Beer

In addition to the brewery tour Friday Judy went to Curves AND she played bingo and won twice.....brought home $6!! Two gallons of diesel!

Nothing like an open and free beer tap!!!! It was fancier that Smith's Hotel & Bar in Flat Rock.

Friday we checked out a local brewery with some folks from the CG. There were lots of others there also. I'm not a fancy beer conisour, they had a about 8 or 10 different beers on tap, but some were OK. The root beer was REAL good!

Exploring Abita Springs, LA

The weather has been very comfortable and we have been relaxing the last 2 days. Today after Judy went to Curves we did a little exploring of the old city. There's an 1884 pavilion and fountain downtown by the rotary. Still, LOTS of traffic. We found out that after Katrina, Abita Springs took in lots evacuees and many found jobs and decided to stay here rather than return to New Orleans, instant population explosion.

We also explored the UCM Museum. I can not begin to describe this wacky collection of junk and off the wall stuff. The pictures will only start to suggest how strange this place is. This is my kind of art museum!

Abita Springs, LA

Today we drove to southeast Louisiana. Still saw fair amount of leftover hurricane damage. We arrived about 1pm and this is a beautiful CG! When we drove in the gate gave us all the CG info and the map to our site, very impressive, no checking in, didn't even gey out of the truck. This is the way it should be! We are in the tall pines that smell great. Big site in a clean well organized CG. AND it's ROD so it's free! The area reminds us of New England, narrow twisty roads, trees close beside the road, homes and business tucked into the trees, a roatary and LOTS of traffic for a small, what we thought, out of the way place.

We went out for lunch/dinner at a local resturant. Food was good and it was happy hour, ahhh.

Spent the $$ we saved on CG fees.

Kinder, LA

Today we left Texas headed east on the back roads. We saw many many homes with blue tarps on their roofs. Some were mobile homes and some were expensive new homes. Lots of trees on the ground and burning brush. We spent the night at the Coushatta Indian Casino's RV Park. We were here in January and liked it so we returned for a one night stand. Diesel was $2.90, the last time we paid less was 10/3/07 in MO, over a year ago! Goody goody. On top of that Judy won $10 on the slots!

Haulin' HitchHiker busy busy busy

Greg & Judy; Gary & Karen Mayne, JV & Carolyn Evans beside our home in Willis, TX

Judy, Sharon & Stacy Wise, Donna & Ted Rogers in their stationary home.

It has been a busy two days. Yesterday Sharon & Stacy picked us up and we went to Ted and Donna's for dinner. We are all Haulin' HitchHikers, this is a chapter of HitchHikers Of America that was started by 3 couples having a few drinks around a campfire in Branson, MO last year. I'm the secretary & treasurer. Many of us are most or full timing and haven't joined a local club as we are always traveling. The chapter gives us the opportunity to socialize around the country with other RVers who have similar interests. We use a HitchHiker forum to stay in touch. Anyway.....we were contacted by 4 other Haulin' HitchHiker couples Tuesday and we were all within 20 miles of each other!

Back to dinner.....Donna made a GREAT Texas dinner for all of us, ribs, beans, taters, cole slaw, Texas toast and lemon meringue pie. Boy was it good!

Today we got together with the other two couples, the Evans & Maynes at our place to meet each other and talk about our RV adventures. We then went out to a nice catfish restaurant (one of the benefits of the chapter is that someone always knows where to go and what to do in the local area) for dinner and then went to the Evans home to continue our socializing. It's fun to be with others and it's fun to be alone. Tomorrow we leave TX for LA.

Sam Houston

Diorama inside the Sam Huston Museum after Sam defeated Sana Ana. Judy, Sharon & Stacy at the entrance to the museum.

How about a 67 foot tall statue of Sam?

We had a surprise call from Sharon & Stacy Tuesday night, they are 20 miles away!! We drove to their site in the Sam Houston National Forest (beautiful CG!) this morning and picked them up for a day in Huntsville. We checked out tall Sam, had a great lunch at the Farmhouse, then spent a few hours on the 20 acre Houston Museum grounds. There are two of his homes there along with the museum on the grounds of his homestead. I remember him from Texas history but learned quite a bit more about the soldier, statesman politician, and only man to be the governor of two states. I'll have to get a biography about Sam to read.

Willis, TX

Not much today to report. Judy went to Curves then we had some routine maintenance done on the truck and filled up the tanks with diesel. We drove around the local area checking it out and had a nice supper at home.