Today was our last full day in Louisiana, and after a week of cloud cover and rain, the skies cleared and the sun came out. Of course, this means it heated up quickly and once again became a steambath, but at least it was a pretty steambath.
I spent the day taking Ivy and Otis for a run in the dog park, doing laundry, and mending some of our clothes. I’ve also started writing reviews of the RV parks where we’ve stayed, so I added one for Pontchartrain Landing. I really have nothing bad to say about the park. The staff has been very helpful, the facilities are clean, and the neighbors have been quiet.
Speaking of neighbors, we glanced out our windows tonight at sundown and saw the folks in the motorhome next to us sitting outside their camper in a little fenced-in area surrounded by bunnies! There were at least six of the little buggers. Not sure where in their RV they’re keeping all of them, especially seeing as how they also have two large dogs, but, hey, to each their own.
When Lex got off of work this evening I talked her into taking me geocaching. We stuck to New Orleans East not far from where we’re staying. The neat thing about geocaching is how it can take you to places you might not otherwise have ever discovered on your own. The first cache we located was one such place. I had no idea that there was a NASA facility at New Orleans. Well, technically there isn’t. It’s in a little town just outside NOLA called Michoud. This installation is where the external tanks for the space shuttles were constructed and where the stage one boosters for the Saturn rockets were made. The cache was at the visitor’s site where the Saturn booster was on display and there was a memorial for the Challenger crew. The whole affair was incredibly impressive. The photo doesn’t give a sense of the grand scale of the rocket. It’s 138′ long and 38′ wide. A grown person could easily stand in each of the five jets at the end of it. Amazing!
Saturn booster rocket at NASA's facility in Michoud, Louisiana
I hit two more caches. One I didn’t find, but the other was located at a place called The Olive Tree. It’s a village constructed by the Presbyterian church to house volunteers who come to New Orleans to aid in post-Katrina rebuilding. The place houses 90 people at a time and has served over 2000 individuals in the years since the hurricane. These sorts of caches are part of why I really enjoy this hobby. It was nice to see more than just the usual tourist sites while we were here in town.
Before I go to bed, I need to make the usual preparations for tomorrow’s travel. I wash and put away all the dishes, clean the litterbox, make sure that things on the countertops are sitting on sticky mats or are in the kitchen sinks. I put the bottles of shampoo and soap into a washtub which I sit in the bottom of the shower and put the toiletries on the bathroom sink into it. I pick up all the throw rugs and put them onto the sofa. I remove everything from my desk then unplug my desktop and remove the monitor, wrapping it in blankets (we do the same to Lex’s desktop and monitor). I put the wheels of my desk chair onto a pillow to keep it from rolling away, and I check the pantry, bathroom, closet, and shower doors to make sure they are latched. We put away the TV trays we use for eating and for our laptops, and Lex does something elaborate involving bungee cords that keeps her chair from rolling away and her desk from falling over. And one of us will make sure the TV antenna is cranked down and the televisions are secured (we use pillows to cushion the big TV and we place the small one face down in its compartment).
In the morning, I’ll take out the trash, turn off the hot water heater, dump the holding tanks and unhook the sewer line, water hose, and coax cable and stow them in the basement storage. Then we pull in the slideouts, making sure nothing is on the floors that might block their paths, pack up the critters and put them in the truck (don’t worry — at this point it’s running and the A/C is on), make a final check of the interior, and finally unplug the power cable and stow it, leaving the refrigerator running off propane while we travel. Then we have to hitch up the trailer. This is mostly Lex’s department. She backs the truck up and actually gets the king pin onto the hitch. I help by raising or lowering the front landing gear so that the hitch and king pin are the right height. That done, we raise the rear and front landing gear, placing the full weight of the trailer on the tires and on the hitch itself. If we’re sitting on leveling blocks, Lex pulls the trailer off them, and I pick them up and put them away. Finally, one of us will make a final check of the exterior of the camper, making sure the exterior compartments are locked, windows are closed, the stairs are put away, the door is locked, and the little door covering the vent over the stove is latched. We’ll also do a visual check of the campsite and make sure we haven’t left anything on the ground. Once we’re sure we’re ready, we roll!
It’s a lot to remember, and I’m always paranoid that we’ve forgotten something, and we usually have. One the way from Alabama to Louisiana, I forgot to latch the slide-out pantry, so it flew out. Fortunately, nothing fell or was broken. Lex also discovered one of the exterior compartment doors flapping in the breeze as we rolled down the highway. It fairness, it was locked before departure. The lock is just faulty. That’s one of those things on the need-to-do list. We started to pull away from a truck stop last week with our steps still folded out. So far, though, we haven’t done anything too tragic like leaving the power or cable plugged in or the TV antenna up. *knock wood* Let’s hope we don’t forget anytime soon. I don’t want to pay to have the body damage fixed.
Tomorrow we will head towards Texas. The original plan was to stopover for the night at a Flying J in Baytown (near Houston). At this point, though, we’re going to play it by ear and see how far Lex feels like she can drive. The distance from New Orleans to San Antonio is about 50 miles less than the distance from Williamsburg to Atlanta, and she managed that drive in a day. If we get to Lockhart Saturday night, great. Lex will have two full days off before having to go back to work. If not, no big. Our campground reservation is for Sunday anyway. Either way, we’re probably going to be boondocking somewhere Saturday night.
Well, goodbye, New Orleans. You showed us a great time! Maybe we’ll get to come back one of these days.
Tags: Geocaching, New Orleans, rv, Texas, The Rig, Travel
