Orlando Science Center

This post has been deleted because it is in our new book entitled Napkin Dreams. It can be found on Amazon.com

Downtown Disney with the Struves

Sorry, but you'll have to purchase our book to read this post!

Eating good in Louisiana!

We have a bit of dilemma in our family. Patsy and I love a variety of different foods and we also enjoy trying new cuisines from different parts of the country and the world. However our boys have fairly set tastes and do not like to vary too far from those likes and dislikes. In essence they are not yet culinary tourists!

So we have to find a way to sample the huge variety of flavors this nation has to offer on our trip, yet still keep the boys fed and nourished. Our formula has been pretty simple. We make a typical meal that the boys like and then I go out and get take-out from a nearby restaurant that has some of the unique foods Patsy and I want to sample. Then we can share bites with any boys feeling bold and daring and we do not spend nearly as much money as we would if we all went to the restaurant ourselves.

This simple operation was carried out several times in the state of Louisiana, a state with loads of interesting and unique foods. We enjoyed muffalatos from a place called Camille Cafe in Abita Springs. These tasty sandwiches are sort of like club sandwiches with lots of olives and some sort of special sauce and they were quite wonderful. Later we stopped at a little joint called Monster Po Boys in Mandeville and we a split roast beef and a shrimp po boy. These were stunning and marvelous and some of the best things we have tasted on our trip!

Of course the whole family enjoyed the beignets at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, after all who does not love doughy, sugary goodness? The whole clan also enjoyed stopping at a chain called Raising Canes in Baton Rouge. This is a chain that started in Louisiana and features basically just chicken fingers. They have a terrific sauce to dip them in as well.

Cajun country is a world unto itself and our stay at a campground there led us to meeting a couple of older cajun gals who had us sample some of their boudin and cracklin. Oh boy dat shure was good stuff! It was so good that we later had to stop at another place in Franklin and buy some more so Patsy and I could have a cajun lunch while the boys had pig in the blankets. Poor boys!

When you add in our Tabasco Factory tour and sample bar and you can see why in just five days we felt like we have truly eaten our way through Louisiana (and that is not counting our stop at the Crawdaddy Cafe in Shreveport last fall!)

Evansville Museum

We visited the Evansville, Indiana Museum for one reason. Membership to this particular museum gets you the benefit of a reciprocal membership to many other museums across the country, and the membership cost of joining the Evansville Museum is one of the lowest on the reciprocal list at only $50 a year for a family!

The museum itself is not that great and not worth traveling very far to see. The best part of the museum is actually an adjacent transportation museum. Membership at the Evansville Museum gets you free entrance into the transportation museum. In this museum they have a model train set and a real train with passenger cars to explore and an engine with a bell to ring. The passenger cars were used by both the Eisenhowers and Johnsons during Presidential campaigns, so we had a bit of history to explore.

The main museum had a floor with some art exhibits, some bamboo baskets made in Japan, a small area with some hands-on exhibits  and an area showing what life was like in Evansville through the years. the museum is pretty small and took less than two hours to go through both of them.

Bismarck, North Dakota

We spent a couple of the hottest days we have experienced on our trip in Bismarck, North Dakota. Fortunately we stayed a campground with a pool! Still we wanted to find some fun and free things to do. Bismarck has had some terrible flooding from the Missouri River, so a couple of the activities were looking at were closed due to damage from the flood.

We lucked out with a cool little kids' science museum that was part of our membership plan. Gateway to Science is a neat little place and our boys love these hands-on science museum. We learned firsthand about magnetism, lights and mirrors, water pressure, air pressure, generating electricity, levers and fulcrums and so much more! We could not get the boys to leave, even with the promise of food!

As we were leaving Gateway to Science, Patsy said "You boys just had a month's worth of science lessons and you didn't even know it!" Getting a membership to these science museums has been a great idea as we have saved hundreds of dollars just on the few we have went too!

After the trip to the science museum we went to a local diner called Kroll's Diner. Patsy had been wanting to take the family to an old fashioned silver diner that were so big in the 1950s. Kroll's fit that bill, plus it had a German soup I was hoping to try - Knoephla Soup. It is a cream based soup with dough and potatoes and is basically yummy. Even though it was hot outside, it was cool in the diner and the soup went down just fine! We had a great time at Kroll's!

Kevin talks Boondocking

In this installment of Kevin Shutterbug, our favorite roving reporter discovers the meaning of some RV jargon – when he learns the term boondocking! Thanks again to One Way Street for making Kevin’s report about the Martins and their life on the road a reality!!

Campground review - Desert Sands in Henderson, Nevada

Looking for a cheap Rv park near Las Vegas, we got you covered here: Desert Sands RV park may not be the classiest place to stay when in Sin City, but it may be the least expensive!

Nearby attractions - 8 - Minutes from downtown Vegas. Less than a half hour from Hoover Dam.

Staff - 5 - Barely breathing, but serviceable.

Natural surroundings - 4 - Loved the view of the tattered flag in the sunset at nearby gas station.

Value - 9 - We paid $15 a night for two nights for full hook-ups, pull-through site.

Bathrooms - 3 - Pretty rough stuff kiddos.

Roominess - 8 - Sites were average length but pretty wide with a cement slab outside each one and then room enough for the car to pull alongside that.

Facility fun - 5 - Pool and sauna. Too cold for our blood.

Cleanliness - 5 - Lots of older RVs that do not run anymore. Bathroom cleaned once in awhile.

Facility usefulness - 6 - Expensive laundry facilities, no library, no wifi, propane delivered twice a week.

Overall - 4 -We are not picky Americans who need four or five star all the time. Being together and traveling means we sometimes go cheap so we can go nice later!

Get out of debt

Before we set off on our journey one major obstacle that we felt we wanted to overcome was our debt. There was no way we wanted to have the hassle of paying of auto and credit card loans while trying to realize our dream. So a big step for us in achieving this dream is to rid ourselves totally of debt. We are over half-way there in less than five months (plus we are taking a Disney world vacation next month)!

One of the keys that I felt we needed in this debt elimination battle was a plan. I had heard of Dave Ramsey from friends and on the radio, so at a conference I picked up his book The Total Money Makeover. If you are thinking of this lifestyle or have any other dream and find a wall of debt standing in your way, I highly recommend this book. I have never taken his Financial Peace University Course, but I have friends who highly recommend it as well. Check out Dave's website at http://www.daveramsey.com/!