Tallahassee, Florida!

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Charlene tree moss

Charlene loved her mustache with the moss growing on the trees!

The dolphin statue was very impressive!

Today we had a wonderful time visiting Tallahassee. We started by first driving to the Florida State University campus. This is a famous campus because the Florida State Seminoles won the football national championship in 2013. We finally saw the famous Seminole statue outside their football stadium. It is quite impressive!

We have seen this impressive statue so often on TV, it was nice to finally see it in person!

Go Noles

We next visited the old and new Florida state capital buildings. The old capital had a very impressive stained glass design inside their capital dome. Between buildings, we came across a Florida State band playing their fight song. It was fun to watch them play.

This is stained glass inside the old Florida state capital building. It is very beautiful!

FSU drummer

We next visited the Florida state history museum. We did not know what to expect, but Charlene and I both thought it was extremely impressive! We highly recommend it! It was interesting to learn about Florida’s history. There were so many impressive aspects including the various Native American tribes, role of Florida in the civil war, growth of military bases, expansion of the citrus industry, population growth, tourism industry, and car racing industry. I never knew that the Spanish brought the first oranges to Florida and started their whole citrus industry.

This saw was used during the Civil War to make limb amputations.

For lunch we went to a restaurant near the state capital. I ordered a Marco “Cubio” Cuban sandwich and Charlene ordered a Jeb Burger. These were named for the Florida state senator (and current presidential candidate) Marco Rubio and former governor Jeb Bush. Both items were fantastic!

Florida seal

Enjoying Alabama!

February 19, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

spacious sites.jpg

We are really roughing it at our RV park. It is the most beautiful RV park we have stayed in. There is a huge amount of space between sites. There is a small lake that is quite picturesque. The swimming pool and spa are spectacular. It will be sad to leave.

We are really “roughing it” in our RV park!

Since we have had seafood several times recently, we decided to try barbeque for dinner tonight. We found an Alabama chain restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. I had pulled pork and Charlene had ribs. We also had corn bread, grilled corn, and beans. It was wonderful!

Moes peanuts

Sweet Home Alabama!

February 18, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

This shirt summarizes our fun time driving around the Alabama coast. The white sands are beautiful!

We are definitely in the Deep, Deep South! It is beautiful to see the white sand beaches around Mobile, Alabama. The beaches are very beautiful here. We drove up and down the beach, just enjoying the sites.

This was a wonderful restaurant in Foely, Alabama that had fantastic “southern” food. We loved it!

We looked for a local “southern” restaurant for our first meal in Alabama. We found a special gem. We ate fried okra, sweet potatoes, fried potatoes, macaroni and tomatoes, potato salad, fresh rolls, black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak, and chicken and dumplings. I am not sure it would be possible to find a more “southern” restaurant anywhere in the south. It was wonderful food, but we could not finish it all. We needed two boxes for all the extra food. It was a fantastic restaurant to celebrate being in Alabama!

Fried Pickles, Boiled Crawfish, and Grilled Shrimp!

February 17, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Charlene and I are trying our hands at boiled crawfish! It is quite a bit of work for a bite to eat.

We must be in the South! For dinner tonight we had fried pickles, boiled crawfish, and grilled shrimp! We have never order boiled crawfish before. Our servers had to give us a lesson on how to break the crawfish open to eat them. Honestly, boiled crawfish are a fair amount of work to get to eat one bite. They seem to be a good food for eating slowly! The people of Biloxi take their crawfish seriously! It is a very popular menu item and right now they are in season.

Children sign

The fried pickles were surprisingly good. A bit too salty, but I always enjoy eating pickles. It is fun to enjoy a local independent restaurant and eat the popular foods in the area!

local restaurant

It is also fun to go into local grocery stores. The unique foods so popular in nearby New Orleans are quite popular here in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Ole Miss is the popular state university, although both LSU and Alabama are quite close too.

Local foods 3

Biloxi, Mississippi!

February 16, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Our beautiful RV park was right next to a river. It was very picturesque and peaceful!

Today we made the two hour drive to Biloxi, Mississippi. It was a nice smooth ride through forests and open fields from Louisiana and into Mississippi. We had no problem finding our RV park and were pleased to discover we had a roomy back-in site.

