Monthly Archives: November 2009
Gumbo…Gumbo…Gumbo…
Today was the first day of our two day trip back to Houston. We left the Gulf State Park at Gulf Shores about 8:00 am, but we didn’t get far. Only to the Cracker Barrel in Foley where we decided to stop for breakfast..
Finally, about 9 we hit the road…again. Being pretty much all Interstate, we had a smooth trip, all 300 miles of it. About 2:45pm we pulled into the parking lot of Mulate’s here in Breaux Bridge, LA, (pronounced ‘mu lots’) pretty much our favorite Cajun place. There’s a place in Houston that runs a close second, but this one is the best.
I have been eating the gumbo here for almost 15 years. From 1994 until 2006 I made the round trip from Houston to Birmingham every month to visit my mother. And I always stopped at Mulate’s both going and coming. It go so that I would just walk in and sit down and they would bring me my order…large seafood gumbo, extra rice, and Ice tea, and then bread pudding and coffee for dessert.
Actually, I’m starting to salivate just typing this. And I just ate there 5 hours ago. It’s that good! It was nice to walk in, have Tracey run over and give us a big hug, and then bring us our order. Just like old times.
Right now we’re parked right down the street in the Walmart parking lot for the night. Tomorrow we’ll make the 250 mile run to the Galveston Bay RV Park on Dickinson Bayou, where we’ll be parked for the next couple of months or so.
More tomorrow…
Last Day in Paradise…
Today is our last full day in Gulf Shore for a while. It will probably be this time next year before we’re back.
Today started just like yesterday with a call from Nick Russell. We talked about a problem he’d been having with the taillights on his van. Seems they suddenly fixed themselves, after the problems he’d had last week.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I always say.
About 11 or so we headed out to have lunch at one of our favorite places here, Lulu’s. Lulu is Lucy Buffet, whose brother Jimmy is a little more well known.
Her place is right on the Intercoastal Waterway with a great view of passing boats and tugs.
And the food is great too!
Jan had the Jerked Chicken Salad Sandwich and I had the Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas. And we always save room for dessert.
And the dessert is great! Jan and I split the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding, made, of course, with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts as the bread. MMMMM! MMMMM! GOOOD!
After lunch, coming back toward the beach, we stopped off at Luxury RV Park to drop off a bundle Gypsy Journals.
Before going back to the rig, we decided to drive down West Beach to see what was new.
The first thing we saw was this sign.
What’s up with this? Now we’re worrying about mouse habitat? Don’t they sell traps for that?
Nearby we got these great pelican shots. They were all sitting on large pipe, paralleling a bridge, just feet from the road and the inlet bank.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, Jan is crazy about pelicans…and moose…and flamingos…and octopus…octopuses…octopi…whatever.
Heading back toward the rig, we stopped off to walk down to the beach.
A lot of nice waves due to the storm last night.
Getting back to the rig, I got the satellite dish set back. Hopefully no more high winds tonight.
Next I wanted to check the water level in the coach batteries. I tried to check them at least once a month, and the last time I’d done it was about a month ago while we were in Elkhart, IN.
Upon opening the compartment door I immediately noticed a problem with a battery cable.
The lead connected the two 12 volt banks was broken off. At first I thought it had burnt thru. But on looking closer I was able to tell that it was probably broken off by age and vibration. Something similar happened back in June with a control wire on my starter solenoid.
Due to the remaining length of wire I could see I would probably need to replace the entire wire. And this would be difficult on a Sunday afternoon. And we would need the batteries tomorrow night when we Wally Dock in Breaux Bridge, LA on our way back to Houston.
Thinking about it for a minute, I decided to do this.
I used one of my jumper cable sets to temporarily make the connection until we get back to Houston and I can make up a new cable. I think it should hold OK.
About 5:30 we drove back down the beach to DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen. They always have great food, but we especially like one of their sides, Sweet Potato Casserole with Caramelized Pecans. You almost want to just order a whole plate of it.
Tomorrow we will start back toward Houston, stopping in Breaux Bridge, LA about 300 miles from here, so we’ll get an early start, probably about 8am.
More later…
