We travelled through southern Alabama and continued through the lower portion of Mississippi and entered Louisiana with our destination New Orleans. Our initial thoughts had been to stay at a RV facility near the French Quarter but when they quoted $95 plus tax a night to stay in an inner city car-parking lot we quickly changed our minds. Instead we booked into another car parking type facility on the other side of the Mississippi River and paid just $30 a night with public transport right at the gate. This facility was very popular with travellers and each night the forty odd parks were close to full. Before arriving in a city I try to research what we would like to see and often I use the hop on hop off brochures as a guide. Okay we don't get the running commentary but we always see the sights. A visit to the visitors centre often also provides a self drive tour guide. On the first afternoon in New Orleans we were back in tourist mode after our holiday break and did the garden district walking tour. This is an old and very lovely section of the town with grand, elegant homes and gardens with quite a mixture of architectural styles. It was initially populated by the first Americans to settle in New Orleans in 1803. The walk has you meandering up and down streets with the history of some of the houses provided on the guide. I am not sure if I would like to be a property owner and have tourists standing outside my house taking photos and commenting. Some of the homes are beautifully maintained and others sadly falling behind. It was very warm and after a couple of hours wandering we had had enough. It was time for food from a fabulous large organic food shop where we were able to relax and enjoy some of the specialities. From here we did a self drive tour of some of the areas that have been redeveloped since the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Approximately eighty percent of New Orleans was affected by the hurricane so really wherever you drove within the city was possibly affected. The two areas we visited were both in what is called the Ninth Ward and very close to one of the levees that flooded. The first section was redeveloped by the generosity of Brad Pitt and some of the area is still yet to be rebuilt. The quality of the homes in the area were very low socio-economic and with no insurance available the residents relied on the generosity of others. Some of the new homes are now being lived in (it is ten years since the disaster). It seems wherever you drive in New Orleans you see damaged homes boarded up or fenced off. The second area was the Upper Ninth Ward and is now called Musician's village. Two local musicians teamed up with Habitat for Humanity and redeveloped the homes for local musicians who had lost their homes. At the time it was commenced in 2007 it was the largest scale, biggest budget and highest profile redevelopment undertaken. Next day we joined the locals and caught the bus into the city. This is a great way to see the local area and mix with the locals and have no parking worries. New Orleans has street cars, like trams, that travel all the main tourist routes and a $3 day pass covers all public transport. We were able to visit the Mississippi River waterfront, the French Market (America's oldest open air market), complete some of the walking tour of the French Quarter which is the oldest part of New Orleans and once "the" place to live and socialise. The elegant St Louis Cathedral is here alongside the Louisiana State Museum which we came too late in the day and although we only had half an hour of opening hours left we paid to go in to see the Hurricane Katrina displays which we could have spent at least a couple of hours viewing as they were so good. Once back on the street we enjoyed listening to a jazz band that had set themselves up outside the Cathedral. Bourbon Street is the well known street of bars and live music so although not my type of socialising venue, we wandered through the French quarter following the crowds. We gave a miss on entering any of the dark dingy bars and made our way to the venue suggested to us by the Visitors Centre - a hotel with live music in their lounge bar. It was so much nicer and the music was really good. From there we went to an outdoor bar where we were able to have some dinner and listen to two different jazz groups. We really enjoyed these two venues, and the street entertainers, and felt we had experienced some of the vibe of Bourbon Street without sitting in grotty bars or nightclubs. It was time to move on and initially our plan had been to travel north through Mississippi towards Memphis in Tennessee however we changed our minds. Peter had visited Texas many times over his last ten working years and we were close, within a thousand miles, and the temperatures were good, so we decided to divert to Texas. What's a few more days on the road? On the way westward we visited a Creole Planation named Laura. The guided tour with great historical explanation took us through the plantation owners mansion, garden and the 160 year old cabins where the West African slaves lived. It was really interesting to know that French was the spoken language in this area so close to New Orleans until the early twentieth century when the Americans banned its use from all schools and public buildings. We lunched at the local Creole restaurant but somehow gumbo and jambalaya didn't appeal and the special for the day of white beans on rice with catfish was left behind. In hindsight, should have tried one of these specialties. The restaurant was full and I was amused at the green plastic tablecloths covering long tables with hard wooden chairs - no luxury here but the food was excellent. We overnighted in Orange just over the border into Texas and as we drove around the outskirts avoiding Houston we diverted again to see where a power station is to be built that the company Cam works for will be building early 2016. Next stop was San Antonio which is a city that Pete has visited a number of times for work conferences and he was keen for me to visit. So early in the morning we headed to the Mexican market in market square and they just happened to have classic cars on display. Now that interests Peter but certainly not me so while he wandered around looking at every detail I people watched from nearby seating - so much better than looking at cars! The Mexican influence is very evident in San Antonio and we could easily have thought we had crossed the border which is about 145 miles south (we were tempted to drive south and cross the