While in Cincinnati, I left for a few days to attend QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt Guild convention, in Phoenix, Arizona, with my friend Diane. We stayed in Scottsdale, Arizona, with my friend Sheila. It was a fun time, we saw a lot of quilts, met up with some other people in our quilt guild, and saw the sights in the desert with Sheila and her husband David. Just a few highlights of that trip . . . Mountain ridges in the distance with chollo cacti in the foreground They have a grapefruit tree in their backyard, and a clever device for picking grapefruit—a long pole with a basket with some hooks on one side, so you can grab a fruit, it falls in the small basket, and then you can bring it down and have a tasty pink grapefruit for breakfast. We were hunter-gatherers for a few days as we went out to trap our breakfast in the picker every morning! A grapefruit tree laden with fruit provided our breakfast in Scottsdale At QuiltCon in downtown Phoenix, we viewed what the vendors had for sa...

When last I wrote, we were in Russellville, Alabama. We backtracked west a few miles at Muscle Shoals to catch the Natchez Trace Parkway again on the flip side. It was a gray and rainy day, so it was not at its best, but we still enjoyed the drive through that corner of Alabama and then up to the outskirts of Nashville on the pleasant road that followed the path of the old Trace. When we reached the outskirts of Nashville, we sort of had to get on a highway, which is no fun when towing a trailer, but our timing was good—there wasn’t much traffic because most people were getting ready to watch a Super Bowl. We got off the highway north of Nashville and found US 31W, which took us up to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where we stayed the night, then discovered there was a winter storm brewing. So instead of a leisurely drive back, we hightailed it up I-65 to the outer ring road around Louisville and then crossed the Markland Dam and puttered through Patriot, Rising Sun, Aurora, and Lawrenceburg...

 On Tuesday morning when we started out, we were deep in Louisiana Cajun country—and I found out later we were only a few miles from Avery Island, where they make Tabasco sauce, but we missed that stop. Still, I must have know we were near good food, because when lunchtime rolled around, Mike suggested we stop at an ubiquitous Waffle House. My eyes rolled around as I suggested we might find something a bit more in keeping with the area, and about five minutes later we came across a roadside stand with a sign that said Cajun Fresh Market. Fortunately, I was driving, so we pulled off and had delicious shrimp po’ boys (fully dressed, of course) and beignets at a picnic table on the side of the road. And they were PERFECT. Purveyors of po' boys and beignets in Raceland, Louisiana They were also a good way to steel ourselves for the next stage of the trip—driving through New Orleans during Super Bowl week. Not sure what we were thinking. Actually, we forgot all about the fact that there...

 We left On the Beach RV Park the morning of January 31. We had stayed there more than six weeks, and we promised the friends we made that we’d come back sometime. We really will try to return because it was a very nice place to live for six weeks. I’ll miss the craft mornings and coffee & donuts and bingo, and the chair yoga not quite as much, though I know it was good for me. On one of the craft mornings, I led a “class” in quilt making, though we really only made very small quilts that could serve as a coaster for a cup of coffee. I figured we’d have to sew everything by hand, but one of the people who came had a sewing machine in her RV and volunteered to go get it, so we were actually able to finish the tiny quilts in two hours. I think everyone enjoyed it; they were planning another quilting session to try to make squares for a bigger quilt. The reason I thought of this was that the place we stayed the first night after we left Port Aransas was Serendipity RV Park in Pa...