Heading into Florida

Friday, March 30, 2012 Day 292
We drove and drove today..or at least it seemed like it. It was raining when we left Mississippi this morning, and it rained all day as we crossed Alabama into Florida.

We occasionally saw the sun break through the clouds. This is what the backroads look like...lots of trees and fields.

We don't even know the name of this little town...we passed through a few of these today, and Harris wanted a picture. Just to show the size, I guess!

By early afternoon we were traveling through thunderstorms...with very, very heavy rain.

....and a sun breaking through the clouds...

It's hard to see in this picture (which we had to hurriedly take as we passed by), but there was an accident that made us detour around the small highway onto back roads again. It looked like a tractor-trailer jack-knifed onto the side of the road.
We ended up at an RV park called Pine Lake outside Panama City, Florida. It's still raining...and the bathroom leak is back. sigh
Total 320 miles

Natchitoches (Where Steel Magnolias was filmed)

Thursday, March 29, 2012 Day 291

Harris took an early morning picture of our campsite in Louisiana before we left.

We drove just a few miles and stopped in Natchitoches, which is the oldest continuously occupied city in the Louisiana Purchase. We had to look up the dates, and yes, it’s a few years older than New Orleans! It is a lot smaller than New Orleans, but has some of the same architectural details. There is a mix of Indian, Spanish, French, and American cultures here, as various groups came in and pushed others out.
The little park around the visitor’s center is beautiful.

We loved seeing these big live oak trees. They look like they’d be so much fun to climb!

Roque House was built in 1796.

We walked across the bridge to get a geocache, and took a picture of Howie.

A picture of the main tourist street.

Neat benches on the street with names built in...perhaps the donor's name?

Prud’homme-Rouquier House, built sometime in the 1790. These names are from the founding families.

The house that was used in the movie ‘Steel Magnolias’.

That's it for pictures...after this we just drove and drove, again on the back highways and byways...lots of green fields and trees. We were passed by many logging trucks, hauling long skinny logs...not much by PNW standards!
We ended up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at the Okatoma Resort and RV Park. Because we were coming in from backroads and not the freeways, our little Tom-tom led us through the smallest farm roads we've been on yet. But we made it! (and the wifi was sketchy, so we had to post it today.)
Total miles: 300

Leaving Texas

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 Day 290

We left Gun Barrel City, TX this morning. The clouds were moving in, but it's still going to be a hot day. We've enjoyed seeing the desert turn to shrubs to trees to forests as we've moved east. As we move into Louisiana, we notice a lot more green fields and forested areas.

Because we're choosing to drive on highways instead of freeways, we see lots of ranches and farm areas. Houses are few and far between. We've seen mobile homes and big fancy mansions, all within a few miles of each other.

Another picture of the forests we're encountering here as we move into Louisiana.

Here is our campsite for tonight, at Ajax Country Livin' Rv park, in Ajax, Louisiana.

There is a small pond here with fish and even 2 alligators, although we have not seen them yet!
Total miles driven today =168

Gun Barrel City, Texas

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 Day 289

We stopped about 5 miles from our starting point at Texas Hill Country Furniture, just to take a look around.

There were lots of rockers on the porch, and comfortable gliders.

And a beautiful bathtub inside the store."Handcrafted of Texas Mesquite, requiring over 960 hours to make"....and costs about $8000. Too bad Howie's not big enough to pack this home!

Next door was a small restaurant, which served something Harris just had to try: fried pie. We ordered a peach one, and it was so delicious!

In the parking lot of the furniture store, there is the official World's Largest Rocking chair...25 feet, 10 and 1/2 inches tall, 12 feet 7 inches wide, weighing 5,672 pounds. Howie looks a little small by comparison.

One of the beautiful buildings we saw as we drove through Granbury, which had quite a large historic district.

After we set up our camp, Harris rode his bike back towards town to find 3 geocaches. Then he
grilled chicken and we enjoyed our dinner outside....still warm at 7 PM.

Sunset at the park...Lakeridge RV park in GunBarrel City.

Total miles driven today= 166

Santo, Texas

Monday, March 26, 2012 Day 288

R and R day. We liked this RV park so much, we decided to stay here an extra day and do our laundry and just be lazy. We lounged around today, mostly in the shade, read books, talked to people in the park and did a little geocaching. The weather's been beautiful, 80's, sun and blue skies.

