Where has the time gone?
The last post made to our blog was just before we left Grassy Key and
Florida for Texas on March 1st.
Much has happen since then.
Essentially, we were interested in getting home, although the weather
seemed to be still in winter mode in North Texas; we wanted it to be spring
before we returned, so we vowed to take our time. After leaving the Keys, we wandered up across
Florida, parking occasionally for the night in different, unremarkable
places. Once we crossed the panhandle,
we stopped for a week at Bella Terra, our favorite RV Park in the Gulf Shores
area of Alabama. The weather was crappy
(wind and rain), but we enjoyed our stay as the park is first rate and the
things to do there appeal to us. We
spent some time on the beach with the Spring Break crowd that began gathering
soon after we arrived, and had a marvelous day exploring Mobile, a city we had only passed through and not spent any time exploring. This time around, however, we took a
day to wander the town some, and we liked what we saw. We visited the downtown area and had a pretty good lunch at a local bistro that catered to the local business crowd. We also explored the USS Alabama (a WWII battleship) Park, complete with war memorials and featuring a tribute to Korean Veterans.
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| Girl Gone Wild! |
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| Bella Terra Sunset |
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| USS Alabama - Mobile Bay |
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| Downtown Mobile |
Next on our agenda was a stop in Ocean Springs, Mississippi,
to see our friends from Leadville, Rick and Nancy. On our way to their home, we stopped at Bellingrath—an
early 20th century mansion and gardens created by the fellow who
owned the first Coca Cola bottling plant in Mobile. It pays well to be a soft drink baron. Bellingrath Gardens is a spectacular
place. The place was built by the
Bellingrath family and the gardens were developed over a number of years, but
it has been operated by a foundation for several decades. While spring hadn’t quite sprung in this part
of Alabama, the azaleas were in full bloom. Lots of other plants were blooming, and lots
of stuff was just budding. The mansion
was fairly nice and would suit almost anyone who needed housing. In any event, we had a pretty good couple of
hours there and then continued our journey to Ocean Springs.
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| Bellingrath Gardens |
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| Bellingrath Gardens |
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| Ocean Springs, MS - View From the Hard Rock Casino |
Since Ocean Springs doesn’t have a decent RV park, we stayed
in Biloxi. That also gives us an excuse
to go to the casinos. We had a fun
dinner out with our friends on our arrival and then lunch with them the next
day. It was great catching up with them
and finding out about all of their travels (it seems that they go more than we
do). We drink a lot of whiskey and wine
and tell tall tales (actually, most of them are true). It can be a couple of years between visits,
but we always take up where we left off and begin talking as though we had just
seen one another yesterday.
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| Friends Rick and Nancy Toasting Happy Hour in Ocean Springs |
After wrapping up our stay in Biloxi, we headed north. Normally, we go through Baton Rouge on
I-10/12. We hate every inch of that
drive. The road is crappy and always
under construction—additionally, the traffic is Satanic. How anyone can live there and function
normally is clearly beyond us. Anyway,
we decided to go through Hattiesburg and Jackson with the idea of spending the night
in Vicksburg. After sharing this routing
with Rick, he was quick to point out that I-20 from Jackson to Vicksburg was a
nightmare. He said it was rough and
bumpy and would probably beat us to death before we got to the River. Well, since it was his state, we assumed he
knew much more than we did and followed his advice for a shortcut. It turned out that he was right, and we had a
delightful shortcut through rural Mississippi that took us across the Natchez
Trace Historic Trail on our way to Vicksburg.
We spent the night in a casino RV Park in Vicksburg and had a cheapo dinner
at the Ameristar Casino on the Mississippi River located just adjacent to the
twin bridges (rail and auto) across the River.
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| Floating Casino on the Mississippi River |
After one more night on the road in East Texas, we rolled
into Denton on the day before Saint Paddy’s Day around noon.
Beginning back in Florida, we started a conversation about
what we were going to do next. After
much cussin’ and discussion, we decided that we needed to make some changes. While our travels were pretty nice and we
were having a pretty good time, the operative word became “pretty.” We don’t want pretty…we are seeking more than
that. Without boring y’all with the details,
we decided to sell our motor home and pursue other avenues of entertainment and
travel—at least for now. Initially, we
planned on putting the rig up for sale on consignment, but then the guy at the
I-35 RV Center offered to buy the thing outright, and we decided to avoid the
hassle of trying to sell it that way and took his offer.
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| A Fond Farewell! |
We are now homeless—well, motor homeless. We figure that we live in a great place here
in Texas and we might as well get the most out of it while we can, so that is
what we are doing. It has taken us a
couple of weeks to unload, give away, sell, and toss unusable things from the
rig and try to get our life here organized better. We have a long way to go before the latter
happens, but we are committed to getting it done. We don’t know when we will resume this travel
blog and we don’t have a clue to what it will look like, but don’t give up on
us.
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| We'll Be Back! |
