These “Fulltimer”
friends send me emails on occasion. I am always impressed with
them. They live the lifestyle with enthusiasm, interest, and
generosity. Carol gave me permission to share this journal
with you. I think it expresses the very best aspects of
Rv’ing: experiencing new places, making new friends, keeping
old friends, physical activity, and generosity.
A Fulltimer’s Journal
Happy New Year, hope all your holidays went
well! Dick and I have been having some great adventures. We
left our last letter off with our expected company in Tucson,
Vicky. She got to do a lot of 1st's. The desert was just the
beginning of many! We had no mercy on her and took her to our
1st tour of the week to Mission San Xavier Del Bac built
between 1783 to 1797. It's the only mission in the nation
still active in preaching to the Tohono O'Odham Indians. We
had been here years ago with our friends and couldn't believe
the restoration work that has been done to the inside of the
building and all it's statues and wall murals. We took her to
our favorite museum, the Desert Museum so she could get a feel
for all the plants and animals of the desert. We were lucky at
our campsite with our bird feeder to get a Roadrunner
visiting. Not that he ate from the feeder but he was probably
attracted to all the birds that gathered there. Vicky got to
cook outside and, go to her first cowboy town - Tombstone
where she saw a reenactment of the famous gun fight between
the Earp brothers, McLaury Brothers, Doc Holiday and Billy
Clanton. In Tombstone we also visited the largest Rose Bush in
the world planted from a seed from Scotland in 1885. It now is
more then 8,000 feet.
From here we took Vicky to her first cave - Kartchner. This
cave is a living cave and one of the only caves protected from
damage. Two cavers discovered it in 1974 and in wanting to
keep the cave pristine didn't even tell the owners of the find
until 1978. Again, the owners and cavers kept it a secret for
another 13 years in the hopes of finding a way to open it to
the public without people coming in and ruining the cave!
Quite a story! We also took Vicky to another of our favorite
places, Sabino Canyon in the Coronado Nat.Forest. We had fun
with Vicky and wanted her to see a coyote and even though we
went on drives looking for one, we never did find one! While
Vicky and I went to the movies, Dick saw one come through our
CG, isn't that always the way? It was fun having company for
Thanksgiving Day and we went out for a buffet and did a couple
of nice short hikes in Catalina State Park where we were
staying.
From here, we headed to Columbus, New Mexico where we stayed
at a lovely state park - Pancho Villa. This name is because
this is the town and fort that was attacked in March of 1916
by Pancho being only 4 miles from the border. 18 Americans
ended up getting killed and when the fort finally woke up and
got their act together, 142 Mexicans were killed. There's a
couple of museums, one in the park and the other at the old
train station that shows films about the events and has
different memorabilia. General Pershing would chase Pancho
into Mexico with 10,000 troops and never find him. Because of
all this, our 1st airbase was established using biplanes. From
here, we took our scooter to Palomos,Mexico so that Dick could
have eye check up and some new glasses and I had a loose tooth
in the back of my mouth and I wanted to get rid of it! , Dick
got his exam, titanium glass frames and progressive lenses for
$165 and I got my tooth removed for $30. Dick told me he would
have done it for 0$'s but I definitely needed novacaine. The
dentist was a pulling and a yanking before it finally came
out! We had a wonderful dinner at the Pink Store and picked up
some Vanilla Extract. To leave Mexico took forever because on
this day, this border had the big X-Ray machine that had to go
over every car, including our little scooter. We were in line
a good 30 minutes before we all had to stand aside so they
could drive the X-Ray over our group of vehicles.
On our way east, we stopped and camped one
night at Wal-Mart's in San Angelo, TX. Our friend, Evelyn,
told her friend, Laura, who lives in town that we would be
there and sure enough, we got a knock on our door around 8 pm
in the parking lot! Dick and I looked at each other wondering
who would be knocking. It was Laura, and we had a nice visit.
She brought us a head of cabbage that she said was from a well
known farm famous for cabbage. When I cooked it later, Dick
and I were impressed!
We stayed a couple of nights in Sabine
National Forest in East Texas. The site was set in the woods
on a hill overlooking huge Toledo Lake which has 1,200 miles
of shoreline and 65 miles long. We rode the scooter to the
marina for breakfast one morning and I have to laugh how they
open up the place. You call them on the pay phone on the
outside of the building! They serve a great breakfast and only
$9.70 for the both of us!
We're getting close to Christmas, and
decided it would be nice to spend some time in one area. When
we crossed into Louisiana, the nice lady at the Visitor Center
suggested the town of Natchitoches! We found a nice CG for
only $80 a week on Lake Sibley and only a few miles from town.
Weekly rates are usually much better then your daily rate! We
decided to stop at the town's cute little Visitor Center which
is located on the brick main street which is on the river.
