Haircut, carmel rolls and chocolates

Another beautiful day. Sunny, light breeze and about 69 degrees.
After coffee this morning and reading blogs it was time to get into the shower. I was barely out of the shower when Jessie came over. I trimed her hair. We chatted for a while and she invited us for carmel rolls and coffee once they were out of the oven.
I was doing my hair when the neighbor, Judy, came over with chocolates. They (her and Sid) made them yesterday. She wanted me to have some for helping her yesterday when she had laundry going and needed to help Sid with the candy. All I did was empty her dryer, fold the clothes and bring them back to her. The chocolates were/are so wonderful. Wonderful raspberry filling in some. Sid really knows how to make chocolates and I will appreciate every one of them.
After lunch Leroy came over to say rolls are ready. we were not very hungry since we just had lunch. Jessie brought out those rolls and they looked so good both Mel and I had to have one. The other camp hosts were also invited. A nice couple but I don't remember her name. His was Dave. We all sat around and talked and joked for awhile afterwards.
Back at the RV, Mel was reading. I went for a walk over to the other campground and back. Once I got back I read for awhile and then started dinner. Grilled hamburgers, fries,and pickles.
I got dishes cleaned up and now here I am.
We leave here tomorrow. Our 14 day limit is up. We will move to Fairview- Riverside SP for a week and we may come back here another 14 days. Leroy and Jessie want us to come back tomorrow night for a camp fire. ( New Years Eve)We may just do that since we are only a few miles down the road.
Stay well, be happy and smile
Toodles

A whole bunch of nothing!!

It sure is hard to write something when we don't do anything! Well, we do stuff, but is talking to the neighbor of interest to you? Rather boring I'd say. I could talk about the weather. Sunday was cloudy all day with sprinkles on and off. Sunday night the rain came along with thunder and lightning. We got a total of 1 1/8 inch. We have small lakes all around the campground. The humidity has finally dropped. It had been at 96-98% and today was 58%. I actually had a good hair day. With the humidity I had wavey, stick em up curls and frizz. I wondered.... hmmm when did I get this bad perm? Thankfully it is back to normal.
Today I cleaned house and got the laundry done. Laundry is always a fun chore. They have 2 washers here. They are very nice when there are only 10 campers. With the campground almost full one almost has to take a number to get into the laundry room. I waited 45 minutes for a washer. Then another 20 minutes for the other washer. The people with the first washer decided to go dry the clothes at there daughter's house. The second one came back to empty the washer about 20 minutes after it was done. I had no problems getting a dryer. With laundry done and the house clean I thought I could finally sit down. It was 3:45 and Mel wanted dinner. Since we had a late breakfast we did not have lunch. So I started dinner. We brought a mix to make onion rings and decided to try those tonight along with Italian sausage. Those onion rings were so good. Not something we would eat a lot of,( not good for our health) but they were super.
Jessie and Leroy (our hosts) were over today. We leave here Wednesday because our 14 days are up. We will move to Fairview State Park just down the road for 7 days and then we will probably come back here for a while. We were discussing reservations with them and checking out different sites. We kinda like the site next to them. Gives a view of the whole campground and we can see what is going on. They want us to come back so we can all go out to dinner at Louie and the Redheaded Lady. It is closed till next week for the holidays. Sounds good to me. They have seafood..yum!
Tomorrow I will trim Jessie's hair. She saw me giving Mel a haircut and asked if I cut hair. I told her "Only in the movies!". Sounded good enough to her so I will just give her a trim tomorrow.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

