Mary & JJ

March 24 – 2018 Aledo, Texas

Yesterday, Friday. We went from Broken Bow, Oklahoma to Aledo, Texas (250 miles/400 km)

Driving from Vicksburg, Mississippi to Fort Worth, Texas via Arkansas and Oklahoma isn’t the fastest or shortest way to travel, but we wanted to see some of the local country side and go through some small towns. That is easier on the smaller roads. It also gave JJ a chance to stock up on cigarettes as Oklahoma is one of the cheap states ($4.50).

Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma are a poor part of the country, so some of the towns we saw were very run down (as much as Detroit – though you don’t hear about them as much on the news). Oklahoma is also “Native American” country (as the name of the town “Broken Bow” suggests).

Texas - The Lone Star State

But when we crossed the boarder to Texas, it became “cowboy” country. (The campground we are staying at is called “Cowtown RV park”) We saw lots of big ranches, and although it is still very rural, there seems to be more wealth here.

As the flags suggest it was very windy. The first time we have driven with the camper in a strong wind. Not a problem now at all, but had this happened back in September when we first started I (JJ) would have had to change underwear for sure 😊

Also, when we crossed the Texas border we hit the town of Denison.
All of a sudden there was a lot of Eisenhower stuff (Eisenhower Parkway, a bust etc. etc.).
Turned out that this is the birthplace of President Eisenhower.
One of Eisenhower’s achievements as president was the Interstate Highway System (motorvejssystemet).
Officially the “Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways”.

When Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II (responsible for the D-Day invasion that eventually ended the war), he observed how efficient the German Autobahn system was, when it came to moving troops and supplies. When he became president, he introduced a program for a similar system in the US (for peacetime as well as wartime).

Toady the system has 48.000 miles / 77000 km! running across the country.
I35 runs through Minnesota and we have often driven on 35E or 35W.
Well, coming up on Fort Worth, Texas we went on 35W! I35 runs 1500 miles/2500 km from Laredo, Texas on the Mexican border almost to the Canadian border, ending in Duluth, Minnesota.

I35 is just one of many in this impressive system. A system that makes our trip so much easier (although some of them are ready for some maintenance (vedligehold). Thanks Ike 😊

After the many miles we have done the last few days, we are now going to stay 3 nights in the same spot. We need that.

Written by Mary and JJ

March 23 – 2018 Broken Bow, Oklahoma

The ordeal with our camper cost us two days. That shouldn’t really be a problem since our ultimate deadline is a plane out of Chicago on August 7th , but we have a deadline in Fort Worth, Texas this week-end and another at the beginning of the week in Austin, Texas.

Therefore, we had to cut our visit in Vicksburg short. Very short, so we could catch up and get back on our schedule.

We went to the Vicksburg National Military Park. We are back to the civil war (borgerkrigen).
The battle of Vicksburg was one of the most important of all the battles.
The North wanted to control the Mississippi River in order to cut off the supplies to the South.
And also to cut the South in half and isolate the part west of the river.
In the spring of 1863, the North needed only to capture one more city in order to achieve the goal: Vicksburg, Mississippi.

General Ulysses S. Grant (nordstaterne) attacked the city a number of times in May 1863, but without success. So it turned into a siege instead (belejring). After 47 days, on the 4th of July, the south surrendered the city. On the very same day General Robert E. Lee (sydstaterne) retreated (trak sig tilbage) from the battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. These 2 major defeats for the confederacy (sydstaterne) are viewed as a turning point in the war, that eventually ended with the south surrendering in 1865.

A monument, to prove we were there😊

Our old friends – Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant

We also had one last look at the Mississippi River. (Well at least until we get back to Minnesota.) “Our” mechanic told us that it is now 2½ miles wide at some points in town, because it is flood season (sæsonen for oversvømelse). We didn’t find the place that it was 2½ miles wide, but it was plenty wide, and we could see that it was flooding.

We moved from Vicksburg to Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
That took us through 5 states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas (twice), Texas and Oklahoma. A drive of about 325 miles (ca. 525 km). We are staying at a nice “nature” campgrounds at a state parks. It is very hilly, and there is a nice river.

Unfortunately, we got here so late, that we couldn’t really enjoy it. But we did enjoy a shower (brusebad), after 4 days without! And running water to wash the dishes and flush the toilet! Oh… the things we take for granted (de ting vi tager for givet).

