Abbeville and Eunice - Aug 8-12

When invited to South Louisiana for shrimping and crabbing, you simply say when, where and what time. Such was the case when Vicki and Gene invited us to Palmetto Island State Park with them. 

Bleu - "Dad, are we there yet?"

The state park, beautifully set on the Vermillion River, has a jungle feel.  

We headed to the Rockefeller Refuge area and commenced to catching crab. 

And saw other critters as well...

We then headed to Shucks in Abbeville for dinner. The next morning we returned to Rockefeller and loaded up with crab and shrimp. 

Which then turned into dinner...

We bid adieu to Vicki and Gene on Sunday and drove to Eunice for a couple days of imbibing and card playing with Lance and Kelly. We even fit in a scooter ride. 

Goodbyes weren't too sad as we'll be back in just a couple weeks. All in all a do-over all around. 

Destin - Arthur Wedding and Alabama Family - August 18 - 24, 2014

What do you do when you receive a wedding invitation to a beach wedding in Florida?  Make plans to attend of course!  And then turn the event into a road trip to visit everyone you can in Alabama and the Florida panhandle.

Our first destination was Destin.  The wedding party stayed at the Emerald Grande - luxury condos with a fabulous view.

While the weather was iffy for a while, when it came wedding time the clouds parted and the sun shone.  Serendipity!  A beautiful moment in time for a beautiful couple.

And then we enjoyed the beach until sunset...

We left Destin and headed for Ashford, Alabama where we stayed with David's cousin Linda and her husband Jimmy.  Her daughter Misty, husband Mike and kids Hayden and Chloe came in on their way to the beach so our timing was perfect and we were able to do lots of visiting including with David's Aunt Nadine in Dothan.

We then drove to Aunt Ruth's house in Georgetown, Georgia where we always feel welcome and relaxed.  She fixed a grand dinner for David's birthday - steak and shrimp - and we enjoyed kicking back for a couple of days.

Our next stop was Prattville, Alabama where we visited with my family.  My mammaw's 90th birthday was coming up the following week so this was a special visit.  

Road trips that only take a week now seem so short whereas they used to seem long.  But it was great to see so many family and friends in so many different places in a short period of time.

Lake Claiborne - July 2-8, 2014

Many of the LiARS gathered at Lake Claiborne for our Independence Day celebration. 

 Everyone is ready for the boat parade!

Table for 16 at Port Au Prince

Money won and money lost!

Guys can't resist the manis!

The calm after the tubing...

Fantastic sunsets!

Girls

Guys

Lisa's idea - great staging!

And more tubing - this time a little slower with the more delicate folks. 

We continue to be blessed with fantastic friends who love to play as much as we do. We're already planning this event for next year. 

Carrying on - Bodcau

This blog worked so well as a journal during our road trip I've decided to continue it for our future travel and camping adventures as well. 

Last week a friend Vicki and her sigot Gene (significant other - I just made that up!) bought a camper. As they are first time RVers we decided to join them and hopefully help them bypass some of that trial and error stress. Others - Roxy and Stacey and Chris and Teresa and kids - joined in as well. 

Bodcau Bayou is a local COE campground with a well-kept park and great fishing and kayaking opportunities. We took advantage of all of the above. When not in the water, we were playing games. All agreed it was a do-over event. What a great weekend with great friends!

What did it cost?

I finally got up the nerve to look at our expenses for the 10-week trip.  I had budgeted around $6,000 for camping, fuel and food.

Fuel - $3,550
Food - $1,750
Campsites - $400
Misc Fees, supplies, etc - $1200

I expect that food costs is similar to what we would have spent at home eating out and going to the grocery store so I'm deducting that.

Ten weeks of fuel at home would be about $1,000 so I'll back out that.

Campsite costs at home might be $200 because you know that we would've went somewhere during that time so I'll back out that.

Miscellaneous trips to the liquor store and Home Depot would probably have been half so I'll back out $600.

We had taken $2,000 in cash and brought back $800 so I'll need to add $1,200 to our expense list.

Total calculated trip costs....

$4,550 - mostly fuel and campsite fees.  Under budget but still a crap load of money.  But considering we went a total of  8,500 miles and had 68 days of fun, it was a grand deal indeed!

#26 - Home

After leaving Amarillo, we drive to my dad's house in Boyd, TX - conveniently halfway between Amarillo and home - and spent the afternoon with him, his wife Barbara and grand kids Orion and Adrianna.

After several hours of chat and a fine roast dinner, we proceeded east towards I-20 with a goal of getting past Dallas during a non-rush hour period. Once we got through town unimpeded, David had his road head on and we set our sights on Benton.  We arrived home at 2:00am.

In summary, the time we were gone - two days short of ten weeks - was the right amount of time for our journey.  We joked at the onset that we'd probably annoy each other being in one another's hip pocket for that long, but we truly enjoy and appreciate each others company.  All disagreements were either intentional ribbing or insignificant.  We didn't see everything that we wanted and definitely made notes as to where we need to go next time and those places that were do-overs.  There were many!

We so enjoyed the friends, family and strangers that we encountered along the way.  We are so blessed and fortunate to have had this opportunity.  And as expected, we're already planning the next journey!

Photos taken - over 1600
Miles on truck - 6331
Miles on Harley - 1800
Miles on Honda ATV - 250

Memories - Priceless.

#25 - Amarillo

We stopped over in Amarillo to visit with Chris and Shawn to borrow their front curb for a night. Had a nice dinner and chat. So excited about their upcoming nuptials in Destin. They are a great couple!  

We now continue east getting closer and closer to home. Still seems unreal that almost ten weeks have passed already.