Age has nothing to do with it

You know I made a promise to myself that once I moved into nicer weather I would start getting more active again, biking,hiking,and working out. I thought I would eat a little smarter and take off a few extra ,pounds that I put on while eating across America. Well I have been getting a lot more exercise, but the eating part- well let's just say it could use a little work. I am not one of these people who blames my weight gain on my age, I know better. Every area we travel has it's unique foods and I always seem to gravitate to the bakeries.
Because of Mardi Gras everyone around here are making "King Cakes", they are absolutely fabulous when made properly and they come in so many scrumptous flavors. (Blueberry and cream cheese, rasberry and cream cheese, cinnamon and cream cheese, praline and cream cheese, etc)  So of course we bought one the day after I made some peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. 

I got up yesterday and started my day with a piece of the King Cake, then I went out and rode my bike. For lunch I ate some carrots and had a couple of handfuls of some Harry and David "Moose Munch" I had to buy because it was on sale after Christmas. Then in the afternoon I watched Oprah in Australia to occupy myself while I did 45 minutes of pilates. Then another little bike ride.  Dinner was sensible, a grilled pork chop, grilled broccoli, and a tomato caprese salad. But then I ate about 8 peanut butter cookies. So you see I know why when I put my jeans on this morning they were to damn tight!  Age has nothing to do with it, bread and sugar, they are my demise. I write this to shame myself into control.

Speaking of food, we found an absolutley fabulous local seafood shop. Most of you know the gulf coast and cajun country are where you get great crawfish. We bought a couple of pounds and had for them for dinner and the spice on them was to die for!  Nobody cooks them like these people. Also we bought a shrimp I had never heard of before, "Royal Reds". They're on all the menus and are quite pricey. They are naturally salty and sweet so you aren't supposed to season them in any way, they were delish!!

This also  reminds me to talk about the oil spill and the clean up process. This area desperately wants everyone to know the damage has been greatly exaggerated. and that BP is really cleaning up the area better than it was before the spill. They are digging with Excavators to a depth of 4 feet all the way from the water to the dunes, they are sifting the sand to remove all of the oil, and any other debris along with it, and they say that the beaches are cleaner than they have ever been. We have walked the beach and have found some tar balls. I would not have even known what they were if not for one of the beach clean up guys who pulled up on his new big 4 wheeler, bought and paid for by BP, and preceded to pick a couple up. That's what he, and a lot of others get paid to do. It's obvious that BP is spending a tremendous amount of money and that they are taking this cleanup seriously. There are tar balls that wash up on shore on a regular basis and these hunky guys drive up and down the beach keeping them cleaned up. It's very apparent when talking to the locals that they are very happy with how BP has handled this whole thing. 

The fishing in the Gulf has resumed and is back to normal. Everything that is caught and sold is completely safe. They want you to tell every one you know that they can come back now.

Spectaular End to Great Lakes Saga

It seems only fitting that our journey to the Great Lakes end with this visit to Niagara Falls. We visited Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron(We just looked at this one), and Lake Ontario. Lake Erie could not be included. We only saw it's water going over the falls. As those of you who have experienced it know, it is a spectacular sight to behold. We took way to many pictures. The best part of that day is when we donned our special raincoats and water sandals and walked out and up to an area built to have an interactive experience with the water falls. It was extremely wet up there and I wish I had brought the video camera along to tape Rob standing under the raging water. Funny, funny man.

The state park we are staying in is absolutely beautiful, we look out over Lake Ontario and watch the sun set at night and rise every morning. Nothing like these events as seen over a body of water. Yesterday the park arranged for a fresh produce market including 4 wine tasting booths from area wineries. Of course we spent some time there.

This state park also has a working lighthouse of which you can visit.

Last night we paricipated in a campground wide search for a 9 year old boy who got lost on one of the trails. He was found safe and sound.

We leave tommorrow morning for the finger lakes region of New York. We're staying on Lake Cayuga. Wine tasting her we come!!!

