Tag Archives: Field Trips

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Road Trip – St Louis Cemetery #1

We’re now on past Texas and New Mexico, but I wanted to send this out because it was so interesting to me. I’d been here before, but the St. Louis Cemetery just a few blocks from the New Orleans French Quarter is one of THOSE places. It received its first “clients” in 1789, and all the tombs are above ground. This is partly because of the New Orleans water table being so close to the surface, but also because of French and Spanish customs at the time. It’s only one square block, but there are now thought to be around 100,000 people stacked up here. Some of the notables include Marie Laveau, the original voodoo priestess and Benard deMaringy, the guy who brought the game of craps to America. One recent addition is a full-blown new tomb for one of the Jackson Square street artists.

We were struck by the way it’s a very “living” place. There are brand new tombs, aging tombs that have recently been fixed up (maybe because of the flood that brought water in here a foot deep) and also completely abandoned tombs. There’s a section where they’ve taken pieces of iron work and broken headstones, and just laid them out and cemented them in place with no idea where they originally stood. A high brick wall surrounds the cemetery, so no city noise intrudes, and the sun bouncing off the whitewashed stone creates a very “hot” and quiet environment. There are also no guards, no cameras and no security, and there’s a sign that says so. It also says that this place is sacred and woe unto anyone in the next life if you mess with it. And no one does. Would YOU with the voodoo queen lurking about?

Thanks for reading. We’re heading north today, 5200 miles into it and 2000 or so to go.

Sign in the KOA restroom this morning: “Flush before, twice during and especially after use. It needs all the help it can get!”
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Uncategorized

Road Trip – St Louis Cemetery

We’re now on past Texas and New Mexico, but I wanted to send this out because it was so interesting to me. I’d been here before, but the St. Louis Cemetery just a few blocks from the New Orleans French Quarter is one of THOSE places. It received its first “clients” in 1789, and all the tombs are above ground. This is partly because of the New Orleans water table being so close to the surface, but also because of French and Spanish customs at the time. It’s only one square block, but there are now thought to be around 100,000 people stacked up here. Some of the notables include Marie Laveau, the original voodoo priestess and Benard deMaringy, the guy who brought the game of craps to America. One recent addition is a full-blown new tomb for one of the Jackson Square street artists.

We were struck by the way it’s a very “living” place. There are brand new tombs, aging tombs that have recently been fixed up (maybe because of the flood that brought water in here a foot deep) and also completely abandoned tombs. There’s a section where they’ve taken pieces of iron work and broken headstones, and just laid them out and cemented them in place with no idea where they originally stood. A high brick wall surrounds the cemetery, so no city noise intrudes, and the sun bouncing off the whitewashed stone creates a very “hot” and quiet environment. There are also no guards, no cameras and no security, and there’s a sign that says so. It also says that this place is sacred and woe unto anyone in the next life if you mess with it. And no one does. Would YOU with the voodoo queen lurking about?

Thanks for reading. We’re heading north today, 5200 miles into it and 2000 or so to go.

Sign in the KOA restroom this morning: “Flush before, twice during and especially after use. It needs all the help it can get!”
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

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Road Trip – The Big Easy

St Charles Street Car – New Orleans

We could have ridden this all day long! First operated in 1833, New Orlean’s St Charles Street Car Line runs from Canal Street near the “Quarter” all he way out past Uptown, the Garden District and Magazine Street. When it gets to the end, the conductor simply turns all the seats around, goes to the other end of the car and off it goes in the other direction. For most of the way, the line goes down a grand oak-shaded boulevard with grass under the tracks and branches brushing the car’s top. The driver is loud and verbal, yelling out the names of streets and how “they’s lots of really stupid people, you know”.  One time he picked up a rider but said: “Don’t you dare think I’ll stop here again. Next time, you march yourself down to the next stop”. He was yelling, and they have to yell, because the trucks (yes, train car wheels are called trucks) are screeching and grinding into turns that thousands upon thousands of other wheels have rolled on, and the brass and hardwood construction isn’t what it used to be (but we think it’s better than it used to be). All the windows open fully, so you can hang  out and watch the stately homes going by – no guard rails, no ADA compliant, just great experiences without the Nanny State reeling you in.

