Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

We spent four days in New Orleans, Feb. 18-22.  We stayed at New Orleans KOA, which I selected because it had a shuttle into the French Quarter, but the shuttle only left the campground at 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, with one pick up at 5:45 pm.  We never used it and the campground was pretty disappointing in general.  Some highlights of our trip included walking along the riverfront and listening to the calliope on the Steamboat Natchez, cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde, seeing the houses along the parade route from the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus (thank you Scott and Karen for talking us into doing that!), visiting Barataria Preserve at Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve with Janet and Jim Zadina, blackened catfish smothered with crawfish ettouffee at Restaurant des Familles and the birthday King Cake Janet got Jim with strawberries and cream that was to die for!

I'm glad we had the experience, but New Orleans was very crowded, some parts were pretty seedy and driving and parking were a total nightmare.  So when we moved on to Breaux Bridge, it was a welcome change of pace.  This is not the first time we have found the well know city destination to be too much for our small town comfort zone, and some unknown nearby destination to be much more our speed.  While we thought Asheville, NC was very cool, it was a busy city that was at times very overwhelming.  Nearby Black Mountain, NC was the small town vibe we really found appealing.

Breaux Bridge is 2 hours west of New Orleans, near Lafayette, LA.  We are staying at Poche's RV Park and Fish Camp.  We've been here four days and leave tomorrow.  We are very happy with this campground.  There is plenty of space, grassy sites, clean showers, small campground store, ice for sale, a pool and splashpad for kids (though it's too cool to pool) and if you wish, you are free to fish.  This was our view upon setting up.

Looking across the pond from our site

Our site

We've been very comfortable here and are loving the wide open space, the quiet, the birds, and the water.  Sometimes people ask what we do all day.  In reality it varies, but there are days that involve a lot of reading and doing crossword puzzles.  There are days that involve doing laundry and grocery shopping.  There are days that involve going on grand adventures or little explores.  If you follow me on FaceBook, you know there are days that involve finding local breweries and sampling local beer.  We did check out two local breweries; Bayou Teche Brewing and Parish Brewing Company.  We both liked the DDH Operation Juice Drop at Parish Brewing.  As with many great craft brews, only available on tap.

We took a wander through downtown Breaux Bridge which features a number of charming antique and gift shops, a great coffee shop Joie de Vivre Coffee and Culture Cafe,  La Petite Carolina an artists' collective and artspace and Buck and Johnny's restaurant featuring Zydeco Breakfast, which unfortunately we did not make it to.

We discovered a great local option for refilling our gallon water jugs.  Watermill Express is the largest drive-up pure drinking water company in the nation and the green alternative to prepackaged water.  We use bottled water for drinking, making ice and coffee.  We use campground water for washing and flushing.  Rather than buy new gallons of water, we've been using water refill stations.  One of the campgrounds we were at had a refill station on site.  We've also found them inside Publix and at water and ice machines similar to this one.  25 cents a gallon - can't beat it!

Another explore we took was of the Nature Conservancy's Cypress Island Preserve to see their bird sanctuary.  We saw more great egrets than I could capture, but these are some of the pictures I took.

Great Egret flying to tree

Great Egret sitting on branch

Great Egret walking in marsh

Great Egret in flight

I've really become taken with birdwatching.  Often times at campgrounds it's possible to watch birds while sitting at your site.  We have been enjoying 2 male and one female cardinal who have been in the trees around our site quite regularly, serenading us every morning.  Many times I will see a bird, but not be able to identify it.  I keep my binoculars handy so I can check out it's colors and features, and use the most wonderful app on my phone: Merlin Bird ID.  This is a free app created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  If you have the slightest interest in bird watching or bird identification, I highly recommend this app.  In addition to the cardinals, which I don't need an app to identify, I also saw a yellow-rumped warbler (too tiny to photograph) and a mocking bird.  Carol commented today that we've seen more birds at the campground than at the bird sanctuary. 

Cardinal

Mockingbird

This is a lovely spot, especially when the sun is shining.  My favorite view in the world is "diamonds dancing on the water" as seen here.

