January 26-30, 2012: The racing season kicked off this week with the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. It is a Grand Am race, different than our usual American Le Mans series. Drivers from many different series compete in this race. The past few years we have made it a habit to attend. This year we were able to secure full-hookups, which made camping much more pleasant. Next on the list? a golf car. I was still not feeling completely up to snuff so the first night we were there Darren made me a big steaming bowl of mussels. That’ll fix you up.

The next day was practice and a Conti Tire race. That evening we fired up the grill and cooked some Whole Foods store bought chicken skewers.

The day of the race I went with Darren to the pre-race grid walk. It was really crowded so we didn’t see many cars, but Darren got some good pics. We watched the start of the race and then headed back to the RV to walk the dogs.

We are long past the days where we even consider trying to stay up for the whole 24 hours, so we were back at the RV at a reasonable time of night. Darren did get up and shoot the sunrise, but I was not even really aware of it at the time. We went back over to the track to watch the race finish.

I will finish up with some shots of our camping spot.

January 21-26, 2012: Even though I was pretty ill for most of our stay, we had a really nice visit with my family in Florida. We had lunch at Pappa Joe’s, a local favorite of ours. My mother and I made strawberry jam from some Plant City strawberries. On Tuesday, we drove up my brother’s place and he took us all to dinner at Coyote Rojo.

Pushed for time and unable to find a fun place to stop, we drive straight through from New Orleans to Dade City, FL. It was a long day, but a pleasant drive.

January 19-21, 2012: We were very excited to find an RV resort within walking distance to the French Quarter. This resort, while on the expensive side is worth it. All the site pads are made of pavers, have plenty of space, and surrounded by grass.

Cajun Palms is only about two hours drive from New Orleans. We got into town early enough to have some Gumbo for lunch at the Gumbo Shop. We rested up a bit in the afternoon and hit the French Quarter for dinner and our favorite hangout, the Erin Rose.

January 18-19, 2012: This resort could be classified as a mega-resort. There are multiple pools, one is a playground in a pool, a couple of bars, putt-putt golf, two fishing ponds, and about 300 campsites. There were about 1/10th that many campers when we stayed here. The place was a vast field of cement pads and picnic tables. None of the activites were open, but even this had been in summer we probably wouldn’t have used them anyway. Normally this is not our sort of campground, but at $35/night it was a far cry better than an iffy KOA at $45. I could see this being a wonderful family destination campground and in mid-January it suited our needs quite well.

Before leaving San Antonio, we stopped in at Tito’s for breakfast. We both ordered the Migas Plate, which comes with potatoes cooked with chorizo and refried beans. Darren had to get on a phone call for a meeting so the whole thing was a bit rushed, but we got our food to go and headed over to the Alamo. We were going to take the tour until we learned that THERE’S NO BASEMENT! Since that was all we were interested in, we just snapped some photos as we headed out of town. Our plan was to make it to Beaumont, TX, but when we got there it was early and the park we were going to stay at did not look all that promising, we decided to press on. Made it all the way to Henderson, LA, so now our drive to New Orleans tomorrow will be a short one.