Roberstdale, Alabama

We are heading to our campsite for two nights in Robertsdale, Alabama. There is a 77 mile stretch of Mississippi we are driving through on the way to Alabama.

Mississippi

We decided we wanted to stop in Mississippi so we stopped at a rest area to... well lets just say rest for a couple minutes. Now we can say we have been in Mississippi.

Rest Area

After a few minutes stop we continued towards Alabama.

Sweet Home Alabama

Our campground is called Wilderness RV. It is an RPI campground so it costs us just $10.00 a night. It was about 25 miles past Mobile, Al. We chose to stay in the pull through sites which were very close together, but there are no trees overhead so we would not have any issues with our rooftop satellite. For just a couple nights this is what we prefer.

Wilderness RV

On the way in to the campsite we saw a sign for Lambert's Cafe.

Lambert's Cafe

We had seen Lambert's Cafe on TV on one of the food shows, maybe Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives or one of those type of shows. They are known for their yeast rolls. It sounds weird but they throw them to you, sometimes from across the room. You can see from my picture their web address is www.throwedrolls.com,

Throwed Rolls

You order you meal and then they constantly bring around the pass arounds which consist of the throwed rolls, apple butter, black eyed peas, mac and tomatoes, fried okra, fried potatoes (my favorite!), cabbage.

I ordered the Chicken Fried Steak and Patty ordered the Meatloaf. Notice that Patty's meatloaf was a whole meatloaf, not just a few slices of meatloaf!

Great Food!

Needless to say we took about 3/4 of our diner home for the next night and they even gave us more rolls and potatoes to take home!

The next day we drove back to Mobile to the USS Alabama battleship. You do a self guided tour that actually takes all day.

USS Alabama

There are three tours, the Green, Red and Yellow. You can start with anyone you want. They give you a paper that describes each stopping point.

Tours

You will do a lot of climbing on these tours in fairly small areas. We have done tours of other retired ships, but this is by far the most complete!

Ladders

When will Patty learn? She keeps locking me up and I keep coming back for more! LOL!

In the Brink!

Thes are some big guns!

Big Guns

As part if the tour you can also view the USS Drum a 1941 submarine.

USS Drum

The sailors who ran this sub must have been small, and not claustrophobic! Look how small the doorways are!

Small Quarters

The periscope was still working. You had to climb up a ladder to get into a small area to use it. The ladder was made for people with small shoes, not size 12 like mine, but I still went up with Patty.

Patty on the Periscope

We went into the Plane hanger and looked at the planes and then decided we were tired and hungry. We had seen a commercial on TV for a fast food chain called Krystal's Burgers. They are small slider burgers similar to White Castle Burgers. They have a special going for 3 Sliders, fries and a drink for $2.99. We liked these better then White Castle. Thought they were more filling and taste better.

Krystal Burgers

We drove the next day to Quincy, Florida.

Florida

We stayed in a park behind a gas station. You actually pay at the gas station and then go park in your spot. I didn't take a picture since we didn't even uphook from the truck. I got this picture from the internet and acutally this looks better then it was. It has rained a lot around here so the grass had gotten a little muddy. Wasn't a problem for us as we have a 4x4, but it didn't even feel we needed it here. This is a Passport America so we pay 1/2 price. It's OK for an overnight, otherwise I probaby wouldn't stay.

Beaver Lake RV

Well that's it for today. Next stop is Orlando and Disney.

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty

New Orleans Part II

We took the shuttle to the French Quarter. The $6 shuttle is good all day and takes you to French Quarter 3 times daily 10am, 3:45pm, 7:45pm, and picks up at 4pm and 8pm.

We first went and got a selfie picture at the sternwheel steamboat Natchez Paddle wheel.

SS Natchez

We had scheduled a walking tour of the French Quarter with a company called, Free Tours by Foot. The other walking tours were anywhere from $20-30 a person. This one advertises that you just pay what you think it is worth! You still have to book it a head of time. The tour lasts two hours and the first one starts at 10:00, too early for us since we didn't leave the park until then. I thought I had seen one on the web site at 10:30 but couldn't find it. The next one wasn't until 2:00 so I knew we would have to leave it early to get back for the 4:00 shuttle, but I still booked it.

We went to the Cafe Du Monde so Patty could get the FAMOUS Beignets! The line was crazy long! As we were waiting in line I was searching online for the tours again and found the 10:30am one. Don't know how I missed it the night before. Problem is it was 10:30 right NOW! The meet time was right across the street. I tried to book it and they still had two spots available.

Cafe Du Monde

We got out of line and ran across the street to Jackson Square Park.

Jackson Square

 Patty found the tour we were looking for. Katrina the tour guide first said we could not "crash" the tour. I showed her our confirmation e-mail and she welcomed us! The good news is that now we would be able to stay for the whole two hour tour!

Katrina

The tour consisted of Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral, The Cabildo, Presbytere, Pirates Alley, William Faulkner House, Tennessee Williams House, Bourbon Street, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop and more. Here is the Napoleon House.

Napoleon House

And of course Bourbon Street.

Bourbon Street

These street performers were in front of St. Louis Cathedral. They were playing Jazz music.