border just because we could but resisted). The smells and variety of Mexican food were very inviting even if we had just had breakfast. Churches, churches and more churches always seem to be on the tourist route. This time it was San Fernando Cathedral which like lots of others claimed to be the oldest cathedral sanctuary in the US built in 1734 by settlers from the Canary Islands. Another amazing building was the Spanish Governor's Palace built in 1749 with walls believed to be almost three feet thick. We found this building amazing in that all the write ups said "believed to be" so were they correct or were they making up the information? We will never know but "we believe" that National Geographic lists this attraction as a must see. More famous we thought was The Alamo where Davey Crockett along with others sacrificed their lives for Texan Independence. It was originally a Spanish Mission and became the 1836 site of the siege between the Mexicans and General Santa Anna's army. There were a group of volunteers dressed in period costumes with displays which made our visit very interesting. However, the riverwalk was what Peter really wanted me to see. The river, seemingly more like a narrow canal, meanders for about 2-3 miles through the centre of the city and the powers that be have taken full advantage of this by providing lots of access to the riverwalk on both sides of the canal. This is now a sidewalk of restaurants and cafes, lush tropical foliage, boutiques, hotels and even leads to the large shopping mall. We visited on a Saturday and the place was humming with people - so many we had to wait for a restaurant table at one of the Mexican restaurants. We will certainly remember San Antonio because of the riverwalk. Last stop for the day was yet another church. This time the Mission Concepción. This was the original church of the Friars who Christianised the Indians. Unfortunately we arrived after 5 pm and the church was locked so we couldn't view the original frescos. Again to add to the oldest tale, it is supposed to be the oldest unrestored church in the USA today. Good-bye San Antonio it was time to move on to Austin just 100 miles up the road. Again a city Peter had previously visited and enjoyed. To do the right thing first we visited the Texas Capitol Building which is still the seat of local government. The elegant building was built at a cost of $150,000 back in 1853 and on this Sunday afternoon was open to the public. It is certainly very impressive and so are the gardens. We were tiring of looking at impressive buildings etc so in keeping with the saying "keep Austin weird" we would focus on something different. We decided to check out some of the many food trucks "meals on wheels" they call it. Some of these are now permanently set in one place while many others are transient and as there was a music festival on (Austin City Limits Festival) there were crowds of people. We decided to let the younger people have the food trucks on Sunday night and waited until Monday night. What a mistake that was. Obviously the food truck people needed a night off and those we could find were mostly closed. Now we have never had a good experience with bats - live bats that is. We were living in Melbourne when the bats were relocated from the Botanical Gardens to Ivanhoe and recall the bats hovering over the Eastern Freeway. When camping in Weipa in far North Queensland we had bats in the trees dropping their waste on the roof of the caravan and that was nigh impossible to remove. Imagine Peter's comments when I said "come on we are going to Congress Avenue Bridge to see the bats". To make matters worse there were so many people already lining the bridge and we had to pay for parking! As well there were tourist boats and kayakers on the river, and people touting for donations from the tourists on the bridge. Now we were there to see supposedly up to 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats swarm from under the bridge at dusk. Well they got their timing wrong and waited until it was too dark for us to see them properly so no photos and Peter moaning about having to come and see some silly bats. One of the memories Peter had of conferences in Austin was going to Sixth Street at night and enjoying the live music in the bars. Let me tell you that in daylight Sixth Street is not impressive so we went to the 1800's Driskill Hotel and enjoyed fabulous ice cream sundaes. (Gill felt much more at home there playing ladies). In the evening after the non event of the bats we drove down Sixth Street and I have to say it did look much better with neon lights and lots of partying people even on a Monday but we didn't bother visiting any of the bars. Next stop Waco. Now Peter had visited Waco at least twice yearly all the years he worked in Melbourne and I had heard bits and pieces but he was keen to show me. It also gave Peter an opportunity to meet up with some of his past work colleagues. Now he always said Waco was small and I envisaged around 20,000 people. As we approached he said it was a bit bigger than that - now let me tell you, in the 2015 census the count was over 260,000. Just a little bigger! He tells me he only saw the hotel, the two offices of the company, and the odd restaurant and bar and thought that was Waco so he was quite surprised too at just how big it is. He enjoyed visiting his old haunts and we visited a few new ones as well just to prove there is something else here. It was our wedding anniversary so to celebrate we had dinner in a Texas Roadhouse enjoying huge Texan steaks and other local specialities - believe it or not, the first large steaks we have had in months as beef is so expensive in the shops! Peanuts in their shell are also a speciality, with the husks being thrown on to the ground. It was almost enough for me to say let's go somewhere else although I am assured it is a part of just what happens and Peter was quick to join in. He had been to that restaurant previously and knew just what was expected. We are staying in a lovely camping area adjacent to a lake and tonight our delightful neighbours delivered us freshly cooked catfish to try - some of their catch from this morning's fishing expedition. We will say good-bye to our neighbours tomorrow as we commence the long road trip back towards North Carolina - we are soon going to run out of time as we need to prepare the caravan for storage and have the repairs undertaken from when we lost the tread in our tyre early in our travels. Our departure from the USA is on the 1 November so time is moving quickly now.