Twas The Night Before ...

 

 

The above shot was of the Christmas tree and all of the stuff just after Santa left and the elves were relaxing with a shot of crème limoncello ... but I must go back a week first.

We went down to Bryan to visit Bruce's parents at the St. Jo Manor to celebrate birthday and Christmas with them. Bruce's mom turned 96 on the 23rd and she was more charming, witty, and responsive than we had seen in a while. In fact, so much so that she came up to Dad's room from hers in the nursing area to be with us. We exchanged presents and talked about old family times as we had brought some old pictures to jar her memory ... sharp as ever. We then transitioned to Christmas and exchanged some more presents and chatted more. We then departed but apparently Mom was so up with it that she joined Dad in his dining room for the Manor's Christmas dinner ... absolutely wonderful for these close centenarians.

Then back to the scene above in Richardson which is part of Dallas. Below is Christmas morning after Ev gleefully discovered a whole bunch of bright paper under the tree and began to tear into it.

He actually enjoyed the unwrapping part best as he helped all of us unwrap each gift.

Then the big moment which he somehow had left for last and it was the easiest to get into ...

... and onto as he broke new speed records doing the circuit around through the kitchen and the family room ... lights ablaze!

And lastly the outcome of a corner at too high a speed ... won't be the last for this cute little guy!

No harm done and the spread eagle was more for our benefit. This was a wonderful event for our family both here and in Bryan and we hope that wherever you are your celebrations during this time of year are as rewarding and fun.

Have Gunns Will Travel
is Back!!

 

After three months being off line we have finally re-established the www.havegunnswilltravel.com website. We appreciate all of you who were resourceful and found us at www.bruceandjoanne.blogspot.com and continue to follow our life and travels.

 

 

It was a fun and educational experience for the blogger as I researched and battled registrars, domain name servers, hosting services, etc. The bottom line was that the original host service, 1&1.com, refused to release the name and yet kept it off the web. Finally were able, with the new host, JustHost.com, to regain control of the domain name and move it to their server.

 

 

The adventures of the Flying Scotsman and its three inhabitants can now continue!

Driving Around Texas

 

We will be moving out of our apartment in Dallas toward the end of January but are taking advantage of the extra living space to get the Flying Scotsman back up for another multi-national run this spring. As a consequence while the bus is at Camping World in Fort Worth for a month or so we are using the nice weather to hit some spots around us in the car.

 

The first was to the little town of Granbury which is a short distance southwest of Fort Worth. We had been there many years ago and were impressed with the quaint town square and so went over to see what the housing market might be like there for future reference.

 

 

The iconic county court house and square were all decked out for the holidays and the square was as filled with neat antique shops and restaurants as we had remembered. Because it was Sunday morning a brunch venue of some sort was required and facing the square was the neat little place called Christine's.

With about five or six tables in the back of a fun shop we ordered their champagne brunch ... up there at the very top of the culinary list! This was a Mediterranean omelet with fruit cup and grits. Everything was bright, fresh, and even the grits for us non grit lovers were good. The total was less than $30 including as many mimosas as you would like.

Keeping with the festive season here is the toast of the day from the Italian Grotto, Alla Salute! Cin Cin!

On another day as we were in College Station we always go walking in the Veterans Memorial Park. The walkway is a time capsule of all the nation's conflicts and they have just dedicated a new Vietnam piece of art.

The bronze bas-relief is really well done and the old helicopter pilot almost blends into the artwork!

Let it Snow!

 

Here are the cabins that we have hosted our kids and others at the Barrie, Ontario, KOA. While we are there they sure don't look like this.

This beautiful picture was taken a couple of weeks ago by the KOA staff but as I write this there is a pretty intense blizzard ongoing and a few more feet of the white stuff will be on the ground. Thankfully this particular park doesn't host winter guests ... although the scenery would be awesome and there are ski resorts just down the road.

Be there in the spring, eh!

Birthday Boy!

 

On November 3rd, our orange-topped grandson Ev turned an awesome 4 years old.

 

And here is the star of the party eagerly awaiting the word so that he could blow out the candles.



 

And a close-up of the cake before it was destroyed. The theme was centered around the popular Jake the Pirate character, hence a lot of gold doubloons and other pirate related stuff.

With a mouth full of crackers he really was getting into the pirate adventure ... ship and all.

Here's Brooks mom Judith and Leigh supervising the present opening after the guests had left.

And then the real supervision is from Brooks' dad as son is trying to figure out how to assemble the new air hockey set.

The little hockey set did finally get assembled and proved a lot of fun for everyone, especially Ev. Another great year for the grandson and for the parents and grandparents of a rapidly growing youngster.

State Fair

 

Ok we couldn't resist a fair and the State Fair of Texas is it for Dallas.

 

As we hadn't been to a state fair for a while it was a bit of a surprise. Hey, the fairgrounds are normally dirt, right, and there are a lot of animals and all the things that they eat and then get rid of, there were sideshows of all kinds of weird misfits of humanity .... sorry, that was somewhere else, apparently a bit of time ago.

