West Virginia, Mountain Moma, Take Me Home

We met Ken and Marion Hanscom in Massachusetts.  Ken and I worked together at Quantum in Shrewsbury.  And we both decided to purchase used Class C rv's in 1999.  We then went on camping trips and have been friends since.  Ken and Marion retired to West Virginia, near Elkins.  It is one gorgeous countryside.  We stayed with them for two nights after the Trace.  Marion cooked some delicious meals, Ken mixed some great drinks, and we had a great time catching up on our respective lives.

Ken & Marion have great rv hospitality facilities.

Elaine and Marion slaving over the hot stove.

Ken preparing some libations.

A view out their back porch

A view up the street.

The four hombres

The Natchez Trace, A leisurely tour of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee

In the 1800’s, riverboat men would guide barges down the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. When they got to Natchez Mississippi they would sell the barges for their wood, and march back up to the head waters of these rivers using a local trail called the Natchez Trace.  Today the trace is a limited access highway where speed limit is restricted to 50 mph.  There are well documented historic sites, overlooks, and campgrounds all marked by mile markers which mark every one of the 440 miles of the Trace.

Rosalie Mansion, Natchez MS

Oak Square Natchez MS

We decidied to drive the Trace as compensation for our determined trek through Texas.  We visited an antebellum mansion in Natchez, camped two nights on the trace in Jackson, MS and Fall Hallow, TN. and visited some local museums along the trace.

Camping Timberville campground near Jackson MS

Swamps along the Trace

Museum along the Trace

Cash register inb Museum(family joke)

Antique peddle powered wood lathe at museum.

We got off the Trace at mile marker 400 in Fall Hollow.  Camping in Fall Hallow Village Tuesday night, we made it to our good friends house near Elkins, West Virginia the next day.

New Orleans: Interesting sights, good food, and good music.

After the JSC tour, we continued East into Louisiana.  We found a very nice private RV park about an hour west of New Orleans at Sulfur LA.  Elaine was driving and I was navigating.  Garmin could not find the town for the park, so we used old fashion directions out of Woodalls RV Camping directory.  I was anxious without gps assistance, but Elaine assured me that old fashion directions should be fine.  We found the park very easily and headed out to sample the fish dinners at a local restaurant.  The oil spill has not affected towns west of New Orleans and the nice shrimp and crab dinner supported that claim.

A+ RV Park, Sulpur LA

This rv park was new.  It was easily one of the nicest private parks we had stayed in.  We had excellent wi-fi access and even decided to do some laundry.  Now that is an exciting Saturday night on the road!

Swampland west of New Orleans

Sunday we headed to a private rv park on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans.  After checking in we piled into a cab and headed downtown for an afternoon and evening in the French Quarter.

Andrew Jackson , French Quarter

Posing in park at Jackson Square in the French Quarter

The French Quarter during the afternoon hours consisted of leisurely tours of historic sites, ornate building architecture, and our first sampling of the local drink called a Hurricane at Pat O’briens bar next to the Preservation Jazz Hall.

Fancy iron grillwork decorate many buildings

Our first Hurricane drink at Pat O'Briens

Preservation Hall right next to Pat O'Briens

As the sun set, we ate another wonderful seafood dinner at Oceana Grill Restaurant.  We both thought that the crab cakes and tuna steak smothered with shrimp were the best dinners of the trip.

Grilled Ahi Tuna "La Boheme"

"Jazzy" Crab Cake Platter

A real treat in the French Quarter are the street bands on Royal street. We were lucky to catch Dorren Jazz New Orleans on Royal Street  http://www.doreensjazz.com/index.htm  If I were a talent scout, there are two bands that I would definitely give some national exposure to.  The good food and music put us in a relaxed mood and we strolled  Bourban street taking in all the renowned ‘theatre” that the French Quarter is known for.

Johnson Space Center, Houston,

Another attraction that I have always wanted to visit in Houston is the NASA Johnson Space Center.  It was Saturday morning.  We woke up after a pleasant night sleeping at Stephen Austin State Park.  We were warned that the boy scouts might keep us awake, but we did not hear them.  Heading East, we traveled through Houston and then 25 miles south to JSC.

Downtown Houston

Downtown Houston competing with Mt Rushmore

The Space Center has a private company that runs a visiter center and tram tour of the center.  We visited three main attractions: Mission Control, the full scale mockup building, and the Saturn IV building.  Mission Control had the feel of visiting the NBC television studios in NYC.   As an engineer I viewed the campus as somewhat past its time in history.  I wondered what it would look like if we would re-purpose NASA and all the national labs towards energy independence and high speed transportation systems.  Now that would be an exciting tour.

Mission Control

Mission control building

Mobile machine shop, tough duty!