A better view Friday morning than the previous days

Written by Mary & JJ

March 20-22 – 2018 Utica and Vicksburg, Mississippi

STRANDED!!!

We pulled out of New Orleans Tuesday morning (March 20^th) headed for Vicksburg, Mississippi. 200 miles/320 km
About 20 miles east of Vicksburg (near Utica) we ran out of luck!!
We noticed smoke coming from one of the camper wheels! We pulled over and waited for a while to let it cool off, so we could limp (halte) to Vicksburg to let somebody take a look at it.
We took off again, but after only a couple of minutes a car behind us flashed his lights and we pulled over again. Now there was not only smoke but fire!!

We took the wheel off and could see that the whole thing was falling apart.
Put it back on and moved carefully a few hundred yards (meter) down a gravel road (grusvej) to a small church. The Strawbridge Missionary Baptist Church of Utica.

Parked on their ground and called AAA (Falck). This was around 2:30 in the afternoon. They had a hard time helping us. We needed a lowloader (blokvogn) to put the camper on as it could not drive on 3 wheels. At 7 pm just before it got dark somebody from AAA showed up to see if he could make a temporary fix, so we could move it on our own. Unfortunately it didn’t work. Now we were really stranded. At 9 o’clock in the evening at a graveyard (kirkegård). No electricity, no water (except for a gallon of bottled water), no nothing!
It was a quiet place 😊 so we actually slept well.

The view from our camper Wednesday morning

Wednesday morning it was back on the phone with AAA. They finally agreed to forget about towing (bugsering) and accepted to pay for the transport cost of a mechanic to where we were (the repair cost is entirely on us ☹).

We got hold of an auto repair company in Vicksburg that would drive out here and make the repair on the spot. He got here around 11 am. Took the wheel hub apart. The bearing (hjulleje) was totally damaged and the breaks went the same way because of the bearing. He took off to get parts. He came back shortly after 3 pm. It didn’t take long to put everything together and right after 4 pm we were om the road again.

We only went the 20 miles (30km) to Robbie’s Auto Repair where we stayed the night, because we wanted the other wheels checked, the axels greased etc. etc. We also needed two new tires (another consequential damage (følgeskade) from the bad bearing).

So Tuesday night at a real graveyard, Wednesday night at a car graveyard !! 😊

The view from our camper Thursday morning

This morning, Thursday, we had the other wheels checked and greased (smurt), and got two new tires.

The repair shop may not look the classiest, but they were very nice people.
Very helpful and also good at doing their job.

By 10 am we were "On the road again" ♫♫♫

Written by JJ

March 19 – 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana

We spent 3 days in New Orleans. For all three days the weather forecast predicted rain.
And we had none!! Except for a 5-minute shower (byge) at the campground the day we got here.
Today was a day with mostly sunshine and 80 degrees (25 grader).

We visited the old part of New Orleans today. The famous French Quarter.
Before that though, we went to the Louis Armstrong Park. A nice park made in memory of Louis Armstrong and with jazz music as a theme through the statues and sculptures.

Louis himself was there, of course.

There was also a statue of Mahalia Jackson.
In all of our lives we have never heard her
sing a song she hasn’t been able to ruin totally!! 😊
(Amazing Grace, Star Spangled Banner,
Silent Night etc. etc.)
She is not one of our favorites.

The state of Louisiana was
originally a French colony.
And then briefly Spanish,
before it was purchased (købt)
by the USA in 1803.

Not surprisingly, therefore the French Quarter is the oldest part of New Orleans.

It has a lot of nice old buildings and again a different architecture than we have seen before on our trip.

We saw the Mississippi River again. It runs right through the middle of town.

And we saw something new – buggies drawn by mules!

New Orleans is where jazz was born, and some will say that from jazz grew all modern music: Rock and roll, country etc. etc.There are two famous bar and music streets in New Orleans: Bourbon Street and Frenchmen Street,
where many bars have live jazz music, but it was in Royal Street, that we found the entertainment we were looking for. Right out in the middle of the street. At one time 3 bands were playing within a quarter of a mile. 6-8 people in each and with very different orchestration. One had a piano, another a violin, a third had a washboard etc. etc. but all had trumpets and trombones (trækbasuner). It was very entertaining to watch and to listen to.

