Here’s what’s happening with us....

New Orleans. What can I say. This will probably be the highlight of the trip south this year. We had two goals. A trip on a steamboat down the Mississippi and to go on a Hurricane Katrina tour of the city. On day one we boarded the Steamboat Natchez. It was a 2 hour harbour tour of New Orleans. It included narration, live jazz music and lunch. Lunch….what can I say? I got to try CATFISH for the first time. It did not taste bad at all but it took a lot of will power to get the idea through my head. After the trip we decided to head out to the French Quarter and hit some of the famous streets. Stephanie had never been on a street car so we decide to take one to the cemetery district. The cemeteries closed at16:30 so we did not get to go in. The streetcar brought us back into town and we enjoyed dinner at Evangelines. The food was good. What seemed alien to us though was when they offered us our drinks in “to go” cups. It was cool. We ended day one by going back to Bourboun Street to see what it looked like at night. It was only 20:00 so it was not that busy.

USS Kidd (DD-661), a Fletcher-class destroyer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named after Rear Admiral Isaac C Kidd, who died on the bridge of his flagship USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Kidd was the first US flag officer die during World War II and the first American admiral ever to be killed in action.

Our next stop. Atlanta State Park, Texas.  We decided to stay here for a couple of days. When we arrived we were to only campers in the section other than the Campsite Host – Sam. Sam welcomed us with opened arms. This State Park was great! The only “challenge” was the night bugs. We don’t know what they were called, but they got everywhere at night. We had to vacuum them up each night before we went to sleep. Our day trips brought us geocaching to Oklahoma and Louisiana.

This was an excellent find. We stopped just because it looked cool and we wanted to check out the Bass Pro. WOW is all I can say. This is a Bass Pro Superstore. It’s quite large and even has a hotel in it. The Big Cypress Lodge – $275 a night, but it looks like it might be worth it. The tallest free standing elevator in America takes visitors to The Lookout at the Pyramid at the apex of the building, where they can take in the view on an indoor and outdoor observation deck or get a bite to eat at the “Sky High Catfish Cabin”; a restaurant, bar, and aquarium at the top of the building.

Wikipedia – The Memphis Pyramid, initially known as the Great American Pyramid, formerly referred to as the Pyramid Arena and locally referred to as The Pyramid, was originally built as a 20,142-seat arena located in down town Memphis at the banks of the Mississippi River. The facility was built in 1991 and was originally owned and operated jointly by the city of Memphis and Shelby County; Shelby County sold its share to Memphis in April 2009. Its structure plays on the city’s namesake in Egypt, known for its ancient pyramids. It is 321 feet (98m, about 32 stories) tall and has base sides of 591 ft; it is by some measures the tenth tallest pyramid in the world. The Memphis Pyramid has not been regularly used as a sports or entertainment venue since 2004. In 2015, the Pyramid re-opened as a Bass Pro Shops “mega-store”, which includes shopping, a hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley, and an archery range with an outdoor observation deck at its apex.

Just across the Mississippi River was Memphis Tennessee, home of the King. Although Stephanie and I are not really Elvis fans we decided it was going to be an interesting place to visit. And it was. Elvis was a great contributor to the Rock and Roll scene. Graceland, his home was awesome.

We stayed at the Tom Sawyer Mississippi River RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas. Just across the river from Memphis, Tennessee. The park was nice. It had very clean but very interesting bathrooms. If you had to sit on the toilet, you couldn’t touch the floor. The park has be prone to floods from the Mississippi River in the past and everything has to be placed higher than normal. The area also had what they called Woolly Aphids. They look like tiny snowflakes floating in the air. They seem innocent, BUT they excrete small amounts of a waxy substance that gets everywhere. The substance is very sticky which means everything else sticks to it….The camper and van were a mess.

The rain subsided enough fo us to do a little touring in the area. Stephanie and I are really not into country music, but the history can be interesting. So a trip to the Grand Ole Opry was in order. A very elegant place with a very large treed courtyard to host pre events.

We toured around the downtown area and watched everyone getting ready for the NFL game. Thousands and thousands of people descending on the area. Tailgating everywhere!

We returned to the campsite in the afternoon to relax and enjoy the first bit of sun. This year Nashville is where we got to see the lunar eclipse.

We left Dayton Ohio and continued heading south.  South West actually. As I mentioned earlier as much as this trip was our vacation it was also about our hobby Geocaching. We crossed the border for Indiana to get a cache before heading to Kentucky. We passed by the Louisville Slugger factory and stopped to watch some horses race at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Yogi Bear park in Nashville, Tennessee was our final destination. A nice place, but it was right beside the highway.

Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

John in front of Churchill Downs

The Horse “Ambulance”

“SRathier” scoring a geocache on the Kentucky Derby grounds

“Sausage Egg McMuffins” at Yogi Bear Park in Memphis, Tennessee