Performers

The tour lasted at least 2 hours and probably a couple miles of walking. It was very good and Katrina was excellent! We ended at the French Market. She really never really asked for money or even a tip. Really low key. We gave her $10.00 each or $20.00 total. She doesn't even look at what we give her, she just put it in her money stash. I really like that. Now that we are retired we do try to look for value! This was worth it. 

In the French Market we bought a Snow Ball. That is New Orleans term for a Hawaiian Shaved Ice.

French Market

After browsing the shops in the Market we headed to the NOLA US Mint. Built in 1835, the Old U.S. Mint is the only building in America to have served both as a United States and a Confederate Mint. BTW, that's me in the background sitting on the fence eating my snowball. LOL

US Mint

There were several rooms of old mint exhibits you could look at. There was also several old minted coins from here.

Mint Exhibits

They had a Loius Armstrong exhibit in the mint building. Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901.

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

I thought what was most impressive was that they had the first cornet he ever played.

First Cornet

As well as the final trumpet and mouthpiece he ever played on display.

Final Trumpet

After the mint we went back to Cafe du Monde to get those Beignets that Patty wanted. The lines were still very long, but she wanted her Beignets! They were not as perfect shaped as the one from Morning Coffee in the City Park. Both were very good!

Cafe Du Monde Beignets

That's it for today,

God Bless you,

Thank you for reading and we love you,

Brian and Patty

New Orleans, La

We arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday March 30th. Neither Patty or I have ever been to New Orleans, but our daughter Crystal has with her Aunt Cynthia. We have been looking forward to the "Big Easy"!

All the campgrounds in N.O. were VERY pricey, but we were fortunate to have a Passport America one available to us called Pontchartrain Landing RV Park. We booked it months ahead which was a good thing because the weekend after we left was the French Quarter Festival so they were not supposed to honor the 50% discount that P.A. offers us. Because we booked it so early and in fact paid for it we were good to go with no arguments. This was actually probably the best one in N.O. We backed up to Lake Pontratrain. During Hurricane Katrina, Lake Pontchartrain levies breached causing 80% of N.O. to flood. The RV Park was built after Katrina, but where we are sitting would have been under 10-12 feet of water!

 Pontchartrain Landing RV

After arriving and setting up we decided we needed to find some real cajun food. I found a neighborhood restaurant nearby called Gentilly Cafe. It was supposed to be open until 7:00 PM and have great Po-Boy sandwiches, We get there at about 6:30 and they were closed up tight! We were ready to leave but I noticed there was a restaurant next door called The Original Fiorellas' Cafe. The Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews were AWESOME. Somehow I missed this!

The Original Fiorellas' Cafe 

The Original Fiorellas opened in the French Quarter in 1984 and are famous for Po-Boys and for their fried chicken. The restaurant has sold several times and the Fiorella family no longer owns it. About a month ago they decided to open a little family run walk in in the Gentilly area of N.O. We just luckily happened upon it!

The first night I got a roast beef w/gravy (au juice) Po-Boy. Patty got Home made Italian Sausage on Pasta! Both were ridiculously good!

The Original Fiorellas' diner

While we were waiting for our food there was a couple eating the fried chicken. I have to admit it looked pretty good. We asked the people eating it and they said it is by FAR the best in New Orleans! That's all it took. The next night we came back to get the fried chicken. For $10.95 you got 4 pieces, 2 white and 2 dark. You also got 2 sides and bread. We got potatoes and Okra. The Okra was actually really good! The chicken was so big it fed both of us full! It was for sure the best chicken ever! Kind of like Popeye's with some spice, but just 100x better! Moist as all get out, but crispy.

Sorry we didn't get pictures but we didn't think about it until we were done eating! LOL!

The next morning Patty wanted to go to  Café Du Monde in the French Quarter and get some beignets. We drove to the Quarter and realized my BEAST of a truck did not belong there! Yes I could drive it through it. But good luck parking! If I could find a parking spot in the street, the streets are so narrow I wouldn't trust that it wouldn't have a dent when I got back!

Good Luck Parking!

There were some parking lots, but they had narrow spots that didn't fit my dually very well and they wanted $25.00 for three hours of parking! The RV Park had a shuttle the to the Quarter for $6.00 a person round trip. That sounded better and no worry about my truck!

Instead we headed to the City Park.

City Park

The Morning Call Cafe in the park had good reviews for their beignets. They were pretty good here.

Morning Call

You order them in three's for $2.25. Pretty good deal. They were yummy!!!

Beignets

There is a Free Sculpture Garden at the park. The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is home to over 60 sculptures by renowned artists from around the world. Patty is overcoming her fear of large spiders!

Sculpture Garden

Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest continuous bridge over water according to the Guinness World Records. It is 23,83 miles long at it's longest point. It crosses Lake Pontchartrain.

Pontchartrain Causeway

When you are in the middle of the bridge you can not see land on either side. There is a toll of $3.00 to come back to N.O., but not to exit.

23.8 Marker

The next day we got serious thunderstorms with between 8-10 inches of rain. Many roads flooded until the pumps cleared it up. We stayed home and stayed dry!

2" an hour!

That's it for today,

Thanks for reading and God Bless!

Brian and Patty