Beignets,Fairview and Slidell

We ventured out today! We went to the farmers market. It is held on the Tammany Trailhead. Only produce we saw was grapefruit! The rest was all crafts. Nice crafts but I was not looking for them. We browsed about but did not purchase anything. On to Cafe De Monde and beignets! Oh they were so good! Fried dough puffs with lots of powdered sugar. Three bienets for 1.82. It was enough for both of us. A cup of coffee and we were set. On to the French Market. A produce store, along with shrimp, crawdads and all that other seafood stuff. Finally got some produce. Onions, grapefruit, pears and peaches. Nice sweet onions for making onion rings! Mmmmmm!
Stopped at Ace hardware to check propane prices. $3.33 with the tax.
Drove to Fairview State Park to check if they had openings starting the 31st. NO! We have been here for 14 days and need to move on the 31st. We didn't want to travel on a holiday so we thought we would move about 10 miles down the road to Fairview. Now what? Don't know!
We went Times Grill for lunch. Home of the world's best hamburger. Mel had a hamburger and said it was very good. I had a grilled chicken pasta bowl that was wonderful.
We headed back to the campground but drove past it. Mel drove to Slidell. We drove down by the bridge area that was hit quite badly by Katrina. It has been 3 years (and of course Gustav went through) and it still looks devastated! So many houses gone and so many being worked on. Yet, many lots and homes for sale. In the marsh area we saw boats overturned, an outhouse, and a car! I asked Mel if he could imagine coming home to nothing? He gave me a weird look. Oh yeah, we did that once! Our home burned down and all we had was the clothes on our backs. My heart really goes out to all the people here.
Time to go home. We got home and took a walk around the campground. Lots of famlies here and lots of kids on bicycles. Chatted with the hosts again.
I don't think we need dinner tonight. we ate far to much already today. Maybe just a salad.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Oh, we went online and got a reservation at Fairview!
Toodles!

Hot, humid and the guy next door

Another record day here. It was 80 again. High humidity and we get lots of fog.

Our Christmas was quiet. Christmas eve we watched tv. I grilled steaks for us for dinner. Christmas day we stayed home. We sat outside most of the day and read our books. Talked to the neighbors and the hosts. We were going to go and see the fires along the Mississippi on Christmas eve but it was so foggy we just stayed home. It is a cajun thing that happens along the river. I made ham, potatoes, yams, corn and rolls for our dinner. We talked to John and he was going to his friends later in the day. After dinner Mel watched tv while reading his book and I was on the computer. I went into an rv chat room. Quite interesting, Nice people. We hit the sheets around midnight.

Today was another quiet day. I cleaned up around the coach and put the Christmas stuff away. We had to empty our holding tanks so that was done. Took showers and then sat outside. Talked with the hosts again. About 3:00 the activity increased around the campground. More and more campers arriving. Mostly from LA and families. We had a 5th wheel pull in next us. When he was letting his slides out his brackets broke off the slide. First the front one, he stopped and while looking at what happen the other one broke off. It is a new 5 th wheel. He was not a happy camper. Later, Mel noticed he turned on his a/c and it made a lot of noise and off it went. I think they are having the camping trip from hell. I feel bad for them. He is outside now doing something with his propane tanks..again. Hmmm, poor guy!

I made meal-in-a-peel for us for dinner. It was so good. We still have cake left so we will have that later.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

Christ-mas NOT Present-mas

Merry Christmas!
Take time to remember the real reason for this holiday...the baby Jesus.
I saw this sign at a church and it says it all:

Christ -mas
NOT
Present-mas

How true is that?

Take time to enjoy your loved ones.
Don't get wrapped up in the wrapping paper.

Enjoy the day.
Happy Birthday Jesus!

Laundry, cookies and po boys

It was cloudy most of the day. Our high was in the low 60's. The humidity rolled in about noon.
After my shower I went and did laundry. Just 2 loads. Sheets and whites. Came back and cleaned the coach. Oh how exciting!
About 2 we went to the camp hosts site for cookies and cheer. I now know the names of the hosts: Leroy and Jessie. About 25-30 people were there at different times. We chatted with quite a few and learned of some and interesting spots to go to. We learned of a place that we can camp right on the beach of the gulf. It costs 70.00 a week. No hook-ups and you get 2 dumps and 2 water fill ups. I think we just may go and check it out. One couple we met have been full time rving for 29 years. (18 of which they worked, which involved travel in the rv) Quite an interesting couple. We also heard of some of the good places to eat in the area. One is a Po Boy place down the road. It made us so hungry hearing about it we had to go try it. We got a huge roast beef po boy for 4.99. I want to try the shrimp po boy next. The one we had tonight was delicious!
Again tonight we drove through some neighborhoods to see the lights. It was just after 5 so many were not on yet. I think tomorrow night we may go out again. That will give us something to do.
We are getting to know our way around Mandeville quite well I think.
Till next time.....
Merry Christmas my friends
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

St Bernard Parish, cookies and cheer!

