June 4th Road to the Regional

The Bradys are underway, 6 plus hours of driving from Indy to Priceville, AL today. At least we got to see our first lighthouse of the trip just over the Alabama border.. Big, tall light but we couldn't go inside and couldn't climb the outside..





Atlas Lighthouse at the Welcome Center in Alabama U.S.A.!!

Now Paul, surly you don't think that anyone could mistake this for a Lighthouse?

That is a rocket from the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, AL, south of the Rest Area where you viewed it, and just north of Priceville.

However, it does look a little like the Lighthouse that we are going to see at Sabine Pass

Yep.. My Army schooling was done at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville - about 11 months spent there learning how to repair the Pershing Missile. Then I got assigned to a unit in Germany where the mission was to keep the Pershings in operating condition.

First day I arrived at the unit, they asked me if I knew how to type. "Sure," I replied.

And I never touched the Pershing Missile again. The Army figures it cost them $45,000 to train me. 30 enlistees entered the class, only 4 graduated. My friend who was assigned to the same unit in Germany became the mailman.

Go figure.

What happened to the 26 enlistees who flunked out of the course? They went to Infantry School for 8 more weeks and then were shipped to Viet Nam.

Anyway, there was (and probably still is) a nice display of early rockets on the Arsenal -- including a Redstone and the Saturn that launched the moonshots (laying on it's side -- at least it was 40 years ago.)

Hey John, .. Were those repairs to be made before or after the deployment of the Pershing Missle? (LOL!)

Bob

It was quite a sight, sticking up out of the trees, after being on the road for 6 hours and it was sort of our lighthouse guiding us to Priceville and safe harbor for the night.. We have a little over 5 hours yet to drive today to our hotel in New Orleans..

June 5th


For Mombo to enjoy..




The first three images are from the welcome center just across the border into Mississippi..



A group of Wacko's let loose on New Orleans..


What can't a group of Wacko's do? Decide on a place to eat dinnet, that's what!!

A familiar New Orleans Landmark, not very many vendors around the square.


Our Hotel, Le Richelieu has made it all of the way back from the flooding as has most of the French Quarter that we have seen so far..


This is shot from my chair inside the courtyard of the Hotel..


If I turn the camera this way you can see what's in the middle of the courtyard, a very nice pool..
It's everybody that's here so far playing tourist tomorrow, Bill's flying in at 5:30PM, then on to lighthousing on Saturday and the Regional..

June 6th


Our courtyard in the morning sun..


A close-up of the flowers on the tall plant just to the right of center..


Some flowers on a building walking to do some shopping in the French Quarter..


After doing some shopping we went in the St. Louis Cathedral (the air conditioning was welcoming us)


It is the oldest continuously active Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States, built in 1727..


Sue and I had visited it many years ago with my mom on a trip through New Orleans after visiting the West..

Probably one of the signature images of New Orleans is the statue of General Andrew Jackson in front of the St. Louis Cathedral..


as a postcard..


or from the other side of the square just in the background..


We then went to the Court of Two Sisters for a late brunch.. Great setting and just as great food.. I first went there when I was nine with my parents..


Our Hotel once more but early in the day than yesterday's picture which was in early evening light.

Thanks for showing these pictures.
I am so glad to see that New Orleans looks fantastic again!
More please

Thanks for the photos Paul. Although I can't be there in person it's sort of like New Orleans here right now. We're in the midst of a heat wave. Tomorrow's supposed to be 95. Yesterday was hot too at our museum's all day PeonyFest so we had lots of beautiful flowers in the garden, as well as welcoming air conditioning inside the one-room schoolhouse! Also I'm currently reading Charles Kuralt's America in which he traveled and spent a month each in some his favorite places the year following his retirement. January he spent in New Orleans. He was smart to not go there when it was HOT.

Hope everyone is having a great time and surviving the heat. I know I was whipped after yesterday!

Great photo's Paul !!!

Got any more ???