The one thing this great campground didn't have was a dump station so Harris being resourceful got a 20 oz styrofoam cup and used that as an adapter to dump at the campsite. This will be remembered for future use. (The campsite drains aren't as wide as the dump station and therefore the hose can't be put down the drain very far)

At one point during the day a caravan of large class A rigs entered and parked one row behind us and down a ways. Then there was a flurry of activity as 4 women stepped down from their rigs and set up camp. We were sure there was a story there and later Harris found out that all four of them are full timers and spend their winters in Mexico and then find places to visit on their way north for the summer. This time they are staying here a few days and making their way to a "singles" jamboree farther south in Texas (where line dancing is on top of their things to do). Too bad we weren't sticking around because we're sure they have a bunch of stories that they could tell.

The fearsome foursome standing in front of their rigs.

We took our bikes and went geocaching. Harris decided to do one that was a couple of miles away in a cemetery. He said it took as long to find the bison tube as it did to ride there and back! Meanwhile Judy tried out the pool (cold) and the hot tub (warm). Harris talked Judy into a milkshake at the ice cream shop in the RV office--they were wonderful!

In the afternoon the neighbors came over to the fence for a friendly visit.

And awhile later, this was what we saw 30 feet from us as we grilled our steak (ironic) for dinner.

Total miles driven today = zero! (even better gas mileage!)

Abilene, Texas

Sunday, March 25, 2012 Day 287

Another clear, beautiful morning. Harris took a picture of the sunrise before we took a walk down a country road.

Country roads have horses watching us go by.

And in Texas, the country roads have oil pumps too. To us they look like dinosaurs, or some other strange creature.

Harris is really enjoying taking country roads, because there is very little traffic and he can putz along at 55 which gives us great gas mileage.

The sign over the door reads, "Newspaper office"...no official name for the newspaper, just the noun.

Country roads sometimes take you through little towns like this one, with a sign that wants you to know it's "A genuine Texas town"...as opposed to what? a fake town?

We stopped for one attraction in Abilene...a museum called "Frontier Texas!". It's an interesting place, trying to tell the story of the Texas frontier from the years between 1780 and 1880. It uses videos, displays and holograms to tell stories of explorers, pioneers, Indians, slaves, military men, cowboys and ranchers. It was a great place to visit!

Sunset found us at an RV place called Coffee Creek RV, in a town called Santo, not too far from Ft. Worth.
Total miles driven today=209 (gas mileage is almost 26mpg when driving 55mph)
Harris is a confirmed convert to "slower is better"!

National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, TX

Saturday, March 24, 2012 Day 286

We left this morning right after breakfast, and took little highways all the way to Lubbock. Harris had just picked a place on the map that was to the east, and then looked up things to do there. One thing that came up was the National Ranching Heritage Center.

This turned out to be a great place to visit. It is a unique museum and historical park comprised of almost 50 authentic, furnished ranch buildings and structures. They represent the history of ranching from the 1780s to the 1950s, and have been moved here mostly from other places around Texas.
The first one was Lost Corralitos built in 1780. It has no windows, only six slots in the walls for rifles.

This was an example of a half dug-out house, built in 1888.

Judy enjoyed seeing old quilts on some of the beds inside some houses.

And of course, two old school teachers had to have a picture of the Bairfield Schoolhouse built in 1890.

These doors are for a coach house. Notice the small openings at the bottom? They were for the barn cats, who helped keep the rodent population in check.

Another interior, but we forget which building!

This building, called Las Escarbadas, 1886, was a division headquarters for the XIT ranch...which had over 3 million acres, at the time the largest fenced ranch in the US.

This house was built in 1904. Because they didn't have much wood, they used parts of Yucca plants for the walls. They built double walls and filled the space between with dirt.



There are many different types of buildings, from homes to schoolhouses, to carriage houses, sheep hospital shed, bunkhouse, etc...we enjoyed touring the grounds. (It did get a little hot for Judy, at a high today of 87 degrees.)
We left here and drove to the RV park called Post View, just outside the town of Post. Harris was happy once more because he was able to get wifi even though the RV park didn't offer it.

Total miles driven today = 225 (Diesel was relatively cheap at 3.85 in West Lubbock; the cheapest it's been on the entire trip)