It was 33 when we got up and cloudy. Soon the sun pokes his head through and decided to stay. How sweet of him. We went exploring today. We drove down towards New Orleans but went east and into St Bernard Parish. Katrina had hit here hard and I believe this the area of much flooding also. After 3 years a lot has been repaired but many reminders still remain. We did see houses that still had the painted X on them. I forget what all went into the X but I do remember that the date it was searched was at the top, I think the right side told if any bodies, the bottom may have said if people were rescued. Now remember, I am not real sure on that or the order it was in. We saw homes with roofs gone, half a home and lots of debris. We drove in to check out St Bernard State Park. A nice park.They had many sites open. After we left the park we drove to Port Nickel, I think that was the name of the town, and we took the free ferry across the Mississippi. How cool is that! We drove north to Business 90 and went west into Westwego. We stayed in Westwego last 2 times we were here at the state park. We took 90 across the river again. We crossed on the Huey P. Long Bridge. A old bridge that scares the you know what out of me. It was not to bad in the car but, in the coach...Yikes! I did not like that. We stopped on the other side and ate. We had Raising Cane, which is a chicken strip fast food. The strips are the tenderloin part of the breast and are they ever yummie. We drove north and took the causeway across the Lake back to the northshore area where we are camped. We stopped for paper towels in Mandeville. That area is always so busy. On our way back to the campground we took a side road and went into neighborhoods to look at the lights. We saw some beautiful decorations. We like to drive around and see the Christmas decorations. When we got home we had note on the door from the host and his wife. They invited us over for cookies and cheer tomorrow afternoon. Sounds good to me. I am all for cheer. One of the homes we drove past tonight, a lady was out in the yard, and I was going to ask if we could come for Christmas dinner, but I was nice and didn't.
I did buy a ham to cook for us.
John seems to be improving a little everyday. I am always happy to hear from him and know that he is doing well. The closer we get to Christmas I get depressed. I always worry about John and his being alone. On Christmas day, later in the day, he does go over to a friends. I just get so sad thinking about him alone on Christmas eve and the day. I always want to stay home till after Christmas but we never do.
Tomorrow I think I will strip the bed and wash the sheets before we go to our cookies and cheer.
Till then..
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

Cold front, groceries and a cake

It rained about 4 am for a half hour. It was cloudy when we got up and the temps were dropping. Our high today was 58. Right now it is 46. Tonight's low is in the 30's.
The host and his wife brought our paper over around 11am. After lunch I went for a walk. It was quite windy. When I came back the hosts wife was here and we talked for over a good hour. After she left Mel and I went for a walk. We decided to stay for 9 more days. They have a 14 day max here so that will put us at 14 days. We went to the office to pay and after that we went out for milk. Went for milk and came back with 6 bags full of more groceries! I just can not take Mel to the store with me. It took over an hour in the store to just get milk.
I baked a cake tonight. All I have in the coach is micro/convection oven. I have made corn bread and baked cookies but never a cake. It is about 4 inches in the center and tapers down to the side. Kinda like a ski hill. Hopefully it will be good.
I talked with our granddaughter, Rachel, last night. It was her birthday.....Happy Birthday again Rachel. She turned 13. I asked how much snow they got yesterday. Her reply "A lot". Sounds like she had a nice birthday and I am thankful for that.
Not much else new here.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

Clouds, store closings, stew and pistolettes!

