Manatees Springs State Park, Florida

Manatees and dugongs or sea elephants are related, that is they are the same species.  This state park is on the Suwannee River and there are manatees as well as alligators.  There are also fresh springs which pump millions of gallons of water into the river system and the water is warmish year round.  Well not that warm (22C degrees) but Andrew went in for a swim.  I hasten to add that there is a wire barrier between the swimable part -Manatee Springs) and the rest, in order to protect the humans.

There are hundreds of vultures perched on the trees all around and I took a photo of one.

Here is a dugong floating lazily by.

This is the only way we like alligators.  Packaged up for cooking - $12 per pound.  We plan to put them on the barbie.



This is a photo taken at our next stop, Silver River State Park.

Some people invited us to join their campfire where they sprinkled some magic powder on the fire and it gave out coloured flames for the next 40 minutes.  Very pretty but it actually does not look nearly as good on the photos as in real life.

Florida

We have arrived in Florida where the sand is white and there are beaches all around.  Below is Tiger at the beach.

St Andrew's State Park has a lovely campgound.  But watch how things can change overnight.

There was a storm during night and this is the same campground the next morning taken through the camper window.  Good weather for ducks as they say.

Gator Swamp at the same park.





Time to show some of the animals we have come across.

To be truthful, and Andrew insists on such verisimilitude, the alligator and the turtle photos were actually taken in Mississippi but the white squirrel, deer and bird were in Florida.  I just wanted to put the animal shots together.

And a lovely tranquil photo of some river kayaking - not by us as we have no kayaks.  This is at the Ochlockonee River State Park.

Gracious southern homes

Travelling through Louisana, Mississippi and Alabama you see wonderful old gracious southern homes and we could not stop ourselves from capturing a few images.

This is one of the houses in New Orleans along St Charles Street in the Garden District.

The New Orleans synagogue, also in St Charles St.

This big house on stilts is in Mississippi along the beachfront.

New Orleans French Quarter

The French Quarter in New Orleans is always buzzy and full of colour and life.  Street performers abound and they manage to be more eye-catching than elsewhere.  Here are some that captured our imagination.

What is he sitting on?

Just a fabulously colourful appearance.

The little yellow car above morphs into a person - a live transformer.

Saxophonist by the riverside.

According to Lonely Planet a Sicilian immigrant in 1906 invented the mufuletta sandwich - a round, seeded loaf of bread stuffed with ham, salami, provolone cheese and marinated olive salad that is roughly the size of a manhole cover.  We ate it at the Central Grocery at 923 Decatur St where it is still the best place in town to get it.  It makes a wonderful lunch.

A couple of street shots.

The Musical Legends Park where we had coffee and beignets at Cafe Beignet while listening to some easy jazz.



We are staying at the wonderful Bayou Segnette State Park which is the BEST state park we have stayed at. It is very reasonably priced with free showers, laundry and wi-fi.  It is amazing to find such a wonderfully priced camping place so near a big city.  And there is a swimming pool too which would be lovely in the summer.  It is a very well laid out camping park.  It is a pleasure to stay here.

Louisiana - where you will never be hungry

Well, here we are on the gulf and near the ocean but it is still bloody cold.  Zero degrees some days and we are rugged up. Tiger's gas central heating capabilities are coming to the fore.

This was our welcome to Lousiana - a warning about alligators at the first rest stop.  An appropriate welcome for Aussies.

As always, thoughts turn to food and Louisiana is the right state to be if you like food.  Everywhere you go there is a nice restaurant and we have gone by personal recommendations so far.

Below is Comeaux Restaurant just four miles over the state border where they sell boudins - Louisiana sausage.  These are flavoursome and not unlike Hungarian white pudding but they come in an assortment of types, smoked, spicy or plain.  They also do them as patties or balls.  All delicious.

But the highlight of the visit was THE best burger, ever.  It is titled a Dreamweaver and it contains, as well as the meat patty, a slice of brisket, caramelised onion and I think an egg as well as cheese.  It was out of this world!  The lady at the visitor's center recommended a visit to this food establishment.  Small and unpretentious, it packed a big punch with us.

Our next recommendation, and an excellent one, was Prejeans in Lafayette, about 3 miles north of the I10 on the service road for the I49.  We had a wonderful reasonably priced Cajun style dinner and they let us stay in the carpark overnight in our RV.  The next morning we had breakfast.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of our seafood platter at dinner but here is a shot of breakfast.

You can see how popular this eatery is.  And there is live music too.




The next stop was at another recommendation, Bergeron's Boudin & Cajun Meats.  This is a grocery and delicatessen with the finest array of cajun smallgoods.

We stocked up as if there was no tomorrow.




With all this talk of food we need a nature photo.  Here is one of the Louisiana marshes.

And the houses.  I believe only Georgia outdoes Louisiana in gracious southern houses.  That is yet to come.

We drove around Lake Charles' Charpentier historic district and took some shots of houses.

Below is a house on the water.

Then we visited a plantation and heard stories of the wealth and culture that powered the many hundreds of plantations that lined the muddy Mississippi shoreline.  We chose Laura: a Creole Plantation because of the Lonely Planet recommendation but wonder if we may have enjoyed the Oak Alley Plantation more.  Here is a shot of both plantation houses.

This is the best I could capture of this classic antebellum mansion, the Oak Alley Plantation.

The more modest Laura.  The guide explained that the creole mansions were painted in colours but the American ones were all white.

A slave cabin.

Texas bbq - ya'll welcome - then on to Austin

On our way to Austin we went to Lockhart, about 20 miles away, because according to Lonely Planet USA, the Texas legislature declared Lockhart as the bbq capital of Texas.  It was a bitterly cold day - see the snow on the houses. 

Black's is the most famous of the bbq establishments and we tried it.  We decided that Texan bbqs are actually not to our taste.  The smoky taste of the meat is too strong for us.  We like our steaks straight, unsmoked and rare.

Here is Andrew chomping on a typical large hunk of meat.

Lockhart Courthouse

and the longest continually operating library in Texas. It is a lovely old building with stain glass windows.




Then we went on to Austin which is a really lively, funky, exciting city.   Below is the Capitol building.  It is the largest state capitol in the US.

Our enthusiasm for the city is in spite of a very bad first impression on our first day there which was once again a very cold day, zero temperature.  Texas does not cope well with ice and the whole city seemed to be almost deserted as people were warned not to come to work.  The Texas State Museum where we hoped to spend the afternoon was unexpectedly closed "due to the inclement weather". 

However the sun came out the next day and so did the people.  Below is the riverbank and the "owl" building in the background.

We had a fabulous day being shown around by my friend from Budapest Judit and her daughter Michelle and her husband Darren.  We saw the artsy craft markets, had a nice lunch, went to 1/2 Price Books which is wonderful, visited Uncommon Objects on South Congress, a funky trash and treasure store full of almost every kind of object and ended the day with a Chinese buffet which has been on my desiderata list.  All you can eat for $13.  And the selection is wonderful, more variety than in OZ.

But above is my favourite food - at Wholefoods Market on Lamar Blvd - the soups. Much better than a bbq. This is where the Wholefoods chain started.  This is a chain of excellent upmarket supermarkets throughout the country selling quality products.  There are cooked soups in almost all US supermarkets and they are all good and reasonably priced.