And, to finish the story, the neighborhood street car dumps you in the French Quarter where you can buy a hand grenade to finish up with. It’s simply one of the great rides in America, and it’s only a buck and a quarter. Oh, and a hand grenade? It’s a frozen fruit slushy with pineapple and lime … and four shots of Everclear. Don’t know what Everclear is? It’s 185 proof pure grain alcohol, the French Quarter’s most powerful drink (outside of paint remover).

So that was the good news. The bad: It is just heart breaking to see Katrina’s footprint, the ruined and abandoned stately old houses in the Seventh and Ninth Wards. We camped in an RV park in the Seventh and each morning going into downtown on the shuttle we’d pass blocks of century-old smashed up homes, which is tragic, but I’d say 80% are now coming back to life. And they aren’t just replacing them with plastic sheetrock wonders you see across America, but they’re carefully putting the old ladies back together. Most of the old oaks are still here too, unlike my town of Port Townsend where they seem to hate an old tree. Here’s they’re treating the big trees like injured old-timers, which of course they are. “Hell of a job, Brownie” is the phrase that kept going through my head, that insane Bush statement that things were just dandy in the Big Easy after the hurricane passed. It might have been a big hurricane, but it was a man-made disaster because we didn’t maintain the levees properly.

If you get a chance, I’d recommend a little vacation to this amazing city on the Mississippi. It’s worth the effort to help retain a truly special place that belongs to all of us.

Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

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Road Trip – A River of Grass

That name’s not mine, but it surely describes the Everglades and Big Cypress. A million acres of flat-as-a-pancake land, so flat that 20 miles from the ocean we saw a sign that said 3′ elevation. The vast amount of water that falls here each summer flows about 100 feet per day towards the Gulf, and subtle channels in this 100-mile wide “river” create very interesting “islands” of grass, cypress and pines. You can’t really walk out into it because it’s wet, so kayaks and canoes are the way to see it. We’ve messed it up pretty well, but there is plenty to see that’s still the way it should be.

We’ve seen many wood storks (one shown here) that are interesting critters. They sweep their bills back and forth in muddy water searching for fish. When they ‘feel’ one, their bill snaps shut at 25 millionth of a second, the fastest reflex of any bird or animal. And I thought I ate fast!

Nancy’s gotten some wonderful photography of this place that’ll find it’s way to her website, but for now we’re in New Orleans and I’ll have a post of  this crazy-fun place soon. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

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Road Trip – A Fantastic, Intriguing Place

Well, that was fun. 3200 miles in 6 ½ days and 12 states. Everything from a spring blizzard on the Continental Divide to thunderstorms along the Missouri. We then camped in De Soto Beach Park near Tampa, Gulf side of Florida. This place was voted the number one beach in the US a few years ago, but we enjoyed the backside of our campsite, a mangrove tidal swamp with wildlife everywhere. Mangroves are crazy plants, with little muddy breathing fingers waving at the sky and roots attached to the trunks half way up the trunk.

 We then headed south to Big Cypress (great closeups of alligators) and Everglades (great closeups of no-see’ms). Didn’t get to see a crocodile or panther, but saw two anhingas, a bunch of swallow-tailed kites and almost countless skimmers out in the Gulf at Flamingo. South Florida still has a good charm about her if you know where to look, and even though the hurricane crunched Chocoloskee, it’s still very funky and fun. I recommend it for a view of ‘old’ Florida. Google Earth has some wonderful photos if you’re interested in that isolated patch of land. The entire town is built on an Indian shell mound. The 100-yr old Smallwood Store is still there and functioning. So far it’s all been good, with our new trailer just as fun as we thought it would be. We’re getting 17.5mpg with the air conditioning on, and in the afternoons, the air better be on!

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

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Road Trip – Pronghorns All Over the Place

Second edition of the Road Trip. Going through Wyoming and South Dakota, we were amazed at the numbers of pronghorns. Hundreds! We were most happy to see so many, more than either of us have ever seen. White pelicans too, along with bald eagles, lots of magpies (of course), and a nice bunch of prairie dogs where they probably shouldn’t be.

