March 2019 – Adventures of Roy and Laurie

March 24, 2019March 24, 2019

A Baseball Fan’s Bucket List Begins With Spring Training In Florida:

The bucket list actually started with an Arizona Fall League game last November on my birthday but….Spring training is getting close to the real thing. The Mets have their stadium in Port Saint Lucie and the National have theirs in West Palm Beach. The Nats were playing the Mets at their home and the Mets played the Marlins back in St. Lucie the day after.

I did not get to walk the line-up cards out to the umpires but I did find the official starting line-up cards!

The Mets’ current arch-rivals in the Eastern Division of the National League.

The Nats have a beautiful and brand spanking new complex here in West Palm Beach. There were many practice and minor league fields to explore. They do share the facility with the Houston Astros.

Watching the reining Cy Young award winner Jacob deGrom warm up in the Mets’ bullpen. So cool to be that close to greatness (from a baseball fans perspective of course)

Here is deGrom in action. His outing was not a stellar one but hey…..It’s only spring training.

First Data Field is the Mets’ spring home. Not brand new but very nice. The weather was spectacular also.

Second year manager Mickey Callaway has a pre-game interview with the press.

Gotta love watching a good round of batting practice!

The next Cy Young award winner???? Noah Syndergaard has the nickname “Thor” as folks think he looks like a Norse God.

The sound of the ball hitting the catcher’s glove still gives me the goose bumps.

Check out the crowd he draws simply to watch him warm up. Even all the players are excited.

Not a great picture but Tim Tebow was stationed in left field for most of the game. He also managed a single at the plate. He will probably end up in Syracuse with the Mets’ triple A affiliate but the next step could be…….

Sunny and 75 degrees with a Mets game to boot. Retirement is wonderful.

Laurie is proudly wearing the jersey given to us as a promotional give away. Nice!

March 22, 2019March 22, 2019

Parasailing!…Just When We Thought We Were In Our Comfort Zone

After a fantastic time in New Orleans with during Mardi Gras it was off to the Sunshine State of Florida. We had many plans in Florida but decided to kick it off with a parasail flight:

We had absolutely no idea what we were just about to get ourselves into!

We were not sure what to expect while flying during our parasail experience but it turned out to be quite the eye opening experience. They took their time with us as we were the only people on this flight. We eventually sailed to over 1000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico. We are not afraid of heights but when we were at 1000 feet sitting on a small strap being blown around in the wind??????

We look like two kids on a really cool swing-set eh?

We got “dunked” twice on our flight. Hope that was on purpose! Nice that the water is as warm as bath water.

Who is that masked man with the larger than life pair of scissors? Of course we did not see this until after the ride while reviewing the photos. There would have been no tip for this deck hand if he had gone through with it!

March 21, 2019March 21, 2019

Mardi Gras, Day 2….Rating Is G This Time!

For our second parade we went to the NYX Krewe parade at night. The atmosphere was completely different at night as you might expect. We are not sure but believe the name NYX comes from the beauty product company by the name. Maybe they sponsored the particular parade? This parade had a decorated woman’s purse as the main desirable catch. Nephew Stephen also knew someone from work on one of the floats so he got the desired purse.

They were actually handing out beer to folks!

Our hosts Stephen, Kiana and good friend Mike. Way too much fun.

Here are some of the pictures we took that evening. The floats had a much more festive aura to them at night as the generators attached to each float kept the electricity flowing to all the neon lights.

The costumes of some of the parade goers were pretty impressive!

Folks were climbing everything they could to get a better view of the parade. St. Charles Street is where most of the parades roll down.

Stephen even caught a nice pair of fashionable socks to wear home.

The Paris float wins best design in our books.

The amount of garbage generated at these parades is amazing. More amazing is that by morning there is not even a clue there was a party here!

I imagine we will return to the Big Easy for Mardi Gras in the future.

March 20, 2019March 20, 2019

Mardi Gras Day 1!!! Please Note Some Pictures Are For “Mature Audiences”.

Our entire lives we have been waiting to be at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Just to be part of the happening party scene here was awesome. Our nephew Stephen played host to us for 4 wonderful days of revelry. There are many different parades each day of the Mardi Gras season and each has its own theme. This parade had a sexual theme and was put on by the Krewe called Tucks:

Check out all the bling we gathered as the parade floats were traveling down St. Charles Street. Even the bags to hold the bling were thrown from floats. With us are our hosts Stephen and Kiana.

