Our day in Memphis

Wow, we have just had a very long but lovely day in Memphis, saw just about everything we thought we could, so that was a bonus.

First stop Graceland, quite quiet today.

This is formal living room.



And the games room.

A nice portrait of the king.



And of course his gravesite.

The famous pink Cadillac.

Ron and Elvis



Ron and BB King at the Tennessee Welcome Center.

Elvis Presley

The Memphis sign.

View of the bridge and convention center from Lee Park.

Sun Records Studio, where Elvis cut his first record.

BB King restaurant where we had our dinner, Ron had the soul sampler, ribs, louisiana hot wings, catfish and deep fried pickles.

Beale Street

One of the most interesting door stops I have ever seen.

An intersting store front on Beale Street.

Some local musicians playing the blues.

Just about back to the campground and the sunset was gorgeous, lasted all of 30 seconds, it went down so fast.

Day with Jerry and Mila

Our last day in New Orleans was a wonderful one. Ron's cousin Gerald Fiset and his wife Mila live very close to New Orleans and we were able to get in a visit.

Jerry and Mila treated us like royalty, they tooks us out for a tour, first over the big bridge or

causeway shown below to Mandeville on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Jerry says it is one of the longest bridges in the world, 24 miles across.

Here is Jerry, Mila and Ron on the bridge.

Mandeville was very quaint with old on one side of the water and new and rich on the other.

This is a cafe offering up boiled crawfish.

And here are some of the house just across the little piece of water.

Here is still some evidence of Katrina

Now back to Jerry and Milas where she has prepared a feast.

We started off with crab and crawfish, washed down with beer. She also had chicken, pork, rice, shrimp, salad, a couple of Phillipine recipes that I can not pronounce or spell and then we finished with coffee and sweet rice. Needless to say we could not eat it all but let me tell you what a treat. Thank you Jerry and Mila.

After dinner a few more drinks and courage gained and we got into some Kareoke, it was so much fun, we laughed and laughed. We forgot about the time and did not leave until after midnight to go back into New Orleans to get to the coach.

So whether we liked it or not we had to be up early to make our move up to Memphis. In Louisiana you drive for miles and miles on these elevated roads over the swamps, so amazing.

It did not take long heading north to leave all the wonderful green trees and flowers to find the dead winter foliage. We did find some bright purple blossoms on the side of the road. The weather was very nice just into the 80's.

We reached our campground just south of Memphis late afternoon and decided the coach had to have a bath so it was 7pm before we got supper and very early to bed.

Swamp Tour

Poor Tanya, after getting home late last night from the St Patricks day parade, she had to pack, shower and get ready for departure this morning before 8:30am to do our swamp tour.

Here is a picture of our boat, our captain was Captain Coyote, quite a clown and very good story teller.


Cute little sign before you got on the boat.

And here we go off into the Bayou

First little gator resting on a tree stump.

Stayed long enough to get a good picture of him.


This little fellow was waiting for the marshmallows thrown to him from the boat, he was so cute having his snack.

And then here is Captain Coyote feeling the bigger gators. Crazy. He feeds them chicken.

He had 7 stiches in one hand from not being quite quick enough one day.

The Bayou was very quiet, just the sounds of the birds and water creatures.

Sitting looking down at us was this beautiful osprey.

There were lots of different birds.

And we saw lots of little turtles but Captain Coyote wanted to show us this fellow that grows up to be quite big. He was an ugly little fellow and was quite upset about being on display.

And there was Elvis the alligator, he is about a year and a half old and they are going to release him into the bayou today. He was very interesting feeling, sort of like a really nice handbag.

And of course the old cabin in the bayou, we could not have done without that.

Great tour, would not have missed it for the world. After this we had to get Tanya to the airport and she is on her way to Phoenix now to join up with her fellows, just loved having her here.

St Patricks day in New Orleans

St. Patricks day in New Orleans, was overwhelming, I can not imagine what Mardi Gras must be like.

We headed for the city early as we had an early tour, which meant we had to take the truck in again, which was not a problem until after the parade, getting home, wow.

My favorite dish in New Orleans has to be the gumbo, and here is a restaurant sign with the name, although tonight I had Creole Jambalya Pasta which was crammed full of the most delicious shrimp and alligator sausage, it was awesome.

Anyway enough about food going to have to get back on the dreaded scale sometime soon.

We started our day with a cemetry/voodoo tour.

The cemetry we visited was one of New Orleans first and had many important people resting here. Some of the tombs are very big and hold lots of people.

Most of the time you could not get into the cemetry after you die but money talks, here is a tomb recently purchased by Nicolas Cage.

This is the tomb of the infamous voodoo queen Marie Laveau.

After a couple of hours in the cemetry and the guide telling us all about voodoo practices he dropped us off at a voodoo temple and disappeared. Well it was an experience, kinda eerrie but we got out unscathed.

The actual temple is just so full of stuff, here are some of the candles they burn for rituals.




I was very glad to leave the premises.

After the tour we had a wonderful lunch of gumbo and shrimp po boys.

Then we took a ride on the Creole Queen down river to the sight of the Battle of New Orleans.

Today was over 80 so the ride on the river was wonderful.

This is the Beauregard House which was built on the battlefield 18 years later.


This is the monument built on the Chalmette Battlefield, you will remember the song about the soldiers running through the brambles down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, this is the battle.

Here is another paddlewheeler heading upriver, the Natchez is a popular tour but does not go to the battlefield.

Along the way we pass Dominion Sugar if you look close you can see the big bucket unloading the sugar.

Here is a picture of our paddlewheeler after we are docked back in New Orleans

So some last minute shopping for Tanya, another, but unfortunatly our last New Orleans dinner and we head for Decateur Street for the Saint Patrick day parade, but Elaine finds friends along the way. Everyone is getting a little tipsy about now and it is only 6pm.

The parade is to start at 6:30pm so we stop to wait, they forgot to tell us the parade stops at all the Irish Bars for a refill so here we are at 8:30, still no parade but the crowds are growing.

Oh, here comes the parade now, many, many drunken Irishmen wanting kisses for their beads and gifts, one funny evening, what a great time.

So tomorrow we do a swamp tour and get Tanya to the airport, we are going to miss her very much.