We asked who we could contact to offer our
time during the holidays. One of the names was Padre, a
Catholic Priest for St. Anthony's in a poor black
neighborhood. This church was originally built for free people
of color. When I called him, he invited us to meet him
downtown for dinner. Since we were going down to see the
fireworks anyway, we thought it would be a great idea.
Starting with the 1st weekend in December, this town has many
holiday celebrations. At the river, which is decorated with
beautiful lights, they display fireworks, and have a great
outdoor band, and Christmas Carolers. We ended up buying some
groceries and bringing them to a Hospice patient with Padre
Christmas Eve morning. Of course, Padre invited us to visit
his church during the holidays. The 1st Sunday we visited, we
were really impressed by his walking up and down the aisle to
speak to his congregation. We felt very welcomed when he
announced our visit to the congregation. It is at this time
that we received an invitation from the Mayor to stop by his
office for coffee!
We used our scooter most of the time to get
around the town. We also bought one night of house tours. They
do 3 nights a week and each of those nights are a group of
three different houses, most are on the river. This is the
town where they filmed Steel Magnolias with Dolly Parton,
Julia Roberts and Sally Fields. It was based on a true story
of a family here in town. The 1st home we visited was the
Lambre-Gwinn House. This home had many of the beams, floors
and bricks in the fireplace taken from a 150 yr old home. Of
course, it was beautifully decorated with big open windows
facing the river. They used the porch for the scene of Julia
Roberts fainting and the kitchen scene with the baby crying.
We met some people who were used as extras in some of the
street scenes of Steel Magnolia too. It was at this house, we
met Bobby De Blieux who invited us to call him sometime so he
could give us a tour of his 1800 B&B. Our next house was also
on the river called Breezes Across the River. This beautifully
raised cottage was furnished with a 50's Soda Fountain which
had a booth, an old telephone booth with a working phone and
they served all the guests ice cream sodas! Our last tour was
the Pierson James Townhouse right on the main street of town,
a converted warehouse condo with it's own private elevator.
The view from the front balcony of the lights on the river and
all the goings on of Main were outstanding!
We went to the Baptist Church for the
Living Christmas Tree. Everyone welcomed us and what a
wonderful show, very professional! The show started with a
group of women playing music on hand bells. We were very
impressed. The Living Christmas Tree was a huge lighted
Christmas tree with 61 people in rows all the way to the top
singing Christmas songs. All you could see were their heads.
They had a wonderful manger scene and other various acts. This
church was beautiful with a real large auditorium and all the
seats had cushions! All this is free to the public!
We ran into Beverly downtown, the owner of
the house we toured with the soda fountain and when I said "hi
Beverly, you don't remember us" she replied "yes, you're the
Connecticut people"! She extended an invitation with her and
her family for Christmas Eve morning for a “make your own
omelet” breakfast. We visited 3 forts in the area. Between the
Spanish there was a fort and the one here in town was
established by the French and one closer to the border was one
established by the colonies. Natchitoches is the oldest
settlement on the Louisiana Purchase and they celebrated their
200th Anniversary in 2003.
We visited Rebel State Park where the grave
of the unknown Confederate Soldier is honored. It seems a
Confederate Soldier got lost from his group when 3 Union
Soldiers found him, they shot him. A local family discovered
the body and buried him. Through the years, the family
continued to take care of this grave until the State decided
to make a park and a museum honoring cajun, bluegrass and
gospel music and the soldier. They did a wonderful job
decorating the park with Christmas lights. Again, this is free
to the public. Paid $7.50 each to go to the Community Theater
to see the Old Time Radio Play of Fibber McGee and Molly.
Again, we met some wonderful people and someone pointed out
the family that the Steel Magnolia story was based on. Not
only did we see the play but we got a sandwich and desert
buffet for that $7.50!
We took up Bobby's invitation to visit his
B&B which has been in his family since the 1800's. He has kept
the original furnishings, paintings, antiques, carpets, wall
coverings, and the original map bought after the Louisiana
Purchase so it doesn't yet include the west coast! He lives
and breathes history every day!
We took the mayor up on his invitation to
visit his office. Everyone was very nice. While he was busy on
the phone, we spotted a picture of him and his wife with Oprah
Winfrey, along with the President of the college and his wife.
When we brought it to his attention, he told us a great story.