The dragon heads were very flexible and would reach into the audience from time to time and either thrill a spectator or scare them to death. More than one crying baby here.

Any football fan will remember the blown call by the ref during the NFC Championship game that cost the New Orleans Saints a trip to the Super Bowl this year.

We managed to catch one of the fake referee flags.

There were some really interesting participants in this parade to say the least.

Now that is my idea of how to be part of a parade!

A hippie float concerning LSD snuck its way into the parade somehow.

The horses in the Urban Cowboys segment of the show occasionally left their “calling card” right in the middle of the street………

This guy followed the horses to pick up any stray “calling cards”. We always wondered what the secret ingredient for gumbo was!!

Here is the lead float headed up by none other than Friar Tuck. Notice his plunger in hand. Each parade had valuable keepsakes that each float would throw out. Only one per float and this parade called for decorated plungers. Not sure why the idea of the plunger but some of them were incredibly intricate. Stephen got one thrown to him by someone he knows from work who was riding on a float.

The parade participants on the floats were dressed to the hilt. All on the Friar Tuck float seemed to be having a wonderful time.

Stephen found that a plunger fit nicely on my calf. It stayed on almost the entire parade and walk home.

There was some interesting stuff being thrown from the OB/GYN float.

Here is a drink coozy we got. People down here collect the different ones from different parades. Very cute indeed!

I had to take a picture of this half eaten sausage sandwich that someone placed in the fence post. We presume that person would finish it later?

After the parade we went to a fine local establishment know for their Po Boy sandwiches. We each had a surf and turf Po Boy. It had lots of roast beef and fried shrimp along with their awesome bread and sauces. Oh my!!!!!

The next morning Laurie and I walked downtown to find some famous King Cake as well as a few more local delicacies. A King Cake is only served during the Mardi Gras season and is out of this world.

We ordered one of each! A croque-nut is a breakfast sandwich served on a grilled donut, instead of bread. Very good indeed!

Had to take a picture of this sign in front of the restaurant we were in. As a sign of respect you were expected to enjoy the hospitality being offered.

Back to Stephen’s apartment to start the tradition of hanging Mardi Gras beads on the Juliet balcony. We accumulated so many of them we had to ditch some on the way home..,

So we added our bling to this tree. Stephen says the beads stay in the tree all year long!

A busy day as we then headed out to meet our friend Paul for a tour of the French Quarter. He lives on Bourbon Street and showed us a great time. He is the Justice of the Peace who married us almost 20 years ago in Hammondsport, NY. We had not seen him since so this was a very happy reunion. We saw some very interesting sights indeed.

A view from Paul’s balcony on Bourbon Street. During the day the crowds were not so bad but at night….
Check out the night life on Bourbon Street during the Mardi Gras season.

We did not see too much face paint but……

If we were not already stuffed to the max we might have actually tried a huge ass burger with its namesake beer.

At least twice a day we were treated to a float-less parade of farm tractors rolling by on their way to pull the floats for another parade. Very surreal.

The staging area for all the floats was right around the corner from Stephen’s apartment. Seeing all 40 or 50 floats just sitting there waiting for the next parade was amazing in itself.

As if a parade and a tour of the French Quarter was not enough, Stephen and Kiana took us out to a Jazz club downtown. It was our first experience taking an Uber rideshare. When ready to go, we hailed the Uber from our smart phone and waited no more than a few minutes for it to show up and drive us to the club. The driver did pull out in front of traffic once and almost got us all killed but…what happens in New Orleans, stays in New Orleans right?

This quartet played a lot of really cool jazz as well as some R&B all night long. We agreed it was the best live performance we have ever seen. The food and drinks there were also excellent and very reasonably priced.

We passed by an antique shop on our tour and found this tandem almost ready for us to ride.

March 17, 2019March 17, 2019

Southern Plantations….A Must See.