The venue here is on the east side of Dallas. The midway is a huge area of concrete and permanent structures slick and clean with many places to eat anything fried and many places to spend money on games of "not much chance" and plenty of rides for all ages.

We did have a great time for several hours on a beautiful day with the grandson. Here's g'ma in her glory showing both son-in-law and grandson her normal driving expertise on the streets of Dallas. In spite of my missing the nastiness of fairs gone past this was a wonderful place for the young folks and Ev had a super, but tiring time.

And the new Big Tex (after he burned down last year) booms out a continuing dialog on the place and the events to come.

We had a great day at the fair and ate way too much fried stuff .... but way good ... I mean they even have deep fried butter.

We took the light rail system from near Leigh's house and it stopped right at the fairgrounds so after a super fun day for all the ride home was really smooth as well ... no parking or freeway hassle.

Aged To Perfection

 

This time of year is always the celebration of the elders and this year isn't any different.

 

 

Here's the mob again at Cenare's in College Station. The mob has thinned a bit from previous years but for the fortunate few it was great. The hosts and chefs at Cenare are used to the annual migration of the Gunn clan to fete the old professor and every year is more special than the last as this was NUMBER 98! 

The owner then brought a piece of tiramisu with the numbers 98 on it ... yeah, many ensuing jokes about the damage that 98 candles would do to the restaurant!

A glass of wine and a good piece of Italian inspired tilapia set the tone for some more old (almost a century) stories and thoughts of his long and productive career.

It was a super night but still wish Mom could have been there. She's doing well but not up the process of going out into the restaurant melee of College Station with around 60,000 Aggies also looking for dinner.

Speaking of Texas A & M and the Aggies it is always a challenge for anyone to come in there and try to book something especially on a home game weekend. Both our favorite parks were booked from earlier this year, so we chanced a new one which just opened in July.

This was Karsten's RV Resort and they had just one spot left. As you can see above the terrain is typical Texas cow pasture and grass. This is a new resort and we got their normal weekly price of $160; the cheapest hotel in town was a Ramada for $160 single for one night.

While the pads were concrete and long they were very narrow and getting around the bus in a Texas frog-choker would be pretty muddy. The sites were very close together to maximise dollar return, but the oddest thing about them was the preferred parking spaces.

If you look above, that generally is our porch side where we would put out our awning and chairs. our car would be parked to the right of where it currently is .... basically it is our lawn over to the power post. Nah. The concrete guest pad for the neighbor sits in our lawn ... weird.

Hey ... any safe port in the storm, eh ... and it was cheap. Speaking of cheap we filled up when we left with a tank of fuel for $3.32 a gallon ... gotta keep on driving!

Freightliner Heaven

 

OK we had the loud noise coming from the engine after we left the last stop in Terrell. Combined with the fact that we needed a 40,000 mile service (wow) on the Flying Scotsman we headed to the Freightliner repair shop in Dallas.

 

Yes, bad picture below, but this is the most impressive place. Very reminiscent of aircraft maintenance life. There is over 200 acres of concrete ramp and more than 75 stalls for machines. There's even a garage (hanger) with functioning engine/chassis for the trainees.

 

They put a stethoscope to the engine (access through the bedroom floor) and found that the alternator had fried itself. That with the normal service including a bad seal in a front wheel came to over $2300.

 

 

At the facility they have 50 amp hookups so that if you need to stay with your RV home for the repair you can. And the security and professional help is beyond awesome.

Once the repair work was done we needed to clean off the 2000 miles of road grime before parking in the storage area, hence the truck wash.

This is a first time in a mega sized car wash. For your $75 there are 5 guys that pressure wash and brush your vehicle to perfection .... really neat.

And come out the other end and get hand dried and wheels polished as well.

After this super clean up job we were able to get the bus over to her new storage place on Arapaho Road in Addison where it will sit for a time until we get more repair done.

 

Back in the Lone Star State

 

 

After New Orleans on the 10th we decided to take the road less traveled again and headed northwest to Baton Rouge and then down a scenic byway called LA 1 toward Marksville. This was indeed scenic and you get to see rural Louisiana at its finest. This is a huge sugar cane and cotton area and you really get into the Spanish moss and live oak plantation atmosphere along this route.

  

We stuck a pin in the map and arrived at the Paragon Casino and RV Resort in Marksville. Well not much of either here. The park is about 20 years old and while there are a lot of spaces there's basically no reason to be here. We had a decent back-in but most of the sites are either permanent or frequent visitors as I think the majority of the folks here came from within a 50 mile radius of this small casino to spend the weekend or a couple of days.

 

After a quiet night we launched off toward Alexandria and then Shreveport where we caught I-20 to the west toward Dallas. When we started up we noticed a really loud metal grinding noise from the engine room in the Flying Scotsman and stopped a couple of times to try to see what might be causing it.

