Lake Charles, Louisiana Day 1 (GA391)

Mary is no longer available for RV traveling, but we remain good friends.

Because we have 5,000+ postings, I’ve invited her to continue posting entries on this blog.

I’m currently in my 23rd year of full-time RVing and my lifestyle is changing, For more info click Here

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The motorhome is parked at Thousand Trails RV Resort in La Connor, Washington. I’ll depart here July 16th.

Since my RVing life is changing (see above), I’m starting to re-visit previously visited places. So rather than constantly re-blogging past entries, I’ve decided to do something different.

  In 2011-2013, Mary and I did a 682 day, 12,679 miles in the motorhome and 8,000 miles in the Bronco, circumnavigation of the United States, which I called The Great Adventure. I called it so because other than my oldest granddaughter’s high school graduation in June in Connecticut, I didn’t know where we would be going or when we would be there!

So, unless I do something really different and unusual warranting a new blog entry, I’ll be posting entries from that trip.

This entry was posted February 7, 2013…

 

 

 

Yesterday we drove the motorhome the about 15 miles from Sulphur to Lake Charles, Louisiana.

 

 

The motorhome is parked at the 1,086 acre Sam Houston Jones State Park about 12 miles north of the city. We are here to enjoy Mardi Gras and will depart on February 13th. Today we’ll start exploring the local area.

 

 

You can read about this state park by clicking this Wikipedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston_Jones_State_Park

 

 

 

 

 

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the view from the dinette window…

 

 

 

 

 

After doing laundry we took about a 15 minute walk to a nearby small cypress swamp until we got rained out…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoying beautiful swamps is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

 

 

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Louisiana. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

 

 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! MARY WROTE A MANY GREAT BLOGS…SO WHENEVER SHE PUBLISHED A BLOG POSTING THE SAME DAY THAT I DID…YOU WILL BE ABLE TO READ HER BLOG BY CLICKING THE BELOW LINK! DO IT NOW!

https://otrwjam.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/sam-houston-jones-state-park/

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Forecast for today is partly sunny and 66 degrees.

Enjoying nice weather is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of Washington. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

 

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

 

My current travel rig is a 2006 Fleetwood 26′ Class A Motorhome and a towed 1986 Ford Bronco II, Eddie Bauer Model. This photo was taken in the desert at Slab City near Niland, California…

 

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.

http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you would like to see my YouTube videos, click this link… http://www.youtube.com/user/JimJ1579/videos

There are more than 700 photo albums in my Picasa Web Albums File. To gain access, you simply have to click this link… https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110455945462646142273?source=pwa

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

For more information about my books, click this link: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

 

All original works copyrighted – Jim Jaillet -2018

CHICOT PARK ARBORETUM

We read a forbidding weather report and the day dawned dark and cloudy. This squirrel outside our window didn’t seem to mind a bit.

We blogged, showered and breakfasted and got to the arboretum just as it opened. It is part of the park. The first raindrops had already started.

Inside, good displays, pictures of plants identified. Braille leaves like these and bird and animal sounds. Great stuff for kids and big kids. We took the trail maps and chose the shortest one.

I finely learned that this flower is a carolina jasmine. A woody, twisty vine.

The woods are gray and drab during the winter, but you get to see the “bones” of the forest.

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Bright, shiny leaves against the forest gray, draw the eye. A swamp magnolia.

White patches of christmas lichen. Named so because you can also find it in pink, turquoise, green and yellow. Sometimes on the same tree.

More of it  on this dead branch.

A toothache tree. So called because of the swelling bumps that develop on the bark. Double click to enlarge.

The swamp has  more mature cypress than Sam Houston Jones State Park, and less light on this moody day. The rain is stronger.

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The rain chased us home.

Shortly after we settled in, the skies dumped and obliterated the air, the ground, everything. It poured, hailed, and quickly flooded the area around us. We gave up on the idea of hauling our clothes to the laundry. We stayed in all day and read, edited pictures,  uploaded albums and took care of on-line chores. Not without jumping once in a while at a gunshot loud thunder-clap. It rained so hard,  several times I felt the ceiling inside the closets because I feared they must be leaking. Thankfully not.

Lake Charles, Louisiana – Day 9

The motorhome is parked at the 1,086 acre Sam Houston Jones State Park about 12 miles north of the city. We have been here enjoying Mardi Gras which ended Tuesday. We will move along later this morning.

Yesterday we rested from our Mardi Gras exoeriences…fun but tiring. Among the things we did was take a nice walk alongside a small Cypress Swamp directly across the road from where we are parked. You can read about this park by clicking this Wikipedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston_Jones_State_Park

Here are some photos that I  took…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Despite several signs telling us not to feed the Alligators…we saw none.

Enjoying a Louisiana Swamp is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Louisiana. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

SAM HOUSTON JONES STATE PARK

We arrived at Sam Houston Jones yesterday mid-morning in a slight rain. The first critter we encountered was a mosquito with a bunch of relatives. I’m lucky in that they don’t bite me, or if they do, I don’t feel it or know it. But, I’m never sure. Are Louisiana mosquitoes different?  The campgrounds are located next to this cypress swamp, so we know we are going to be buddies every day.

The park added shelters around the swamp for bats. Smart move!

The swamp is covered with some pretty green plant I’m unfamiliar with.

In the shallows near a cluster of cypress knobs, another bright green water plant I’ve bought in a pet store when I was still trying to raise gold fish in an outdoor pond.

It’s nice to see a healthy cypress swamp. These cypress are young and have made a comeback from the early days when lumbermen cut every tree. They regenerate from the knobs that come up from roots. At the park, they will never be lumbered to death again.

The park is also surrounded by a river on its south end.

The rain came back in earnest and we cut short our walk.

We had a short opportunity to get out and see the park. It is from here we will motor into Lake Charles for Mardi Gras over the next few days. Lake Charles has the second largest Mardi Gras Celebration in the states, second only to New Orleans. We’ll keep you posted.