When passing through the deep south we figured on spending some time exploring the plantation life folks led from the 1700s to almost 2000. We stayed at the Poche (pronounced Poshay) Plantation 30 miles north of New Orleans for 4 nights. The camp host there was also the tour guide for a weekly tour of the place. We also journeyed to the other side of the Mississippi to visit Laura Plantation. As we are in the deep south these plantations are all sugar cane plantations. The cotton plantations are further north.

Our hosts at the Poche Plantation were very knowledgeable regarding the history of the place. We stayed in our Bullet and not in the house itself but, what if……

The Poche Plantation was built for by a very influential judge in town back in the late 1800s after the Civil War. Many folks figure, through research that the judge may well have been the founder of the ABA or American Bar Association. The gentleman who recently purchased the property has put a ton of effort into restoring it to its original form using extensive research and some photos.

LAURA PLANTATATION: Notice the yellow color. If a house was yellow it’s owner was Creole (French speaking) and if it was white the owner was English.

What a gorgeous Plantation House! Laura Plantation was recommended to us by our camp host as we had MANY to choose from. If this were 1870 we would be standing in the middle of the Mississippi! The house was built on the river and moved back a number of floods later.

There was not a lot on the Mississippi that was not used as a plantation back in the day. Some have been restored recently.

A picture of the family back in the day…..

The rear of the house is almost as impressive as the front.

Another one of the fantastic southern Live Oaks.

Although the doors look amazing they were not part of the original house. It had no doors, just shutters, as there was always a need for the breeze to blow through the house and out the back, where there were also no doors.

We fell in love with the porches on these huge houses. Folks must have had a relaxing time rocking in the cooler summer evenings.

In front of the two original out buildings you can see the footprint of the original kitchen. It was placed outside the house as it was very hot in the kitchen and no one needed that down in the hot an humid south.

Anyone up for a river paddle? Nice hand made canoes eh?

A picture of sugar cane in its rawest form. Cutting the cane was very difficult and dangerous work.
After harvesting the cane it was boiled down in these huge metal vats now used ornamentally

These plantation houses were made out of brick from the Mississippi River mud. Would sit well with today’s shop local/buy local movement.

These next two collages represent what we saw as furnishing in the main house versus the slave quarters:

**Look at the bottom left and find the convex mirror. this was used by women to check that their ankles were not showing. Bosoms were shown in their full glory but…..** ankles,no way!

Now the slave quarters. As the cabins were generally only 1 or 2 rooms there were not too many objects to take a picure of:

This slave cabin is still in original condition according to the tour guide. Yes, it is a duplex so it could house as many folks as possible. They seem in decent repair after all this time as they are made of cypress wood. This is a super durable wood. Descendants remained in these houses until the 1970s!

As the house was constructed from pre-cut timbers the pieces were labelled with Roman numerals as the slave labor used to put it together were illiterate.

Even after slavery was abolished most slaves had no way to make a living so they became share croppers. They were kept on the premises because their wages were paid with coupons that could only be redeemed at the plantation store. Most were never able to pay the debt with their crops so they essentially became indentured servants.

This was freaking weird to see literature such as this all over the museum portion of the tour.

After a full day of plantation touring we headed back toward the Bullet. We did stop for a quick bite to eat at Oak’s Alley Plantation:

You can see why this place is called Oak;s Alley.

Fried alligator!! Tastes a bit like a sweeter and rubberier fried chicken.

This hole in the lawn is the home of crawfish. We waited to see one but they never poked their heads out.

Sunset on the Mississippi. A view across the road from our campsite.

A bignet (pronounced been-Yay) is a fried dough. We topped them with lemon and raspberry jam. Oh my!

And after the sun went down…….Very good!

March 15, 2019March 15, 2019

Run Forest! The Galveston Pier For An Afternoon.

We were looking for something to do in Galveston, Texas after many fine days of touristing around. We found a pretty cool boardwalk (above and below) with a few courageous surfers trying to catch the wave of the day.

Although that looks like a lot of fun, at $20 apiece for an all day pass on the pier, we chose to admire the rides from afar.

The headline act on the pier for us was the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Although we did not eat there we enjoyed all the stuff in the gift shop as we both love the movie Forrest Gump.

We did spend a few minutes looking over the awesome souvenirs in the gift shop:

Stolen from Facebook and Pictures In History. We hope you get the relevance!