A town resident went to Oprah’s show in Chicago and after the
show Oprah stays around to chat with the audience. This gal
raised her hand and in her thick southern accent said "Miss
Oprah, everyone in our town loves you". Oprah laughed and
replied "You mean if I come to visit, no one will watch Gerry
Springer" and the gal replied "yesum". Well Oprah wanted to
surprise this gal and not a soul was supposed to know! Her 1st
plane arrived with all the cameras etc and the man who runs
the airport quickly called the mayor so he was there to greet
her when she arrived on her personal plane! Oprah was
surprised that anyone would know! He followed her group to the
gal's house to pay a surprise visit. The original plan was
that Oprah was only in town for a couple of hours. The mayor
convinced her to stay for the day and surprise the town and
college and be in their parade. Her big huge bodyguard ,with
rings in his ears, wasn't too keen on this whole set up! But
Oprah put her arms around him and convinced him that she would
be safe in this town! Meanwhile the mayor had people making a
bunch of signs for the side of the road saying "Natchitoches
Loves Oprah" so she could see them as she rode in a nice
convertible and waved to everyone! What a nice story! While we
were visiting the mayor, we discovered that Bobby who gave us
a tour of his B&B was also a past mayor!
We visited one plantation while in the area and that was the
Melrose. This was particularly interesting because it was
owned and operated by people of color, a black lady Marie
Therese Coincoin since 1742 and her son. Marie was given her
freedom by a Frenchman who also fathered 10 of her children.
She would spend most of her life working the plantation with
her slaves and children trying to earn the freedom of all her
children. The other interesting point is the famous artist
Clementine Hunter, in the early 1900', was encouraged to do
her art here. These are primitive paintings of life living as
a black person on the plantation. Her art is displayed as
murals in the African House on the plantation and you see
posters and cards throughout the town that can also be
purchased!
We got a hold of Fran Welsh, the black lady
who is in charge of the Council of Aging. She didn't have
anything for us to do for her but invited us to see their
facility. There she would give us a tour and tell us about her
hopes and dreams for the future of the facility.
I ended up helping 5 black ladies make meat pies in the
kitchen. I fondly remembered helping my Guatemala friends last
year stuffing banana leaves for tamales. In this area of the
south, meat pies are the big thing. I must have spent a good 2
hours helping these ladies and we bought one of their
cookbooks. The next day we would get a call from Fran inviting
us to her home for Christmas dinner. Christmas Eve morning we
visited the Hospice lady with Padre and Susan from Hospice. We
also had had an invite for breakfast but we were running real
late but figured we'd stop by with our little gift of an ice
cream dish full of candy anyway. It's a good thing because we
met her husband in the driveway and he said "you must be the
Connecticut people" and when we entered the house, everyone
else said the same thing! We were then forced to make
ourselves omelets, no pulling of arms here! We had fun
visiting with all of them. Christmas day, we stopped one more
time at the Hospice lady’s house and then went to Fran's
house. What a house. It is out in the country with 15 acres
and you can't see it from the dirt road that leads to their
driveway. It was a circular house 80" in circumference and a
good 5,000' of living space. Her daughter is in college and
was there with her boyfriend. Also, her son who graduated from
college, was there with his girlfriend. Her husband is a
retired engineer who built and designed their home. They
served a wonderful dinner and we now have more friends to add
to our list! Even Padre who is planning on building an Aides
facility on the river, has offered us a free camping spot
every time we're in town! But, it's time to hit the road!
Our next visit was the famous town of
Natchez which is right on the Mississippi River in
Mississippi. Here we visited a couple of the old mansions. At
$8 per person per mansion, Dick says, you see one, you've seen
them all! I had Dick take me to fat Mama's Tamales so I could
try their famous You-Naked Margaritas. We then followed the
Natchez Trace Hwy. which is an old Indian Trail. Natchez is
the town that had an awful nightclub fire in 1940 that more
then 200 blacks died. This was a very prosperous town from
cotton but town became devastated by the Civil War, yellow
fever and then the Bo weevil.
Our next big stop was in Vicksburg to visit
the famous Vicksburg Battlefield. The Union was determined to
control the Mississippi River and it was here that the Union
would surround the town of Vicksburg making the townspeople
and the Confederate Soldiers ration supplies because none were
coming in. The towns people ended up living in nearby caves so
as not to be in the line of fire. 46 days later, Pemberton
would surrender to Grant on 7/4/1863 which would give the
Union an advantage for the remainder of the war.
We ended up spending New Years Eve in
Jackson, Mississippi watching the ball drop in New York City
and the Rose Bowl Parade the next day. It was weird watching
TV because it's been months since we turned it on! Our CG in
Jackson was surrounded by bayous. At times, we could see
egrets and herons right from our camper windows. The public
bathroom was on stilts so you know at certain times of the
year, you have to swim to the bathroom or let the mosquitoes
fly you there! We were told that gators also lived in these
waters although we never saw any!
We are now in Mt. Olive and it's raining.
We're missing the desert. I particularly like hiking the
canyons and deserts, it's sooo much more interesting then a
flat wooded path! We're hoping to do an 80 mile bike trip out
of Hattiesburg in a couple of days. We've called a few people
to find out where we can camp on the trail which goes to
Prentiss, Mississippi.
Hope all is well with you, take care.