We woke to a cloudy day. I think the high was 68 and again, very humid. All this humidity has caused problems for the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. A 29 mile bridge that crosses the lake from north to south and the other way around. Fog has been so heavy that they have closed the causeway at times or escorted vehicles across. We are waiting for weather to clear so we can cross and see it all. The cold front is to come in tomorrow morning. Our temps will drop 20 degrees. Yikes! I guess we will turn off the a/c and turn on the heaters. Atleast it may be dryier! I am tired of the humidity.
After we had breakfast I did dishes and Mel went out to finish reading his book. I took a walk around the campground. Stopped to visit with the host and find out about any Christmas lights in any of the neighborhoods. Nothing that she knew of. She advised us that we NOT go into New Orleans after dark. She said it is still very dangerous. Alot of shootings and murders. Of course Mel thinks that means we should go just so he can prove her wrong.
We drove over to Covington to the Camping World. Mel wanted to look at a camping book. He decided not to buy it. Said it wasn't a very informative book. After that we drove to Madisonville to check out a Linens and Things Store that is going out of business. Last 3 days and nothing was left! Shucks! Throughout our travel this trip we have seen many stores that are closing the doors.
I had made a stew for dinner in the crock pot. When we got home I baked some pistolettes to go along with the stew. Everything was so good. OH, we found this bag of pistolette at the store yesterday. They are a bake and serve roll. A very crusty roll and very good! Yummmy!
After dinner I did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. I took another walk around the campground and gave the host money to pick us up a paper tomorrow. I think the hosts like us. They are over here a lot and always want to do something for us. I don't see them around the other campers. Hmmmm! They are nice people and fun to talk to.
Time to get ready for bed and veg out with the tv.
Stay well, be happy and smile

Laundry and strange foods

Another nice sunny day and it was 80! One more nice day and then the cold front comes in and the weather will be normal for this time of the year. Highs in the 50's and lows in the 30's.
We stayed home today. I went and did 2 loads of laundry. They have 2 washers and dryers at this state park. Brand new Maytags. I came back, put laundry away and cleaned the coach and vacuumed. Mel decided to take a nap and I forgot to wash towels. So while he napped I went back and did the towels. Later we went and got groceries. It took us almost 2hours. Why? So many foods we had never heard of and we were just having fun finding them. On our drive home we hit another neighborhood to see the Christmas lights.
We had pizza for dinner and then I did my ironing.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

Resurrection

We awoke to sunshine today. A nice change from the cloudy days we have had all week. We drove around the neighborhoods here that are by the Lake. The houses are huge! I would say the houses are about 6 times the size of ours. Most all of them built on pillars. Beautiful homes. Although I would not want to live in a house that big, nor heat or a/c it. Let alone clean it. I suppose that if you have a home that big you probably have a maid or cleaning people come in.
Tonight we drove back to that neighborhood to see the Christmas lights. Not many very lit up much to my surprise. A park along the lake had all the trees wrapped in lights, the gazebo was all in lights and lights along the walk path. That was very pretty.
John made it through a whole day of work today and was actually hungry when he got home. With mono the doctor said he would not have much of an appetite. So far he has not eaten much but tonight he said he ate well. His best bet for getting over this soon is to eat, sleep and not get stressed. Hopefully, he will get over this fast.
My back is much better tonight, as long as I keep taking drugs! I did not sleep well last night. Every move caused me pain. I think tonight will be much better.
It was 77 here today. A record high for this time of the year. We still have a very high humidity. A cold front is on the way. I checked weather at home this morning and it was -15! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! Tomorrow they get snow.
Time for me to get ready for bed. Till tomorrow, and hopefully a more exciting day...
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles
Oh, on the trees here a plant called "resurrection fern" grows on the bark. When it is dry it turns brown and looks dead. After a rain it gets green again. The camp host brought us some. I now need to look for something to put it in. It is a dainty fern and quite interesting.

Can I remember it all?

Well it has been 11 days since we left home. Now I will try to remember it all. The first day will be easy. We left home at 8:30 a.m. and headed south. We drove straight through the day and into the night. We arrived at the first rest area in Mississippi at 12:30 A.M.. It took us 16 hours .

We had stopped for breakfast in Westfield, WI., and then had sandwiches along the rest of the way. We pretty much fell into bed that night.

In the morning we drove to Enid Lake. A Corp. of Engineers, campground. We stayed at Wallace Creek campground. This is a very nice campground. We had 50 amp electric, water and a level concrete pad. About 6 other campers were in the campground. We could look out on to the lake from our site. That evening we had the most awesome sunset either of us had ever seen.

On Sunday (7th) we drove into Batesville ,MS., and explored the town. Went to a little cafe we had stopped at last year. I had a BBQ pork sandwich and Mel had the catfish. The catfish were not as good as last year. Mel said they were mushy! After we ate we picked up some milk and headed back home.

Monday we drove south to Grenada, MS to check out another COE campground on Grenada Lake. The lake was dried up! The campground was not much at all. Explored Grenada some and then went back home.