Did Laurie dare to get her feet wet in this February weather?

On our way back to our campspot we saw the first signs that we were in hurricane country

.Our beautiful home for 4 peaceful days, score an RV spot right on the water.

March 13, 2019March 13, 2019

The Ocean Horizon….A Retired Oil Rig Turned Museum…

We consider ourselves environmentally friendly when possible and certainly a proponent of renewable, green energy but we also like to know as much as possible about all aspects of energy production. Visiting museums like the Ocean Star allows us to see what the best foot forward is for the oil industry. Our nephew Stephen is employed as a chemical engineer for Phillips 66 in New Orleans and has a lot of good things to say about the industry, its focus on safety, and its own push for renewable energy.

This picture was captured from the International Space Station, Since this event , Serious changes have been made in the oil rigging business to avoid this type of calamity. With that said the associated risk are an inherit part of the business.

When the rig was retired it was towed here to Galviston, Texas to become the museum it is today.

This is the contraption used to hoist rig workers and their belongings up from the ocean to the deck. Could not imagine!

The escape pod was very rarely used but the stories we read regarding it said it was the absolute “best” place to be when it was necessary to use it,

We thought this was an amazing graphic! What goes on under a rig like this has a scale of a city like NY.

The column in the background is one of three that keep the rig grounded to the ocean floor. The entire rig can be lowered or raised using those holes depending on the wave heights.

A happy tourist looks on from outside the porthole.

This tower is what holds all the pipe and casing that keep the oil pumping.

Many of these sections were connected to reach the seafloor. The one on the right is the casing that keeps the pipe on the “straight and narrow”.

In this day of technowonders we found it interesting to see the manual levers used to drill for oil in the slightly older days.

Here are a few shots of some of the machinery on display:

A model of a ship that digs trenches and lays pipe on the sea floor.

We took some up close pictures of these pelicans on the walkway over to the museum.

March 10, 2019March 10, 2019

The LBJ Presidential Library In Austin, Texas

Without bringing our politics into the blog we have seen the Reagan Library and now the other side of the aisle, the Johnson Library. The building was a very nondescript building on the campus of the University Of Texas At Austin.

This presidential limo was a model or two behind the one we saw at Reagan Library but still very impressive.

Each pen signed a piece of legislation into law.

Pretty freaking impressive we say. Even if all programs are not still effect, what it took politically to push them through the always divided Congress is amazing.

Hard to believe this was the teletype used to keep us in touch with the Soviets. Hope there were no glitches!

Very honorable. We are not seeing this type of allegiance from our Congressmen/Congresswomen these days.

There were many momentos of days gone by in the 60s that brought back so many memories. Each exhibit was tied somehow to the Johnson presidency:

We used to listen to this show on NPR religiously. It kept a perpetual smile on our faces for the entire hour. That smile was so big at times it even hurt!

We remembered the Smothers Brothers comedy duo. Like many current comedians, they loved to roast the president. We also found it impressive that after Johnson left office, they apologized for the “mean” things they said about him in the letter above.

Maybe the biggest “item” of the day was the ongoing Vietnam War. I remember being uneasy to say the least that I could be drafted right out of high school to fight in a far away place like Vietnam.

There was a wall of cartoons from the day that summarize what the media of the day was thinking about LBJ:

“What would you like to do honey – Get out or escalate?”

What many remember LBJ for is the decision to ramp up the war in Vietnam.

“The way things are going, I don’t dare say Ah, Spring…It’d turn out to be controversial”

“Hot Dawg! I’m really buggin’ those newsmen now—My new image calls for not reactin’ to their columns!”

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Houston….There Is No Problem. A Day At The NASA Space Center.

We had been to Cape Canaveral in Florida a few years back where they do the space launches but today, we went to Mission Control in Houston. What a fantastic job this government agency has done in trying to include the general public with regards to what space travel has meant to our country.

We were in complete awe at the size of the 747 carrying the space shuttle “piggyback” style.

Here is how it works. Totally amazing what these genius folks came up with to get the shuttle back from Edwards Air Force Base in California where the shuttle always landed to Cape Canaveral in Florida where the shuttle always launched.

A working model of the set up allows visitors to try and place the shuttle onto the 747.