Heaven

I had forgotten how much I love fishing.Or maybe it's the outdoors and the serenity of it all. Or how much I enjoy my husband's company. It all came together today on a lake that's name will remain a secret to protect the few who know about it.

We headed out in the morning later than planned due to rain. Purchased our fishing licenses and leeches (my personel favorite for Walleye and they are not as messy as nightcrawlers) and headed for a lake Rob had carefully picked out. We arrived at the lake to see that the posted signs said no Walleyes kept under 28 inches and limit,one. Yeah right. So we went into the DNR office that was right there and visited with the gentleman about where to go. He sent to us over to a lake that the 'locals' frequent.

There was no boat landing so we carried the canoe down to the water and put in. There was a strong breeze and the sky was dark and gloomy but we did not get a drop of rain all day. The temperature was an ideal 72 degrees. We went just a short distance and dropped our lines in. Instantly we started catching fish, primarilly small mouth bass with a few sunfish thrown in. We changed spots about a half a dozen times and had the same experience no matter where we dropped our lines. Since our limit on the Bass was 5 each, we kept exchanging our fish on the stringer for bigger ones. I ran out of leeches so I moved on to Rob's Canadian nightcrawlers. Those were BIG suckers of which we only used one half at a time. While fishing we were entertained by a Loon who kept swimming near our boat and kept singing to us. She acted like she didn't see people very often. We stopped off on a small island and relieved ourselves. There were signs of previous campfires and would have been a perfect spot to spend a night. The wind was just whipping through there and it was a very romantic break in our day. With our butts very sore and bellys growling with hunger we reluctantly left the lake around 4:00. I can't think of how it could have been more perfect.( Except maybe if we had been catching Walleyes, but let's not get greedy)

We ended our day with our bellys full of fried fish and fried potatos and five packages of frozen fish for a later date. Today was a slice of heaven, we were blessed this day.

Learning as we go

On our trip from Memphis to Branson, we relied on our GPS to provide the route. That would have probably been O.K. if we were driving a car and would certainly been ideal if we had been riding a motorcycle, but hauling a 40' trailer is not something that you want to do on a road with a hundred 35mph curves. The drive was memorable enough that we never left camp while we were there and never actually got into Branson. We did enjoy our time on Table Rock Lake.
Two days and 700 miles later we set up in Mitchell, SD and found a host of very friendly people. The Corn Palace Rodeo was well worth the trip and the time that we spent there was some of the best on our journey up to this point.
Having learned about GPS navigation by driving around in circles on a couple of occasions, we used mapquest and a good old fashioned highway map for our trip from Mitchell to Osakis, MN. At one point, the GPS told us to take a different Interstate so I looked at the map and saw that the route was just a little shorter with what looked like comparable state roads and followed the GPS.
35 minutes later, we found ourselves on State Hwy 34 just west of the MN state line in eastern SD driving on a dirt road. The road started out rather rough with plenty of patched potholes but the total distance that we needed to travel on this road was only about 20 miles so I kept driving. It was about 8 miles later having driven half that distance kicking mud up on the front of our 5th wheel that the sign said "Road Closed" with no signs directing us where to go from there. Again I sougfht Garmin's help and was directed about a mile to the next easterly dirt road. The difference being that Hwy 34 was under construction. This new road was dirt from the beginning as evidenced by the strip of grass growing down the middle of it.
I stopped the rig right in the middle of the road, pulled out the good old road map and found another route which only took us about 6 miles out of the way. No harm done, lesson learned.
We hit Hwy 23 east and after a short 30 minutes started looking for a place to eat lunch. A familiar sign greated us at the next two towns that we came to. "Road Closed" and after being diverted past all of the places to eat, we finally pulled over on the side of the road and Deb made peanut butter sandwiches while I let the dogs run.
We are now set up at Linwood Resort on Lake Osakis and I'm looking forward to getting out on the lake to catch some Walleyes. In about 3 days Deb's whole family will be here so we are both looking forward to making some great memories.

