2025.01.01 Recap of 2024

We have always enjoyed ourselves in New Orleans and this year was no different. We always have a great campsite in Chalmette. This year we enjoyed a visit from Pat, D'Arcy's brother. We arranged with Kent , Bert's son , the owner of our campsite in Chalmette  for Pat to stay on Burgundy near the French Quarter. On his first night we walked down the street to Buffa's where they had Karaoke and D'Arcy sang "Runaway" and Pat sang "For What is Worth." We took Pat to see the Chalmette Battleground where the Battle of New Orleans was fought.

We enjoyed the music of New Orleans.  D'Arcy sat in with the bands down here like John Lisi and Delta Funk's Super Most Fantastic Blues and Such Jam at Café Negril on Frenchmen and Danny Alexander at Dmac's. Someone on Facebook told D'Arcy about another place that has jams so we went to "The Spotlight" in Metairie. We went three times before it was time to leave New Orleans to head back to Canada.  In fact, I celebrated my birthday there with cake and candles but fewer than my age. Ha! Ha!  As if he does not play enough instruments, D'Arcy bought a Trumpet to try to play. 

Back in Canada we celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary.  Then in June we visited with our friends Charlene and Brian.  Then it was off to Oshawa where we stayed with D'Arcy's brother Ken and his wife Mary.  We visited with D'Arcy's sister Monica as well as his sister Maureen and her husband George.  D'Arcy even played at a jam while we were there.

Then off to Montreal to visit my brother Alan. While there we also visited Crystal. Alan's daughter and her husband Gabby and their son Louis.  We joined in the celebration of Crystal's birthday.  Crystal's son, Louis, who has the same name as Louis Armstrong, played D'Arcy's trumpet.  He amazed everyone by actually playing a few notes.  Melissa's daughter, Calla, also played it.  While in Montreal we went to visit Mom, Dad and my brother Norman at Mount Royal Cemetery.

Before leaving Montreal we had brunch with D'Arcy's cousins, Tim and Brian.  Their friend Natasha  also joined us.  Then off to Stittsville to see my other brother Robert and his lovely wife Laura. While there we were visited by his daughters Melissa and Taylor.  Taylor's fiance Matt was also there.  D'Arcy also played at a jam run by his old friend Reif.

Then off to Pickering to see D'Arcy's sister Monica again and Monica's son Steve and his wife, Leanne.  Since it was Canada Day we went upstairs to see her neighbour Emiline to see some fireworks. We stayed that night at Monica's and the next day D'Arcy helped Monica with some computer work.  We had dinner with Monica and her grand children Quinn and Owen and then drove back home to McGregor.

We celebrated D'Arcy's  seventy-fourth birthday by travelling to Point Pelee.  Point Pelee is a Natural Park in Essex County and is in southwestern Ontario, Canada where it extents into Lake Erie.  It is so far south that at the tip it is further south than the California border.  I took a picture of D'Arcy standing at the 42nd parallel We walked all around the marsh on the boardwalk.  It was a 1 km walk.  We saw a swan feeding there. We then had a lovely supper at The Beach House Grill.  We used to go to the Beach House all the time for breakfast when we lived in Kingsville.

We bought a new RV in Wildwood.  Unlike the Landmark it was fixed in place but came with a beautiful lot.  We thought that we were going to travel by car from now on.  However, we decided that we still wanted to travel by RV so we bought a new truck and traded our Landmark for a beautiful RiverStone RV.

In November we headed to Phoenix, AZ where we spent a month visiting with Norma, Peter, Agnes and Chris, D'Arcy's sisters and their husbands.  D'Arcy played at a few jam sessions while we were there.  We also made a visit to Mexico where we got new glasses and had some dental work done.

In December we visited Mexico again for some follow-up work on our teeth and then header for New Orleans.  We moved into our usual campground in Chalmette.  D'Arcy played at some open jams and also sat in with some friends at a few places.