Boondocking at a Harvest Host site

"Boondocking" is free camping, taking it's name from camping out in the boondocks.  It's come to mean camping without any hook-ups (no water, electricity or sewer connections).  Here's a link to a data base of GPS coordinates for boondocking sites, should you be interested.  www.boondocking.org

We had our first boondocking experience on Saturday, Feb. 16th when we stayed at a Harvest Host site, Three Oaks Winery.  Harvest Hosts is a membership network that invites RVers to stay overnight for free at over 700 wineries, breweries, farms and more.  For a small membership fee, you get access to the list of all the member sites.  Members are encouraged to patronize the business that is allowing you to stay for free.  It wasn't much of a hardship to do a wine tasting and buy a bottle of wine, in exchange for a free spot for the night.  💗

Our camper has a built-in solar panel on the roof, so our battery stays charged and works for lights, cell-phone charging, and anything else you can do on 12 volts.  We have a water tank, so we had water to wash our hands, flush, and do dishes if we wanted to and we had propane for heat, cooking and running the fridge.  But my number one concern with being without an electrical hook-up was ... COFFEE!  We would not be able to plug in the coffee maker and that was a horror I could not face.  

I have to tell you about the most amazing product we found to solve this dilemma.  This is a single cup pour over coffee maker that I purchased on Amazon.  Click here for link to product.

Using a number 2 cone filter ensures no silt and grounds get in the coffee.

  

What I really love about this is the well that sits over the coffee grounds so you can pour a whole cup of water at once.

And when the water drains over the grounds you have a perfect cup of coffee.  Now that I know I can have coffee, I'm really excited to do more Harvest Host locations and even try boondocking out in the boondocks one of these days! 😀

Two Months in Ft. Myers, Florida

I am well overdue for a blog post.  I apologize for keeping you waiting so long.  This will be a longer post to get caught up with the last two months.  When we left St. Augustine in mid-December, we went to stay with our dear friends Patti and Freddie in Ft. Myers. 

Freddie, Patti, Bodhi and Oliver

We were so excited to see our friends and spend 3 weeks staying with them at their house.  We parked the camper in their driveway and used it as a big closet for that time.  We made the best of our time together.  There were beach days

and sunset nights at Ft. Myers Beach.

There were boat days in Lover's Key between Ft. Myers Beach and Bonita Beach.

And there were brewery visits and trivia nights.

We house and pet sat while our friends visited family over Christmas weekend.  Our beloved sister/in-law Kathy joined us for a week over Christmas, and we thoroughly enjoyed sharing Ft. Myers with her.

Kathy, Bodhi and Mrs. Buttersworth

Bodhi and Oliver in their Christmas Sweaters

For the month of January, we stayed at Tamiami Village and RV Park.  This was our first experience at a true RV park, and we loved it.  This park had a large village of park model trailer homes and an RV section.  Many of the RVers spend the whole winter at the park.  The RV park was an open area with rows of side by side lots, grass and some small vegetation, but few trees.

Our spot at Tamiami Village

Tamiami Village at night

If you would have told me that I would enjoy this as much as I did, I would have been skeptical.  But what we quickly discovered is that one of the big differences between RV parks and campgrounds, is that RV parks are designed to be communal and social.  People regularly stopped and introduced themselves, chatted and were generally very friendly and amiable.  The majority of the folks spent all season together, and become a close knit group.  They were quick to welcome us to the mix.  One of our favorite social gathering spots was the pool.  Because it was heated, people lounged in the pool all afternoon.  And everyone had a pool noodle.  I joked with Carol that I had noodle envy, so I had to go back to the camper and get my floaty, not a noodle, but it made me happy.  

Just as we were getting settled in, we had to make an emergency trip back to NY when my dad became ill.  My dad is doing well now and we are grateful that he has great doctors and that this was not something more serious.

Not only did being home allow us to help my folks, it also meant getting to spend some extra quality time with Maria and our grandkids, Alana and Gregory.  💜💚

Carol returned to FL a week earlier than me to attend to some appointments and I was gone for 2 and a half weeks.  I returned the day before were due to leave Tamiami Village.  We decided to adjust our previous plans, and looked for a place to stay in the Ft. Myers area to extend our "time in one place" just a little longer.  We were so fortunate to find a wonderful spot just across the highway at Swan Lake Village and RV Resort.  So we cancelled some other reservations, and stayed 2 more weeks. 

Swan Lake was similar in many ways to Tamiami Village.  There was a section of permanent homes, and an RV section.  However the RV area was somewhat more natural, with more trees and a little more campground than RV park vibe.  

Home Sweet Home

Looking into the RV park at Swan Lake

Many of the folks at Swan Lake also spend the winter season in the RV park and were also quick to welcome us to their midst.  We found the amenities to be quite nice and truly wished we were staying longer.

Bathroom at Swan Lake

Bathroom at Swan Lake

Laundry room at Swan Lake

The pool at Swan Lake

We loved our time in all three of our Ft. Myers "homes", but it's time to move on.  Stay tuned!