12 days on the road

After 12 days on the road, I figured that it was about time that I had a little input on this blog.
From the first time that I took the 40' 5th wheel accross our little country bridge, I was a little concerned about getting it back out because of a hill straight across the road and railings on the bridge that I thought the rear of the trailer would swing out and hit because of having to turn so sharply. All my fears were eliminated and it came out easily (with two spotters watching). I then drove about 5 miles to our local Walmart where I planned to meet Deb after her hair appointment.
As soon as I arrived in the Walmart parking lot, I started searching for anything that I could get rid of due to the fact that we were overloaded. When you move from a 3,000+ sq ft house into a 40' trailer and are used to having everything that you could ever possibly need at your finger tips, you have a tendancy to take more stuff than is neccessary. Once Deb arrived, we loaded the back of Robin's SUV with some of the extra stuff I had decided to leave behind and we hit the road.
I'm pulling this rig with a Chevy 2500HD with a 6.6L diesel engine and a six speed Allison transmision. I got it up to 60 and set the cruise control and wound our way thru the Pigeon River Gorge on I-40 thru the Smokey Mountains. The truck performed admirably (although I could use a little more brake since we are still overloaded) but we passed slower traffic as we climbed up hills. Once we hit the slightly flatter country of east TN, the cruise was set at 65 and we never looked back. At our first fuel stop, I found that we got slightly more than 10 mpg which made me very happy since I'm sure that we are in excess of 12-1/2 tons.
Our first stop was Edgar Evins State Park on Center Hill Lake about 40 miles east of Nashville. We had called every other campground around the lake to see if there were any openings but since 4th of July weekend was just 3 days away, we expected that we would not find any open spots where reservations were taken. Such was the case so we headed to Edgar Evins which is strictly first come, first serve. I had called about a week earlier to discuss their sites with someone on the phone because the web site makes it very clear that all of the sites are platforms (decks) built off the side of the hill and that each was just 33' long. When I asked about the 33' length and expressed my desire to put a "little bigger" rig in the park, the person on the phone assured me that someone could fit a 35-36' rig into a few of the slightly larger spots. I figured 35-36', that's about 40', NO PROBLEM!
We made it thru the weekend of the 4th but we did not really like the park so we drove another 40 miles or so to Nashville and spent two nights in a great park on J. Piercy Priest Lake. The next time that we are in the Nashville area we will plan to spend a couple weeks at that park.
200 more miles down the road put us in West Memphis on the Mississippi River. HOT, HOT, HOT is the only way that I can describe our stay. Those of you in the northeast this week have experienced the same kind of weather but we were expecting it.
Our RV only has one air conditioner on top and it has been running constantly. I went to the Walmart yesterday and bought an indoor/outdoor thermometer. I placed the outdoor unit in the bedroom and the indoor one in the living area. It was 74 in the living room and 86 in the bedroom. We could definitely use a second A/C unit if we were going to spend any amount of time in a climate like this but we are turning the compass to the north tomorrow so we'll live with it for one more day. Thankfully, it cools down enough at night that the bedroom is the same temp as the living room when we go to bed.
While here, we took in The Pink Palace Museum, Graceland, Beale Street and saw the ghost of Elvis down on Union Avenue. We ate crawfish and ribs and had an overall great time. We only went out one night, so I never had the opportunity to try the catfish which I've heard, the people in the Memphis area know how to cook.
This morning, my fishing equipment started calling so I pulled out an ultra-light rod and got set up. 10 minutes later, I was in a good fight with a perfect sized catfish, the size that you get when they are farm raised. Shortly after, the sun broke thru the overcast and it got too damn hot to fish any longer.
Tonight we are having southern surf and turf. Venison steaks and catfish. Tomorrow we pack up and head for Branson, MO.