We’re in western Missouri now, following the Missouri River south and watching a big Gulf storm pass through. The forests are just full of redbud and looking great. This painting in the car isn’t all that easy. The roads are just too bumpy. But I’ll continue. Oh, Canada geese just flew right by the open window, inviting Harry our Cat to join them. He’d do it, I’m sure, if only his toes would cooperate.

Larry

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

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Road Trip

Road Trip

Monday began a really good road trip for us. We’re driving from Port Townsend (just about the most northwestern place you can be in the Lower 48), and heading for the Tampa, the Everglades and Keys, the most southeasterly place in America. Any way you cut it, that’s more than 7,000 miles from our door – back to our door. Don’t ask how much gas that is, we haven’t figured it out ourselves. This trip is for some business, and we’re also picking up a new Scamp travel trailer near Tampa. Yah, we know what you’re thinking, but we look at it as a great adventure, and we’d like to share it.

So, I thought it might be fun to throw a few little paintings, so here’s the first day. After heading for Seattle and taking the Bainbridge Ferry, we headed ‘up the hill’. I love going over the Cascades, and Snoqualmie Pass was still in winter. Just a couple of miles from the top, this view always thrills me, and it did this time too. On the far side of the valley, you can see the other, downhill, lanes heading for Seattle. It’s a huge view, with peaks all around. I did this little sketch later jigglying along in the car

Tuesday we ran smack into a blizzard. Coming over the Continental Divide in Montana we “enjoyed” five hours of snow driving. Past that, we’re now in Billing for the night, and heading for Sheridan Wyoming. When I have another painting, I’ll send it along.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.

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“Vanna White” – 20 Years Remembered

Painted just last year, my two best friends, “Vanna White” and Nancy in an interpretive painting for Olympic National Park. For decades to come, visitors will see but not fully understand what this painting represents to us.

I’m greaving  today over a separation from my second best friend, “Vanna White”. For 20 years and a third of a million miles, as a research vehicle I’ve driven this VW Westfalia Camper to just about every park in the Western United States. We’ve camped in her in places you wouldn’t think a 2-wheeled car could go,  talked to her like a person, and some people thought I would be buried in her – a ready-made coffin! 

One favorite story is the burned-up water pump-event north of Bakersfield. We got her stopped before the engine blew up, and were hauled into town by a good-hearted Chicano tow operator. Saturday night, all shops were closed (and there’s almost no civilized camping in Bakerfield), so he took us over to a friend’s house for the night, where we slept in the driveway in a neighborhood filled with Spanish-speaking kids and dogs. Early morning, our new friend found a pump somewhere and had it in by nightfall –  and event that included tasty food being brought over by the neighbors. I remember lots of fried chicken and lots of kids, all very interested in who we were and what we did. Vanna was like that – drawing a crowd no matter where we landed.

Now, while my Dad would buy a new car every three years no matter what, we camped more times than I can count in Vanna during the past 7,300 days, from Mexican beaches to Banff in the Canadian Rockies. I wrote park guides in her, painted watercolors on picnic tables and woke up with snow on the roof.  Burning through 17,000 gallons of gas, most parts were replaced as we went along. Cosmetic surgery and new paint (by me – after all, I am an artist and own a spray rig), but also a new engine, transmission, three clutches, four or five water pumps, three stereos and more carpets than I can remember. And, like another Vanna White we all have known for decades, she just never seemed to age!

2006: Here’s Vanna next to a 90′ mural we were working on in 29 Palms California. We painted two murals here, a decade apart, and Vanna was there both times.

And so, after driving her a distance of from here to the Moon and half way back, we recently decided to find her a new home. It didn’t take long!  Just a couple of days on Craigs List and yesterday Vanna went off to Portland with a delightful younger couple who, we’re sure, will have the time of their lives continuing on with this same boundless spirit of adventure. AND, I’ve been told of a local support group I can go to of former Westfalia owners.

And why did we do this heart-wrenching thing? Well, we now have a little Scamp trailer waiting for us in the Tampa area. That’ll be a 6,600 mile trip to bring her home – and a good start on the next 340,000-mile adventure!

Vanna on her last adventure with us. California’s Anza Borrego Desert State Park, December 2009.

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

Click here to go to our main website – packed with jigsaw puzzles, prints, interpretive portfolios and lots of other stuff.

Click here to check out what Nancy’s currently working on with her photography.