Abita Springs LA to Livingston TX

Abita Springs was a nice place to spend a week. We made lots of visits to the local brew pub and brewery for lunches and dinner. Of course Louisiana has the best food anywhere, so we ate out several times.

Plenty of choices at the Abita Brewery

One really good find was a small grocery store on River Road in Destrahan where we stopped for a sandwich on the way to tour a plantation house. We had expected a sandwich wrapped in plastic from a refrigerator. What we found was a kitchen serving fresh Poboy sandwiches to order. We ordered a combination seafood 12” which we intended to split between us. We bought a bag of chips each to go with it.

Once featured on "American Pickers" the Abita Mystery House is a must see.

Very curious but fun place, the best museum that we've experienced for $3!

When we got it I could barely lift it! No sub roll here, it was a 12” long LOAF and so stuffed with shrimp and catfish that it spilled everywhere when we unwrapped it. We didn't have room for chips after we finished. Or dinner that night either!

National Museum of WW2

The World War 2 museum downtown in New Orleans was huge and took all day to see. The theme took you along the path of an actual person which you followed using “Dog Tags” to log onto displays scattered thru the exhibits. I was fascinated and I think Barbara was happy enough to go along too.

Plantation house in Destrehan LA

Reproduction slave quarters

We attempted to see some of the classic sights in New Orleans such as Mardi Gras World, Jackson Square, Bourbon Street etc., but parking was the usual expensive hassle and we decided that as we'd seen it all when we lived here 35 years ago we'd give it a miss.

Instead we crossed the Mississippi to the “West Bank” and searched for the house we lived in in Harvey. We thought it was HUGE back then, having recently arrived from UK. 

In our minds we had a huge lot too. In reality it was quite a nice rancher, showing it's age. The lot was really small we discovered. Smaller I think than the one in San Diego. It's funny how memories don't measure up to reality sometimes!

Our old house on Dulaney Drive in Harvey LA

A week was enough in the condo and “Hitch Itch” reared it's ugly head again. At the back of our minds the start of our trip West for the winter has been lurking. I made a “Multi Stop Trip” in the GPS. Barbara and I talked about some of the places we'd like to see along the way and roads we'd like to travel. Of course we don't like Interstates especially I10 which is the main East-West route across the South.

We've driven it several times going coast to coast and the rough surfaces and heavy truck traffic were not attracting us to do it again.

Fortunately Rt 190 went right from Abita Springs thru Louisiana into Texas to Livingston where the headquarters for our favorite RV Club the Escapees (SKP's) is located. That had to be fate!

Nice and quiet in the SKP Rainbows End RV Park

Of course it turned out that Rt 190 was pretty rough in places too, but there was almost no traffic and we happily cruised at 57mph and got nearly 8 mpg! (well it's better than the 5 to 6 we get going 65 on the Interstates). Wouldn't you like to get a 17% improvement in your fuel economy??

Texas opened it's arms to us. Gas in Livingston was $1.99 a gallon, the SKP's had room for us, there was a “Happy Hour” the first night, an ice cream social the next. We needed our propane tank filling and the local source even gave us a discount for being SKP's

We like being SKP's.

$1.99 a gallon? No problem in Livingston TX

After we posted on Facebook that we were in Texas our friends Karen and Paul contacted us to say they were north of Dallas doing their work camping for the summer in a park near Sanger. It took all of 5 seconds to change our route to include a few days visiting them. Especially when they mentioned that the nearby town of Muenster TX was having Octoberfest while we would be there!