Category: Blog 2019

Just a summary of my impressions and experiences for the first 10 days of our great adventure.

First of all, in the unlikely event that you would like to visit Mississippi or Louisiana I suggest you do it in January.  The nights are cool, Jane would say cold, but the days are sunny in the low 70’s very pleasant plus there is no one here.  The hotels and parks and restaurants are empty apparently not the tourist season.  Of course, there is sea food everywhere even the gas stations advertise fresh shrimp, we didn’t try it.

We did spend a day in Biloxi MS and sat through a visitor center video that focused primarily on hurricane Katrina.  There were photos of the old visitor center which was 150 years old and had with stood many hurricanes the after Katrina photo was a vacant lot.  We all heard how bad it was and most of the news coverage was in New Orleans but until you hear first person accounts of how they survived and personal accounts for those who didn’t we can’t realize how truly bad it was.  Wind wasn’t what caused the most damage it was the tidal surge of 37 feet in places they described it like a tsunami.  Years latter you still see where a building once stood now all that remains is the cement slab.

Jane and I also drove through Mexico Beach in Florida which was just hit by hurricane Michael in Oct 10, 2018.  Again, the devastation there is beyond description.  Homes and businesses completely destroyed.  1,000’s of mature trees broken in half, half-way up the trunk.  We drove to Tallahassee and even along Hwy. 10 which is 50-60 miles from the shore trees were broken in half.

We are now staying with friends, John and Cindy McCue in Miramar FL (east of Destine, FL).  They live I a wonderful golf community.  It is a large complex with 3 golf courses and many individual neighborhoods each controlled by the homeowners with an HOA.

 

Sat January 5 Gautier Miss Parking in the Dark and Gators

Pulled into Gautier (pronounced GAU chey) very late at night into Shepard State Park which is dark dark.  We have to back in the rig and this turned out to be our first trial in trying to communicate with each other.  Now working together as a married couple backing in a rig in daylight is a challenge – “little more left, no right, left…” and Ty is really good at backing in, but 1.) little rusty since we haven’t backed in for 4 months and 2.) it is so dark we can’t see anything and flashlights just aren’t cutting it.  We are old – we need floodlights!!!!  Well 20 minutes of back and forth, left and right, back and forth, I can’t see you – we finally call it good.  And all the while I think it is misty rain, turns out it is the dew from the humidity – and it is wet.  Plop into bed, exhausted.

Next morning up we go for a 3 mile hike and we neglect to ask if there are gators in the area.  We merrily tramp around the woods and swamps never giving gators a thought.  When we talked to the Ranger later and asked about the gators his reply was “Oh yeah, y’all in the south of course we have gators.  One was spotted just the other day on the boat ramp.”  Oh

Mon January 7 What did you do with my glasses?

Leaving Gautier and heading to Destin Fl to be with John and Cindy McCue for the next week.

Getting the rig ready for travel is a lot of work and Ty decides to take a shower just before we leave.  Nothing wrong with that but now he can’t find his glasses after his shower.  So he says “Did you take my glasses?  I put them right here on the sink.”  I cleaned up the inside of rig and picked up all the trash so Ty is inches from saying that I threw out his glasses.  Anyone else been there?  So I go thru the garbage not once but twice just to assure Ty that I didn’t touch his glasses.  The garbage is full of last nights steak scraps and breakfast banana peels.  Ah what we won’t do for love and peace.  Of course, I don’t find any glasses, Ty is still insisting that he put them on the counter and they must have fallen off into the garbage.  Well, long story short, we decide to leave and I open a drawer (no where near the bathroom) to get the keys and viola! There is his glasses!  He put them there in a safe spot so he would remember where he left them.  I repeat – we are old and anyone been there?

 

Friday Jan 4 finds us trying to finish up finding places to store all our stuff into Polly – she is starting to bulge.  What we can’t fit in now goes to the local “dead man’s store” (to quote my brother Willy) – I am sure we should be able to locate one.  So that took us about 4 hours to almost finish the job, so we decided enough and to explore.  But before I go any farther, let me just say that the Hidden Treasure RV park is a hidden gem.  Just west of Alexandria, in Boyce actually, LA on Lake Cotile.  Sites are far apart, it is grassy, beautiful view of the lake and the camp owners are just sweet people.

So, onto the exploring.  Went into the town of Natchitoches (pronounced “nak-A-tish” which I fell in love with!  So quaint, old houses with big pillars up on stilts sitting right on the Cane River Lake.  Lake? Wait my brain does not compute river-lake.  Seems back in 1860 they decided to dam up both ends of the river and made it a lake, but it still looks like a river to me.  Anywho this is just a darn cute very active town.  First, we went to Fort St Jean Baptiste, the oldest fort in the Louisiana Purchase and it was moved 3 times.  Seemed they couldn’t figure out that rivers rise and water damages.  Fort was manned by 6 infantry and 4 officers which is about the same ratio of women to men also at the fort during its time.

Then back into town to take the walking house tour which included the cemetery.  Natchitoches is the oldest town in the LApurchase and by the looks of the cemetery (final resting spot, no pun. of the fort (actually it was reconstructed back to original site for the tourist) and the graves sites this place is old.

Ate dinner of crayfish etouffee at Mayeaux’s (we are feeling at home with all the French around here) that was excellent.

Tomorrow we pack up camp and head for Gautier MI on the Gulf – hopefully the weather will warm up a bit.  Woke up to degrees cloudy and not suppose to get much warmer around here so we are outta here.  BRRRRR

June 2017 we toyed with the idea to become “Full Timers” which is RV speak for living in a Recreation Vehicle full time.

So we pondered awhile, looked at different options, then we pounced!  Sold the house, sold our belongings, packed up what was left, said our good-byes and made a commitment to stick it out for 365 days.

And so it begins January 2, 2019 (weather dependent as we don’t want to travel in a snowstorm (reality is we are going to a New Year’s Eve party and may need a day to recover))