Tuesday we just veg'd out at home. Cleaned up and vaccumed.

Wednesday we went for a drive and discoverd another COE campground the other side of the dam. Again it is very nice and a COE campground. We like the COE's because with Mel's National Parks Golden Age Passport we pay half price. At Wallace Creek we paid 5.00 a night.

Wednesday we moved the other side of the dam to Persimmon Hill and paid 5.00 a night. We veg'd out for the next 2 days.

Saturday (13th) we drove to Collinsville, MS to another COE campground. This is just north of Meridan, MS.

Sunday (14th) we explored Meridan. Got groceries and gas for the car. (1.30/gal) Diesel prices for the coach have been 2.59- 1.99. Yup, we got diesel in Meridan for 1.99. We were so happy.

Monday (15) we moved to a campground in Poplarville, MS.. It seems like all the towns in MS have a "ville" on the name. Anyway, we stayed at Haas-cienda in Poplarville. It is a Passport America campground, a membership camping club. We get half price sites with this membership. In the book this campground sounded so wonderful. We needed to do laundry and it had a "laundry mat". We stayed 2 nights but it was not as grand as we thought. The laundry: had 6 washers, 2 worked. It had 6 dryers, 2 worked. The washers that did work, leaked. So the floors were wet and had puddles. I did the heavy stuff at the "laundry mat"and then did the rest in my washer in the coach. The floors were dirty and they had dogs and cats running loose everywhere.

On Tuesday we drove to the the Northshore area of Lake Pontchartrain to check it out for camping. We stopped in Slidell and had lunch at Raising Cain. They are fast food chicken strips. We had not been to one so decided to try it. They use the tenderloin part of the breast and they are wonderful. We had dinners that came with 3 strips, coleslaw, toast, and fries. Everything was good. After that we to Fairview-Riverside State Park. Checked out the park and the sites. Then we went to Foutainebleau State Park to check it out and the sites. We decided which one we move to and headed back home. We were going to check out the BBQ place in poplarville for dinner but it was closed. We came back home and I threw in the last of my laundry and we went to Pizza Hut. Bad pizza! Over cooked and no one cared except us!

Today, Wednesday, we moved to Fontainebleau State Park. It is beautiful here. We also have free WIFI. Thus the update. We are settled in and I have dinner cooking on the grill. Tonight is chicken, baked potatoes, and corn. When we were leaving the other campground this morning I threw my back out. We were hooking up the car and out it went. I can hurts so bad but with the help of some pain pills I am doing alright. Louisiana State Parks honor the Golden Age Passport also so we pay half price at the State Parks also. We have 50 amp electric, water and the free wifi. Tomorrow we go exploring around here. During our stay we will also go into New Orleans.
Dinner should be ready so I write again soon.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

We are hitting the road!

Tomorrow we leave..finally! Hopefully we will be out of here by 8:00. I have everything packed. Just have to grab my make up bag, some soda's, and a few things off the counter and we are gone.
We had planned to leave today but it snowed in southern Wisconsin, IL, MO, TN, along with sleet and rain. Tomorrow it looks clear all the way to MS.
I don't know when we will have an internet connection, so , bear with me.
Till then, Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles

I am getting everything ready to go. I have loaded items that will not freeze and cloth items.It looks like snow through Wednesday. We plan to go straight south through IL and down into MS. Thursday looks clear all the way down. On our first day we drive till we are just into MS. Pull into a rest area and call it a day. We left here at 8am last year and got into the rest area about 11pm. After that we take our time and meander around. We will probably check out more of MS this year and go into LA and mosie around for a while before heading into Texas. We will probably hit AZ in January sometime. Tomorrow I want to do a quick cleaning around the house. Get our clothes together and loaded. Load whatever I can before we turn on the furnace. I will turn on electric heater while I run in and out tomorrow. We will turn on the furnace on Wednesday then load the freezables. On Thursday we will load the frig, and we are off!
I do not know about an internet connection. We will look for WIFI so if we find it I will post. I think it may sparse between posts.
I am tired so I guess I best head off for bed. Tomorrow will be another busy day.
Stay well, be happy and smile!
Toodles