 

Having a pretty good expressway day we logged about 300 miles, longest so far on this trip, and came to rest at he Bluebonnet Ridge RV park near Terrell Texas. Again a new park for us but very nice and really near I-20 for an enroute stop. It's about 40 miles east of Dallas so we haven't stayed in the past; but were tired. Really nice place with long pull-throughs and super hosts.

 

So on the 12th we arrived after the latest 2100 mile run in the charming place called Sandy Lake park in Carrollton to clean out the bus and move stuff to the apartment. The Sandy Lake park management and personnel are wonderful and will do anything for you but they just have a really crummy park design and infrastructure. Hot and humid.
 

 

So we are here in the Big D and will try to move some stuff back into the burglarized apartment and see what adventure lies ahead for the Flying Scotsman and her crew. As soon as that was accomplished we took the bus some 30 miles south of Dallas to the Freightliner repair place to get the fried alternator replaced where it is still sitting today the 22nd.

Ok what stays in the bus and what do we need at the apartment?

You're Big and We're Easy

New Orleans Part Two

 

 

Actually the saying above is on the t-shirts of the workers at the RV park relating to all the large RVs they can accommodate there.

 

As we were hot and thirsty on our walkabout we went into a place called Muriel's on the northeast corner of Jackson Square. This turned out to be a really neat place for both food and drink.

 

After checking in by the front door and saying we'd want to eat, we were directed to the bar in the back. Our kind of place. Here is the toast of the day with a pumpkin martini for Jo and a splash of Scotch for me.

 

When our table was ready we ordered and received some really great local tastes. Jo is looking at a bowl of grilled pork loin with red beans and rice. And I have their signature stuffed mirliton with shrimp and Andouille sausage in a creole tomato sauce. This ranks as one of our best meals ever for quality, service and atmosphere; and with two wines came to about $60.

Here's another shot of the entry way showing the detail and décor ... beautiful, quiet respite.

And then walking off the lunch some typical porch decoration.

 

 

Then on the walk back to the RV park the blogger needed a bottle of Scotch so we popped into this grocery store ... I think there was a sign to that effect somewhere. Actually a nicely stocked corner store for the locals far from the tourist stuff ... oh yeah, they had a bottle of Dewar's.

The Big Easy

 

 

We arrived on the 8th in New Orleans at the French Quarter RV Resort. As you can see from the pic below this park is new and perfectly located a couple of blocks north of the French Quarter proper. Beautiful park with super maintenance and security ... too good to be true. Just to my back is I-10 so the access is great for both entry and exit.

 

 

Of course our first stop the next morning was to Café du Monde to build up our fortitude for touring.

With a serving of three beignets and two coffees for less than eight bucks ... we were off and hiking.

Down the famous Bourbon Street and many others during the day.

And taking in the beautiful church at the north end of Jackson Square on a really nice, but hot and humid Louisiana morning. Some things have changed here but in the Quarter very little.

And of course I couldn't resist an alligator or so ... especially if we didn't have to eat it for dinner.

Speaking of lunch or dinner I have more on our visit to the Big Easy which is one of our favorite cities in the county if not the world.

Sweet Home Alabama

or so they say

 

After a good night in eastern Tennessee we continued the trek to the southwest. Somewhere near Chattanooga on I-75 we hit a blinding storm front. This was one of the worst in our many travels, with lightening hitting three times near us with the simultaneous explosive crack ... yeow!

 

After that though things cleared out and we came to rest in Gadsden Alabama, home of the Noccalula Falls park. While we don't do the city parks often this one was well reviewed so we thought we would try and it was into another 200+ mile day ... go for it.

The park is right near I-59 and had a really easy access. This is a huge piece of real estate just to the northeast of Gadsden itself. There are water parks, zoos, camping, hiking, and the falls themselves.

The RV park had 5 pull thrus for about $25 a night. This was a 60 foot concrete pad in the trees but with a lot of room for getting in and out. The infrastructure is very old but they continue to make the needed improvements ... not a bad place ... and wish we had more time to explore the entire complex. Oh yeah, you can hear the lions roar nearby when they are fed ... comforting on the nightly walk.

I don't have space here but if interested you should look up the legend of Noccalula and learn why this bronze statue is posed as she is at the top of the falls; neat.

The next morning off to Meridian Mississippi and the Bonita Lakes park. No lakes but a nice quiet enroute park with wide concrete pads and easy hookups for $23.

Next stop New Orleans!!

Beautiful Roads

 

After we left Flatwoods on Sunday the 4th we headed south on highway 19 which is a really great piece of highway. The road is four lane and very new and passes over the New River Gorge Bridge ... spectacular! This is where adventurous folks parachute from to the river 900 feet below.

 

After the gorge and two neat tunnels we hit I-81 and headed east in Tennessee.

And landed in Blountville Tennessee at the Rocky Top Campground. The general store and "country" office were right out of Green Acres and the hosts were extremely helpful and friendly and escorted us to our site.

And the site was a very level 60 footer complete with table and grill. While this is a mostly permanent park the five pull-thrus are great if you need a place to spend the night.