In Slidell, LA, home was the Slidell Elk’s Lodge. The lodge is settled in among the spanish moss covered oaks along the Liberty Bayou on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. We stayed a couple of days and toured the areas we did not see when we were here years ago in the French Quarter. Jeanne found the Lafayette Cemeteries to be big in the tourism stream, so we ventured in. Cemetery #1 was closed for repairs, but we found #2 open and walked among some very old burial sites. Walking through the nearby neighborhood I was facinated with many of the old victorian homes with what appeared to be real gas porch lamps.
Jeanne also found the Audubon Park, home to the Tree of Life. There is an area of the park containing two meditation labyrinths and while we were there they were occupied by several folks meditating (it looked more like a yoga class to me, probably was). The Tree of Life is one gi-normous oak tree that draws a steady stream of visitors.
The Labyrinth, explained 
The small labyrinth… 
…and the big labyrinth 
The Tree of Life 
The Tree of Life, with a little human 
Some of the yard art at Audubon Park 
And of course, we just HAD to peek in on the Urban South (NOLA) brewery and pick up a few slushies for our son Chad to sample. As you may recall, we had just visited the Urban South HTX Brewery (Houston).
Welcome to Urban South (NOLA) 
The China-virus-hysteria will not stop the taps from flowin’! 
Offerings of Urban South 
A couple of beers to go?
The travel from Slidell, LA was “pretty much” uneventful, with a series of overniters at various Elk’s Lodges and the Rover’s Roost SKP park in Casa Grande, AZ. Very few travel distances are complete without Murphy sticking his nose into everything and this one was no exception. We have always had bad luck with road quality along I-10 along the southern edge of the US. Somewhere in there we suffered a very large chipped floor tile in the bedroom, thank you Louisiana DOT. Oh well…
Woodrow Wilson enjoying some desert time in Casa Grande, AZ 
Now that’s a cracked tile! 
No current wildfires in Kalifornia, but still some of that lovely air quality…
On a much happier note, we made it back to Kalifornia for the family XMAS with our kids/grandkids. Home was again the Atascadero Elk’s Lodge, and Chad & Crissy hosted us all at their house in Atascadero and a fun time was had by all. We spent one morning taking a family walk over to Atascadero Lake and walking around the lake. There we found someone has started a painted rock “snake”, trying to encircle the lake with painted rocks. Since I paint a few myself for our FB group “RVersRock!”, I just had to leave a couple for the “snake”. A few days later we took a short hike up Pine Mountain at Stadium Park in Atascadero, looking for one of the nine worldwide mysterious metallic monoliths scattered from Romania to Australia to Atascadero. We found it at the top, overlooking Atascadero’s downtown/city hall area. And wouldn’t you know it, we happened upon a few painted rocks along the trail, these from a FB group called “HiYaRockProject”. We decided to relocate them to the rock snake at Atascadero Lake.
Oma & Opa with 3 grandkids growing on a tree. 
The Wild Bunch, Max, Hailey, & Ellie 
Chad, Crissy, Hailey & Ellie 
Opa, Oma, Jenn & Max
The rock snake at Atascadero Lake 
OK, I left Woody on the snake… 
Jeanne hiking up the mountain to the monolith 
Overlooking downtown Atascadero 
Cheese! (More like cheesy!) 
One of the HiYa’s rocks at the monolith base. 
Another find along the trail 
Ellie found this one. 
Play time while hiking.
One fine sunny day we relieved Chad & Crissy of their parental duties and took Hailey & Ellie out to Morro Bay. We wanted to check on the RV park there for availability (sorry, China-virus-hysteria in full effect, park closed), so we walked the surf line instead.
Nice day at Morro Bay 
A look toward Cayucos 
Hailey doing beach ballet. 
Ellie hunting for sand dollars.
That catches us up for now, counting down until we can escape Kalifornia yet again. Until next post…