There will be plenty more after I catch my breath.. We have been on the road yesterday and on the boat today non-stop.. Sue and I are now apart from the group heading East for some Florida lights before heading North and home in a couple of days..

I can tell you that we raised quite a bit of money for the restoration of New Canal. I will get in more detail when I start catching up with the images..

I have a very poor Internet connection tonight so I am not even going to fight it tonight..

Since I did not join the group for the additional lighthousing journey, I arrived home today after some good flights on Jet Blue.

Dave did a great job with the Regional, it was great to see Bill work his magic, we did raise some money for the New Canal restoration, Tony and HL did a great job with the prizes (all AP's), and we heard about new shipments and got a chance to see a 2009 mystery light. You should have been there! Thanks to HL and all for giving us Regionals this year.

JJ, Dave got a call from Anne today and she said their group received over $5600 gross in funds from our group for the New Canal Lighthouse rebuilding project... That included donations, auctions, ticket sales, HL lighthouse sales (which is why the total is gross, they still have to pay their dealer rate to HL) and items that they already had to raise funds with, less their costs on those.. Quite a Grand Total!!

WOW... WHAT A TRIP! This was another one of Dave's wonders. This was probably the lest number of lights seen with the most number of miles traveled, that Dave has ever put together. But we DID see every light possible in three States! It's such a sham that there aren't more lights here along the Gulf Coast still standing. But Hurricanes have wiped out so many that once were.

Dave... here's another At-a-boy in your hat! You did another GREAT JOB! And we THANK YOU!

For those of you who missed this trip and the Regional.... you really missed out!

... there is only one thing to say to that: WOW! Well done HL et al!!!!

As for the trip ... boy am I green with envy! I have long wanted to go to New Orleans, but never had the chance and as for the Gulf lighthouses ... Sigh ....

Sounds like a great time was had by all! Great job Dave!

Sounds like everybody had a lot of fun. Can't wait to see pictures.

Maybe 2009 will be my year to start attending regionals.

I made it to the regional with whole family (four kids and granddaughter).
Had lots of fun and learned some secrets from Tony that we were all sworn to secrecy.
There are some things I can talk about and will start a post tonight on at least one of them.
It is called variations.

Very interesting... I always felt that purposely supplying a very limited amount of variations would make things more interesting for collectors, especially if they were lucky enough to purchase one. Maybe I'm reading your thoughts incorrectly, Dan. Maybe they are going to reproduce lights already released but do so as a variation from the original. I will await your posts to see what you have to share with us.

Bob

We got back home at 1:30 this morning. It was a great trip. Dave did a wonderful job. It was so nice to meet everyone.

We are home and resting after a wonderful time in New Orleans. Dave H did a fantastic job and we thank him for all his hard work.
It was so good to see all of our HL friends. Feels more like a family reunion. Oh did I say reunion!!!
We had tons of fun and I really love hearing all the scoop first hand- oh you should have been there.
Always great to see and talk to Bill, hear secrets from Tony and spend time with everyone. Thanks to JJ for making us feel so good- such a nice man. We've been away for awhile but not out - so glad we could share New Orleans Great Job Dave.

Well here's a couple of breakfast pictures while we wait for Paul to rest up and post some more.


Paul and Sue Brady with Bill Younger


Rip and Sharon Puls with.... (help me out here I don't know the names.)



It would realy help us to learn everybodys name if everyone would ware the name badges that Dave makes up for us. As usual only a few did.

That was Sandy so I guess the other at the table was Stan from CT

Great pctures Paul! Makes me think I'm back there.

June 7th the Regional

I will add captions later. I will do Dave's trips (June 8th and 9th) after the Regional in an additional thread as this one is a little long to load up..

Forward to images of June 8th and 9th Sabine Pass to Mobile Bay

3 more pic's to add to Pauls last 3 above.

This one I posted in another thread, but go's well here too.



Here's Dave and Judy a Prejeans.


And one of Bill Reeder.