New Orleans

Although not particularly private, the camp sites at Bayou Segnette State Park were spacious, clean and full service. We arrived in late afternoon, rolled onto our site not too far from the washrooms and free laundry - yes, free laundry - and settled in for the week. New Orleans lay just a short $1 ferry ride across the mighty Mississippi. We were anxious to explore!

View of a street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 

Many intersections in the French Quarter featured street musicians.

As we were camped at the State Park on the West Bank of the Mississippi, we had to cross over by ferry every day to visit the city. parking cost us $5 for the day and the ferry which ran each half hour cost another $2, half that for seniors like us.

One pretty sight apart from the busy waterfront was this tall ship from the Netherlands. She was sailed by a few young crew as far as we could see, all very friendly and able to speak English.

This was also the end of the road for my traveling companion. After an early morning drop off at the airport I was alone again and began to make plans for heading back eastward and northward in the coming days. Next stop, Georgia!

Hit and Run Repairs

While waiting for the light to change in Naples, Florida, a young lady who was mostly likely texting and not paying attention, smashed into the rear of my camper. Fortunately for her, my spare tire absorbed much of the impact and she suffered very little damage to her car other than some scratches and maybe a broken headlight lens. Instead of pulling over to the curb as I suggested we do to exchange insurance information, she took advantage once I was back in my car and left the scene of her crime! 

While attempted to pull over, another driver chose to ignore my damaged situation and passing on my right, clipped the right rear of the camper distroying the tail light and breaking the fiberglass on the rear curbside quarter. He at least stopped so we could exchange information! We then spent a couple of hours taping up the damage and fashioning a makeshift tail light to replace the damaged one.

Once home, I began repairs in ernest. I took the camper to a welding shop where the old bent rear frame member was removed and a new piece welded in place. The spare tire mount was also straightened and attached to the bumper. The next job was removing the improvised tail light as well as its streetside mate and ordering some new LED replacements. While the clearance light was working, it had lost its lens cover, so I acquired a new one for there as well. Next I removed everything from the locker and began pushing the fiberglass back to its original shape as best as I could. Someone doing a similar repair online gave me the idea to use small wooden strips bolted to each side of the cracks to bring them into place and stabilize them during the repair and this idea worked extremely well. Once the panel was stable in place, I sanded the inside and applied a layer of fiberglass resin containing glass fibres in the mix. This I did several times to strengthen the cracked areas and make them solid.

On the outside, I filled the larger cracks with the same fiber filled resin as well as the old holes from the tail lights. The small cracks I filled with PC-11, an epoxy filler. This I did several times, sanding everything down each time to bring back the original shape of the rear quarter. The final step was to to use Bondo paste to fill in the remaining scratches and other blemishes, making for a smooth final finish, ready to paint.

Finally satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get, I lightly sanded the whole lower section of the camper all the way around and then rolled on two coats of paint. The last step was to install all the lights. This proved to be interesting as the modern wiring colours don't match exactly the colours Trillium used in their manufacturing. However, eventually everything sorted itself out and began working properly.

The finished repair looks much like the camper prior to the accident. The only changes that are obvious are the new paint colours on the lower part of the camper, the new and slightly smaller, but much brighter tail lights and a very slight colour difference in the beige section below the red belly stripe.

Backtracking to New Orleans

Our time in Beaux Bridge was coming to an end as we had a reservation at the state park across the river from New Orleans. However, we headed one last time into Lafayette to take in the musical lunch in the park. A great modern zydeco band was playing and a ladies group was selling boxed lunches. What could be better than that!

In the afternoon we headed over to the Acadian Center near the airport to take in the musicians jam session. It was a great chance to meet some musicians, dance to some tunes and generally have a great afternoon. The traditional houses and other buildings on the site were well worth the visit. I even enjoyed towing the ferry across the water!

Then it was onward, southward with a brief stop at the Longfellow-Evangeline Musuem. While the story of Evangeline is exactly that, a fictional story, it does harken back to real events making the museum a worthwhile visit. The site and buildings is actually more Creole than Acadian, but nonetheless all very interesting and well worth the visit.

From there is back on the strangely rollicking roads of Louisiana towards our next campground. What is it with those roads? They were simply awful and even dangerous while towing anything large like an RV. I was more than a bit happy to arrive in one piece at our next camping spot where we planned to stay for the next five days or so exploring the French Quarter and nearby neighbourhood of New Orleans.