We were allowed to go into the shuttle itself. This is the cargo bay where all the gear and satellites are stored for their journey into orbit.

The heat shields on the belly of the shuttle
Heat shields under the nose cone

Showering aboard the International Space Station..

After touring the 747 and its shuttle companion we took a 90 minute tram tour through the entire NASA campus:

Our guide informed us that when the complex was designed it was purposefully designed like a college campus so that when it came time to close the facility, it could be used as a Texas State College. Pretty smart, but we don’t think it is closing soon.

A view of the working control room. It is from here that all the International Space Station monitoring is done. We were all told to be quiet or we would be asked to leave. Fair enough as they are quite busy we imagine.

Here is a prototype of the new capsule that will go on top of the rockets during the upcoming Mars missions. It is called Orion. It still amazes us that our government is paying $90 million per passenger that Russia charges to bring our astronauts to the ISS. That has to stop!

One stop on our tram tour was in a huge building that housed all the working experiments going on to guarantee future missions are successful.

Smart robots full of sensors are used regularly to monitor what happens to humans during space travel.

Not sure what these engineers are up to but we were assured it was important.

We were truly intrigued by these potential rovers for the Mars project.

One of our final stops on the tram tour was a HUGE building that housed a Saturn V rocket. This rocket is actually the only remaining one that is deemed space travel ready if needed.

Our camera’s lens was not wide enough from this distance to capture the entire building.

Check out the size of only one of the 5 engines that lift this rocket off the ground.

The last stage of the Saturn V rocket. It holds the lunar module at the top.

Here is the Lunar Module. This is the stage that the astronauts sit in as they head toward the moon.

Laurie was completely impressed with the size of the Saturn V!

Kennedy is not real but the lectern is the original one he used to give the speech that included his desires to see man reach the moon by the end of the decade of the 60s. If only he had lived long enough to see that happen.

Here are a few remaining photos we thought worthy of a view for you:

What would happen in space if a grain of sand hit a block of metal at 10 times the speed of sound. Holy crap!

Anyone remember Skylab? It was the precursor to the International Space Station. Russia had a similar satellite named MIR. Both came tumbling out of orbit years ago.

A replica of the rovers left on the Moon during the Apollo years.

This is freaking amazing! To heck with the fossil fuel industry……Just sayin’

March 6, 2019March 6, 2019

Baton Rouge Riverwalk And Our All Time Favorite Veteran’s Memorial.

We had no idea what to expect from the Baton Rouge area but the Mississippi River winds right through downtown so a day on the banks of the mighty river was in order. We visited a cool farmer’s market this Saturday morning before a day of exploring.

The riverboat America with its operable paddle wheel. Can you see Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn on the raft behind the ship?

The USS Kidd Museum. We did not pay to go in basically because we spent so much time admiring the Veteran’s Memorial.

Check out the levee here. The river is VERY high at this point. It is half way up the cement bleachers in the background and starting to cover the cement letters spelling Baton Rouge in the foreground.

A picture taken from the deck of the paddleboat casino we were entertaining ourselves in. The USS Kidd and the America in the mighty Mississippi.

After playing a few slot machines Laurie is happy to be back on the decks of the floating casino.

After a short stay in the casino and a bit of river walking we bumped into a gem of a memorial. It is a veteran’s memorial and included awesome granite slabs like the Vietnam Memorial in DC that gave the names of all the Louisiana folks who perished during one of the many wars to protect our freedom. We are not sure how much planning/money went into the memorial but it is something, in our humble opinion, should be done in each community/state.

Visible from inside the square memorial was this Navy fighter plane.

How true that slogan rings….”Freedom Is Not Free”.

Korean War
Revolutionary War/War of 1812
Mexican War
Civil War**See below
World War I
World War II
Korean War
Vietnam War
Lebanon/War On Terrorism
Persian Gulf/Iraq/Afghanistan
September 11, 2001

We were intrigued by the Civil War slab. Here is what the inscription says: “Approximately 13,000 individuals from Louisiana lost their lives in the war between the states. Though records are incomplete and space prohibits listing each name, this space is dedicated to their valor and sacrifice in the most costly war in our history.”

After an interesting afternoon on the Mississippi River we needed to find sustenance. This meant beer and tacos!