Biloxi 2

The back of our RV park is right along a river. After we got the motorhome setup, we went driving around the community, cruised along the white sand beach, and found a restaurant for lunch. Charlene picked out a Mexican restaurant to try. The flavors were nice and I enjoyed a taco, small burrito, and tostada.

As we drove along the beach, you could tell that Hurricane Katrina destroyed many buildings along the beach. There were quite a few open lots. Some lots were for sale. Others lots had new buildings being erected. Tomorrow we would like to spend some time on the beach.

Baton Rouge Louisiana!

February 14, 2016February 14, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

This massive gator was looking to eat me for dinner!

Louisiana is on my mind! Today we drove from Houston, Texas to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was fun to drive over the Mississippi River and various bayous. Several of the bridges were quite high and also there were long bridges over swamp areas. Since it was February, many of the trees did not have too many leaves. However, it was interesting to see moss hanging down from many trees.

LSU hats are everywhere. Les Miles (the LSU football coach) loves to wear new hats for each game.

Louisiana State University is based here, so there are many purple and gold banners, shirts, and hats. Les Miles should be proud of so many people wearing LSU caps!

LSU

Baton Rouge is also the state capital of Louisiana so it is quite important politically. It is fun to see Cajun food everywhere too!

Houston Space Center!

February 13, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Space Shuttle Independence!

Today was absolutely AMAZING! We went to the Houston Space Center and went on a tour of Mission Control! We saw the actual location that directed so many space flights! It was smaller than expected, but awesome to see in real life!

This is the ACTUAL Mission Control Center that directed so many space missions! The current International Space Station is on the screen.

We touched a moon rock too! The moon rock was from the Apollo 17 mission. We saw all kinds of equipment from previous missions. It brought back so many memories of seeing the space flights on TV.

I am touching a moon rock brought back by Apollo 17!

An actual Mercury space capsule!

This is the Apollo 17 space capsule! In high school I was in Florida to watch it blast off into space!

It made me remember when I was a sophomore in high school and traveled to Florida with Miles Ulrich and his family to watch Apollo 17 (the last Apollo flight) blast off. I loved seeing so many things about the missions. I saw the ACTUAL Apollo 17 space capsule!

Charlene is inside the Space Shuttle Independence!

Charlene is in front of the Space Shuttle Independence mounted on the 747 plane.

We also learned about Orion, the planned upcoming manned space flight to Mars. That will be amazing to see in the future.

This is the cockpit of the Space Shuttle Independence.

Houston!

February 11, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Beautiful view from our motorhome!

Today we moved from Mission, Texas to Houston. We had a great trip until we got to the outskirts of Houston. The GPS sent us to a toll road that required an automatic tracker, which we did not have. Unfortunately, signs were posted that they did not accept cash either. Bummer for us. We had to weave through some local neighborhoods with low hanging trees to get around the toll road. Eventually, we made it to our destination and have a beautiful view of a small lake out of the front window. It is beautiful!

Catfish are certainly ugly!

I walked around the RV park and found a guy that just caught a 23 inch catfish! It is catch and release, so shortly after he caught the fish, he removed the hook and tossed it back into the lake. I was amazed how large the fish was. Catfish are sure ugly!

Alamo Draft House

After that, we headed to Alamo Draft House to watch “13 Hours:; The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” We enjoyed the movie and had fun eating dinner while watching a movie. It is certainly an intense movie!

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

February 9, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Rio Grande Valley State Park-2

We had a wonderful visit today to the nearby Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission, Texas. It was a beautiful sunny day and around 78 degrees. We first road the tram through the whole park, and then we walked through some of the sections with the most birds to watch.

It was fun to see all the different types of birds. I especially enjoyed watching the cardinals and the green jays. A special bonus was watching a raccoon watching hungrily for the birds to drop food!

Rio Grande Valley State Park-3

Family Softball!

February 6, 2016February 8, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

It was absolutely wonderful to see Kristin (Nikki) again. She and Charlene were grinning from ear to ear to be able to spend time together!

We had a wonderful time today visiting Charlene’s niece (Kristin) and her husband Doug and watch two of their daughters play softball. It was a beautiful day, about 70 degrees, and a great time to sit back, enjoy each other’s company, and watch two daughters play softball. Katelin and Kyndra both played very well!