All play and no work makes this a dull blog.
All play and no work makes this a dull blog.
All play and no work makes this a dull blog.
Need to do some serious catching up on the blog front after a whirlwind tour of the south where we’ve caught up with some old friends.
In the past week or so we’ve crawled the the French Quarter music scene, visited a Humboldt friend across the lake at his Slidell biodeisel compound, seen what’s left of Cajun Country after Rita, gotten a crawfish farm tour, hit Sixth Street in Austin with my best man and his wife, hosted a three legged dog party and cancer fundraiser with Jerry, and caught some local pickin’ at the Luckenbach bar.
Now we’re boondocked in the field behind the Luck dance hall with the place to ourselves. Lots to do. More to come.
So this is paradise, eh? Well, if your idea of paradise is parked in a crammed, dumpy RV “resort” for a whopping $40 a night, where you are so close to the next RV that you can’t roll out your awning, where you have snotty French Canadian neighbors that refuse to say hello or make eye contact, then Paradise RV Resort in Fort Lauderdale is for you!
There’s a lot of talk here about how “Old Florida” is disappearing. Kitschy roadside attractions are being paved over for gated homes along golf courses, and old timey family diners are being squeezed out by Chick Fil A and Olive Garden. It’s like this in a lot of the country, as Americans allow national chains to destroy the very things that make our hometowns unique.
We get a kick out of finding new, divey places to check out. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve found two great places that are sadly, a dying breed: Archie’s Seabreeze on Hutchinson Island, and Mrs. B’s in Vero Beach, off I-95.
We didn’t find them on our own; our online friend Chelsea told us about Archies, and the locals we met at Earl’s told us about Mrs. Bs.
It’s that time of year when everyone asks, “What did you do for New Year’s Eve.”
I’ve never quite understood what the big deal is about this one night a year when everyone can get away with getting liquored up. In fact, you’re supposed to. But I just consider it amateur night. I don’t need a reason to get drunk.
If you ask me, every day is New Year’s. In fact it was Saturday, January 5th one year ago tonight, as I write this. But never mind me. I’ll tell you what we did anyway. We got liquored up.
Then René wrote about how one fulltime RVer colors her hair. But yesterday, Valerie asked who cuts my hair while traveling. And Brian mentioned an old song about going home to get your hair cut.
“When you get a haircut, be sure to go back home
When you get a haircut, get a barber you have known
Since you were a little bitty boy sittin’ in a booster chair
Or you might look like Larry, Moe or Curly if a stranger cuts your hair”
We haven’t had any good Mexican food since we left California. In fact, we haven’t had any, or even tried looking for it until recently.
The reason? In all the miles we’ve traveled we hadn’t passed through any communities with enough – shall we we say, authentic color – to warrant a dinner out until we reached Florida.
But once we saw an authentic looking Taqueria, a Mercado selling dresses and phone cards, and our first Tecate billboard in over 29, 000 miles, we figured the food was worth a try. While it wasn’t bad, it was nothing to write home about either. But here I am doing just that.
We’re always on the lookout for remote off-the-grid state and national parks where we can boondock, but have had a hard time finding any since we left Wisconsin’s tornado country.
It seems like there was never a problem finding cool places to boondock out West. We often went without hookups in California, Utah and Colorado. But even here in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp we have water, power, paved roads and a few neighbors.
If you’re a Food Network viewer like we were (before ditching the TV), you’ve probably watched Paula Deen at some point. She is the southern gal with the snappy wit and great sense of southern humor that cooks up homestyle food like nobody’s business.
When we were Walmarting it on Monday night, a friendly security guard in the parking lot told us that Paula’s from Savannah, and her restaurant, Lady & Sons, is downtown.
That is what Rene has been proudly calling this year’s feast. My answer is that every Thanksgiving dinner is a vegetarian banquet. It just happens to also traditionally include a large stuffed bird roasted to juicy perfection. Alas, not this year … and while our big dinner date was a day late this year, it was still delicious!
All play and no work makes this a dull blog.
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