Roll of duck tape on top of cabinet in full scale mockup lab

Mars rovers for manned for future manned missions

Full scale mockup lab

Saturn IV main engine exhaust nozzle

Training jets at visitors entrance

We were glad to have visited the center, saying that we saw the control room where history was made back in 1969.

West Texas is flat...Oct 14-15

We headed East out of Tucson on I-10 Thursday morning saying goodbye to our old stomping grounds where we spent the first 5 years of our marriage, had Francesca, and had a good run with the U of A.  We knew the drive ahead was going to be hopefully uneventful through West Texas.  It's like medicine, you have to just hunker down and do it.  

A hill just east of Tucson

Rolling hills soon gave way to flat, brown landscape.  Making a push to get through Texas, we had decided to change our original plans and aim for sites in San Antonio and Houston rather than spend time in New Mexico.  We had missed the one day they open White Sands Trinity site by one week.  Also caving at Carlsbad did not interest us either.  So we loaded an audio book into the CD player and headed East.

West Texas...flat with hills in the distance

Around 6 PM we located Balmoryae State Park on the Garmen and headed for that for the night.  It turned out to be a very nice camping ground with water and electric hookups for RVs.

Our campsite at Balmorhea State Park in Texas

The next morning,, Friday, Oct 15,  we continued East on I-10.  As we did in Kansas, we passed huge wind farms.  So why can't we have wind farms on the many hills of Massachusetts?

A wind farm in West Texas

That afternoon we arrived at San Antonio and for the first time we saw the Alamo. Two thoughts struck us: One, for a place that had a fierce battle, it was now a peaceful oasis in the center of downtown San Antonio.  Second thought, it was amazing that so much had been preserved in the center of such a modern downtown.

At the Alamo

Alamo

Outside compound wall at the Alamo in downtown San Antonio

We continued East for another hour and once again found a nice state park, Stephen Austin State Park in San Felipe, Texas about an hour west of Houston.  Have I mentioned that we really like state parks and prefer them to private campgrounds.  And the nice surprise for us are the amount of state parks that have water and electric hookups.

Our campsite west of Houston at Stephen Austin State Park

Tucson, Visiting Old Friends and Old Beginnings

We left Phoenix Tuesday morning after a visit to Jiffy Lube for an oil change and set out for Tucson 120 miles away. A familiar landmark on the way was Picacho Peak, were a Civil War incident took place.  The road is very flat between the two cities, but just like the road between Colorado Springs and Denver, the road was wider and busier than we remembered.

Picacho Peak

Cactus replace trees along the highway.

We landed in north Tucson Tuesday afternoon, found an rv park convenient to our friends, and headed for the pool for the first dip of the vacation.  It has been a fast paced tour till we arrived in Arizona.and it has been good to slow down and visit with friends. Now a soak in the pool cemented the fact that we were truly on vacation.

Jeannie and Tom Baxter: Elaine met Jeannie in her freshman year of high at Good Counsel in White Plains, New York.  They became quick friends.  When we moved to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona in 1974, Elaine found out that Jeanie also had just moved to Tucson to also attend UA. Old friendships were caught up and we spent the next four years sharing occasional pot luck dinners.  Jeannie met and married Tom and settled in  Tucson.  Jeannie and Tom have a beautiful patio home on the north side of Tucson with minimal outside upkeep(jealous am I!)  Jeannie prepared a wonderful lazgna dinner and we shared and caught up on our life stories.

Elaine, Tom, and Jeannie

When we first visited Tucson, Elaine was a research editor for Readers Digest in New York.  She paid for her trip by combining business with pleasure with an interview with the Director of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  A visit to Tucson is not complete without a visit to the Museum.  Just the trip out into the Sonoran desert to get to the museum is worth the trip.  We headed out through Gates Pass, surrounded by huge slopes covered with Saguaro Cactus, passing also the old movie studios at Old Tucson where John Wayne filmed his famous westerns.

At the Desert museum.

Advanced acoustic research in a cave in the museum.

Someone once told me that organizations are not static, they are either growing or shrinking.  The University of Arizona is definitely growing.  Old Main and the Mall were the same, as were the the Physics building.  But gone were the old Mechanical Engineering lab buildings where I changed my daughters diapers in my lab/office. The new Aerospace and Mechanical engineering building was awesome.

The U of A mall center of campus

Old Main, U of A campus

New Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering buildings

Elaine enjoying the mid-day heat.

A trip to Tucson is not complete without a picture of "A" mountain.  "A" mountain is a little hill west of downtown where the university students white wash a huge letter "A" and also hang glide off the hill.  Of course in these times the white wash has been replaced with red,white and blue colors.

"A" Mountain