NEW ORLEANS

The St. Louis Cemetery

Most of those buried here are from the 18th and 19th century.  The graves are all above ground.  Folklore reason: because of the high water table problems, but probably due to the French and Spanish traditions.  Some famous or notorious people are buried here.  One being Marie Laveau, known as a voo-doo priestess.   Notice the pyramid structure in the third picture.  It will be the final resting place of actor Nicholas Cage.

 

Bourbon Street.  These pictures were taken around 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon.  Things were starting to warm up around there.  It was "Pardi Mardi Gras".  Any excuse to party, I guess!!  Don't think I would want to be there after dark and especially during the actual Mardi Gras.   WILD!

 

 

"THE BIG EASY"

Library

                                                        

Cable Cars

 

                                            Lots of sky scrapers in downtown, fancy hotels, etc.

Customs Building

We stopped by for a late afternoon lunch.  Yummy Cajun food again!

     

    Smiley!  We ate outside.  It was a little nippy, especially in the shade.  All and all we had a great day!
We didn't think there would be that much to interest a non drinking Mormon in New Orleans.  We really needed more than one day to see everything tho.  We rode a double decker bus all around town.  But missed several nice museums etc.  Next time!!!  : )

BATON ROUGE LOUISIANA TEMPLE AND MORE FRIENDS

Look real close *can you see the baby?  I wish I would have taken a picture of the cake.

Jim and Kate

Kate, Jim and Sofie

  After leaving Alabama and the Phillips we headed to Louisiana via Mississippi.  We spent a night in the driveway of some more good friends, Bill and Kate Chaney and their new little cute puppy, Sofie.  They had just completed a six month mission last November in the Washington Tacoma Mission serving in the Parkland area.  They took us on a grand tour of Alexandria and dinner at a local restaurant.  Bill insisted that we try some local Cajun food.  Which was delicious!!  Kate insisted we try some "King" cake.  It was like a combination cake and a very moist roll.  It had frosting with purple, green and gold sparkles on top.  It was delicious also.  The story behind the cake is about the Three Kings and their search for the baby Jesus after his birth.  Every cake is baked with a baby in it.  If you happen to get the piece with the baby, you are responsible for baking or buying the next "King" cake.  It is served from Epiphany at the end of  the Christmas season until Fat Tuesday.  Kate gave us the Mardi Gras beads.  The purple beads represent Justice.  The green beads stand for Faith, and the gold (didn't get any of those) signify power.  Those are the official Mardi Gras colors.

                                                      We're back, West of the Mississippi

 

 

The Stake Center on the Temple Property

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

      BIRMINGHAM ALABAMA
                    TEMPLE

                        AND

        FRIENDS FROM TAIPEI
                    TAIWAN

 

After Pensacola we traveled to Birmingham Alabama.  In Hoover Alabama we parked our motorhome in the driveway of some special friend's daughter, next door.  Those special friends are Jim and Judith Phillips.  We served with them in Taipei Taiwan back in 2008.  They were the public relations couple for the Taiwan Taipei Mission.  In November they were called to the Temple Presidency for the Birmingham Temple.  But are on medical leave right now.  Jim is recovering from a double heart by-pass.  It was good talking about old times  and reminiscing about the good times in Taiwan.  So good to see old friends!

CRYPTOLOGIC MUSEUM

                                                      OLD MEMORIES

One of the main reasons Vern wanted to spend a couple days here in Pensacola, old memories.  We were stationed here in Pensacola two different times for various training schools in his Navy career.  Boy has it changed!  But of course it has been a few years (48 to be exact).  Vern was bound and determine to find the cryptologic museum he had heard about on Corry Field.  Especially since he never made it to the museum at NSA when we were in Maryland, because of the government shut down.  Come to find out, it had recently moved into a different building and after circling around Corry Field a couple times,and stopping and asking a few people, we finally found it.

Some of the equipment he use to operate.

I had to take a picture of this for the kids.  This is a  scale model of the "elephant cage".  Remember those?  Also known as a circular disposed antenna array or a wullenweber.  You know, where the elephants stamped the M's on M & M's!

Lots of memories of lost shipmates.  Those lost in the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and a fire during his section's watch in Kami Seya right after we got transferred to Misawa on the Northern tip of Honshu.   I was pregnant with our second child, who turned out to be Tracy.  Looking back, I know that Heavenly Father was looking out for us and our family.

PENSACOLA FLORIDA

We stay at the Naval Air Station RV Park, Oak Grove.  It was conveniently located very near the beach, within a mile from a light house and two miles from the National Naval Aviation Museum. 

 

 We never did get to climb up this lighthouse.  It was always closed or about to close when we were there!

Path to the beach

Sunset

 

                                   Nice white sand * native * not shipped in from the Bahamas

NATIONAL NAVAL AVIATION MUSEUM

                                               HOME OF THE BLUE ANGELS

We stayed at the Oaks RV Park on the Naval Air Station Pensacola.  It was just down the road a mile or two from the National Naval Aviation Museum.  It was a very impressive museum with so much to see.  We had to go back the second afternoon and still did not see everything. They had an upper and lower deck, hanger bay one, flight line tours, an imax theater, 3D flight simulators and much, much more.