On the way out of New Orleans we drove through the part of the city called the Ninth Ward.
The Ninth Ward was hit very hard by the hurricane Katrina in 2005. Well, all of New Orleans was.
80% of the city was flooded (oversvømmet) and over a 1000 people died.
The French Quarter was not flooded. It was built on “high ground” 10 feet (3 meter) above sea level (havoverfladen). A big part of New Orleans is built on ground below sea level, so when the levees (digerne) broke the disaster was unavoidable. The Ninth Ward looked now, 13 years later, like it never
happened, but it was a strange feeling to drive on a road where there had been 15 feet ( 4,5 meter) of water,
at the time of the flooding.

Written by JJ

P.S
On our way back to the campground we hit a new low as far as the price of gas (benzin) is concerned:
$ 2.11/gallon (ca. Kr. 3,50/liter)

March 18 – 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana

The New Orleans area is more than just a big city. Today, we decided to see some of the nature in this part of the country.

We went to Jean Lafitte National Park at the Barataria Preserve. We went to see the swamp and the plants and animals, that live there. The park offers guided tours with park rangers, so we took one of them. It was very interesting, and we learned a lot about life in the swamp.

The swamp is formed by the flood waters of the Mississippi River. Because the ground level here, is lower than the banks of the river, all the water, that floods over the banks of the river, is trapped. This creates the swamp.

In the areas of high ground, there are different types of trees. Especially the oak trees grow very large here (up to 200 feet (60 m)). And once again, we encountered Spanish moss hanging on the trees.

Cypress

Oak

In the swamp, the only trees that grow are cypress. These trees can get up to 100 feet (30 m) tall, and they are very resistant to rot.

In the areas between high ground and the swamp, palmettos grow (they are like miniature palm trees).

The roots of the cypress don’t have much to hang on to, so they grow smaller “anchor” roots, to help them stay standing.

As for animals, we saw:

Alligators - at least 20 on the walk

Non venomous water snake

Venomous (gifttig) water moccasin

A barred owl

And some frogs and turtles, that we couldn’t get good pictures of.

Because we were very close to the end of the Mississippi River, and because we hope to see the beginning of it, when we get back to Minnesota (neither of us has seen it), we decided to get a look at it. We didn’t make it quite to the end of it, but close enough.
We were about 30 miles from the place where the river runs into the Gulf of Mexico. Mostly for the Danes 😊: The mighty Mississippi River is the largest river in the USA. It runs 2300 miles (3700 km) from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota to New Orleans

On our way back we stopped at a cemetery (One of our habits when travelling :-)).This one looked fairly new. In this area people are buried above ground. A big difference between the US and Denmark is, that here it is not at all uncommon to put the name on the surviving spouse (den overlevende ægtefælle) on the stone just leaving an open space for the date of that persons death!! (Like Pellegrin, last row in the middle).

Also, it is not uncommon to be prepared.

The weather has been nice. Almost too nice. 80F (25C) but with a high humidity (luftfugtighed).

Written by Mary

March 17 – 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana

Today, Saturday, we moved from Gaultier, Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Only 120 miles (ca. 200 km), and we could unhook the camper for the first time since Ft. Lauderdale.
We are staying at a nice state park only 7 miles (ca. 11 km) from downtown New Orleans.
We got here so early that we had time to do something in the afternoon.

We don’t now a lot about New Orleans at this point, so we are excited to find out.
We associate it with New Orleans Jazz, creoles, a French speaking part of the US, Cajun food,
New Orleans Saints (amerikansk fodbold), The French lily (den franske lilje) and the hurricane Katrina.

But today it was not about the above, but all about the Irish.
Today, March 17th is, St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish National Holiday.
St. Patrick, a catholic bishop, is the patron saint (skytshelgen) of Ireland.
He died on March 17th year 461.

Without knowing for sure, I would guess this national holiday is the one celebrated the most all over the world. Also in New Orleans. There is a big group of Irish descendants (efterkommere) in New Orleans.
Around the time of the potato famin in Ireland, a lot of ships needed ballast after unloading in Liverpool, England.
A lot of them went to Ireland and picked up people who were desperate to get out, even as human ballast!
A lot of these ships went straight to New Orleans for a new load of cargo.

We went downtown New Orleans where there was a big St. Patrick’s Day parade.
It was crazy!! The parade followed a 3 mile (5 km) long route. The route was packed on both sides of the street, and in the street. Seems like everybody is Irish today!! Us too; after all the Irish got their red hair from the Vikings! 😊
It’s hard to guess, but here must have been near 100.000 people there.
Lots of vehicles in the parade and LOTS of green! It was real fun.

Wrtiten by JJ