. It sure feels good not to be moving for a whole month. At 8:30 the free shuttle from the campground leaves for New Orleans' French Quarters. One couple gets on it.

After breakfast I wash the bugs off the RV and clean the dust off the windows. It is overcast today with a low of 52 and a high of 66 degrees. I clean myself up after all of that work and we go to Ruby Tuesday's. We love their salad bar and today we add Salmon Minis. Their Waldorf Salad on the salad bar is one of the best I've ever had (I love to try Waldorf Salads wherever I go.) Today, in one of those great culinary accidents, I dropped a pile of very sharp crumbled bleu cheese off the salad bar onto my Waldorf Salad. Yumm! Elvis and his peanut butter and banana sandwiches got nothing on me! The manager gives us some freebie coupons for next time. We get fuel and a Times-Picayune newspaper. Then we find the Slidell post office to mail a package and get stamps.

While we're downtown we browse three or four antique stores. Bob finds a lure. We hunt down the Chamber of Commerce but they have no idea where the trail head is even though "somebody just came in and asked that yesterday." Duh. We check out the used bookstore next door. The lady is all excited about the St. Pat's Parade on Sunday. We fight the horrible traffic on Gause and head home to read the paper and snack on the last of our shrimp from the shrimp boil at Southern Oaks. I take a walk around 6:00 and meet Rodney and Janet in a Grand Junction (37QSL) who are two site over streetside from us. They are from Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. They are working on a levee down here for most of 2010 and into 2011. The company flies them home every two weeks. This is their first year in their Grand Junction RV. He says the 1993 flooding in Ste. Genevieve got him the levee experience.

I walk back home to have leftover salmon from Texas Roadhouse and watch Human Target. It's 7:29 p.m. and 68 degrees with 44% humidity.

Movin' On to Slidell, LA

Tuesday, March 16, I woke up at 7:00 on a board, behind the bikes. The digital picture frame is not on, not even unpacked. I get it out with the heater and figure out it is still on daylight savings time. It's always something. I stare at it and drink my coffee. Bob get up. We stretch, clean up yesterday's dishes, have a light breakfast, pack up and leave by 10:10 a.m.

We travel 175 miles east on I-10 through Lafayette and Baton Rouge to I-12. The rest area/travel center they promised is not at Mandeville so we have no break. We finally stop after that about 30 miles from our final destination at a Chevron. We use our own restroom as we are in a 15-minute zone and some guy is hogging the only diesel pump. We get back on the Interstate and eat our leftover muffalata sandwiches on the road.

It is weird to pass all of the little RV Parks and towns we stayed in with the Casita. It seems like another lifetime ago. At Slidell (we called it Slimedell when we were here back in the 1980's with our St. Louis friends, Jim and Donna, because the water was so smelly--high sulphur content) we took I-10 west four miles to Hwy 433 to our destination today,.New Orleans East Kampground, 56009 Hwy 433, Slidell, LA 70461 (985) 643-3850, St. Tammany Parish.

We pass Pine Creek RV Park on the way and it looks better from out front. A lady in the office, Cathy, leads Bob to site #23 while I sign us in. I'm not sure I like that. We like to do this setting up thing together with the two-way radios. Our site seems to be nestled amidst the worker bees here. They just graded the gravel on the site and she comes over to rake some loose rocks for us. We are set up by 1:50.

I put up the decor, we move the bikes outside and Voila! It seems like home again. Cathy brings over a wooden platform to put in front of our door in case it rains since they just graded the site. We take a short walk. It clouds up after our sunny drive today. The high was 72 degrees after a low of 50 in Egan. It's 3:54 p.m. and 64 degrees with 34% humidity. Bob Googles for Rouse's, an upscale grocery here, on Gause Lane at exit 266. We head up there and find a great store. We'll have to come back as we're too tired to browse. I snapped a picture of this in-store promotion to win a Smart Car. Thought Nan-Marie and Tom would get a kick out of it.

Back home for leftovers. I walk once around the campground for a half of a mile. This is not our most scenic place but we've been in worse (e.g. Ft. Stuckin!) It is a cool 60 degrees at 6:12 p.m.