The Myrtles Plantation & Vicksburg

First, a quick update on our tree damaged house. With the explicit help of neighbor Paul, our insurance agent, and a very efficient contractor, the offending tree has been fully removed and the roof temporarily secured. The contractor assures us that it's now totally stable and water-protected until we get home to oversee the repair. We are SO VERY thankful.  We wondered if this tree incident might call a halt to our once in a lifetime RV trip, but it looks like we'll be able to continue. :-)  If, perchance you didn't know about our unfortunate tree experience, please check the previous post.  The photos say it all.

This post will be a long one with lots of photos. I'm combining two sightseeing stops in one post this time.  Number One: The Myrtles Plantation. We were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana a few days ago, and made a 30 mile trip north to a "haunted" plantation called The Myrtles.  They say they are one of the "most haunted" homes in America.  Well, this was something that needed checking out!  Haunted or not, I just love these plantation homes!  

First view of the plantation home as we drove into the driveway.

Here's Suz going over the little bridge towards the gazebo.  The pond (which looks green and brownish here) was full of water - with some sort of living substance floating on the top.  Not at all sure what it is.

We then took the tour inside.  Unfortunately, they didn't allow any photos at all --- EXCEPT --- photos of the "haunted mirror".  Well, yes, of course we had to see what we could capture on "film".  The only thing of any interest is a small orb-like flash of light (not associated with the camera flash) in the upper left quadrant of the mirror. 

If you read The Help, then this will make sense to you. I love it. This was inside the restaurant at The Myrtles. 

This statue was out in the front garden. What a setting!

Another view of our garden statue as we bid The Myrtles farewell.  It was an interesting place to visit.  I just wish the tour included the upstairs.  It was the downstairs only.  The guide who took us around was great, though. 

After returning to our campground, Jinx was ready for a bit of fresh air, so his daddy took him on a walk :)   People always stare when we take Jinx out for a walk in his pink, bone-embroidered, dog jacket.  Why I don't know, but they just do!  One guy hollered at me in a strong southern accent, "you are an amazing person, to get that cat to go for a walk!" I don't know about amazing, but we were persistent, and he now runs for the door, as soon as his jacket is on. :-)  

A few days later, we made the drive from Baton Rouge due north to Vicksburg, Mississippi.  There was some discussion about skipping this leg of the trip and continuing in a westerly manner, however since the weather has taken a considerable turn for the better, we went ahead with it.  Vicksburg is about 140 miles from B.R.  I knew little to nothing about it, except that there was a national military park there, and that there had been a major battle there during the US Civil War. We found a place to camp near the Mississippi River, called the Ameristar Casino RV Park.  This time we didn't enter the casino, not once. On a cloudy but warm day, we went to the battlefield. Sightseeing stop Number Two: Vicksburg National Military Park.

We arrived here knowing really very little about this particular battle.... but it didn't take long for us to learn all about it.  First we watched an informative movie in the visitors center and then we took off on the "Road Tour", which is approximately 16 miles.  Such a shame, the whole Civil War thing.

One of the battlefields.  One may ask, "who won this battle?" Technically, the Union won.... but so many lives were lost.  The Confederates held off the Union from May until July 1863, but the Union Army & Navy surrounded Vicksburg and finally the Confederates surrendered due to the inability of supplies to get through.

A close up of the Ohio monument which is shown from a distance above. Most, if not all of the states on both sides of the war have monuments and statues placed in the park to honor their war dead.

A row of cannon, overlooking a battlefield.

A large statue of Ulysses S. Grant - one of the generals involved in the battle of Vicksburg.  The other general was John C. Pemberton. 

Part of the Vicksburg National Cemetery. The small square grave markers below denote unknown soldiers.

The larger markers actually have names engraved.

Scattered here and there were plaques with rather solemn poems on them. I'll only post one here.  Rather sad, but apropos. (pardon the bird poo)

This photo shows the number of soldiers interred here. The vast majority were unknown. 

A pleasing view of the "mighty Mississip" from the high bluffs of the park.

The cat-mommy beside another one of the state's monuments.

One more plaque, reminding us that during that horrible war, brothers fought against brothers.... cousins against cousins.  We can only hope that our differences never cause us to take up arms against one another again. We are all Americans and should remember President Lincoln's words, "A house divided against itself cannot stand". 

History lesson done for today.  Next up..... well, think of Paul Simon's song....

"We're going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee......"

True disaster strikes

We interrupt our regular scheduled blog post with breaking news.  Breaking. Literally. On Saturday night, after watching some of the Winter Olympics we retired for the evening.  At approximately 10:30 pm the cell phone rang. It was our neighbor Candy informing us that disaster had struck our home in Washington state.  A tree had fallen onto our property.  Honestly, this did come as a huge shock to us, although it shouldn't have. We live in a forest. Trees fall every winter, and every winter some unfortunate souls have to deal with the aftermath.  We spoke with nearly all our neighbors that awful night, with each of them trying to describe what they saw.  It all sounded pretty bad.... and it was.  The next morning we saw with our own eyes just HOW bad.  Sometimes pictures really do "speak a thousand words". 

This huge tree, according to our neighbors, fell from across the street (from the forest) and apparently was/is rotten in places.  The portion that hit our home is just the TOP part of the tree.  There is a 80+ foot portion of this tree still remaining in the ground.  I get the feeling that the part that hit our home broke off - possibly  from the section shown here.  

This shot shows our neighbor Paul giving some perspective as to how huge the remaining trunk of the tree is.

This next photo made me want to cry. Our lovely little home, so violated. :(

A front view of the damage. 

This angle shows some of the roof damage. 

Enough whining... or as the Brits say, "whingeing". This could have been SO much worse.  If our car or our motor home would have been in the driveway, well, it would be ruined.  Thankfully, no PEOPLE (or pets!) were near when the unfortunate impact occurred.  The damage itself could have been SO much worse.  Yes, we'll need repair and re-roofing done, but that's why we have insurance and have paid our premiums for years with nary a claim, till now.

On another note, we really want to thank our wonderful, thoughtful, caring, concerned, and helpful neighbors. Without them, facing this disaster would be SO much more difficult.  We love you all!

One last pic.... to show there can be humor, even in the face of disaster.... 

Gotta love that wild, crazed deer, who seems quite shocked at the "carnage"! Yep, it was photo shopped in by our neighbor Brian, who has a knack of making the awful, a little bit less so.

We now will resume our regularly scheduled RV travel blog, with a plan to follow up from time to time with updates in the tree removal and repair process as it happens.  It's so awesome that our insurance company already has a guy/crew working on it today, as (no shock) a lot more rain is expected in our neck of the woods in Washington. 

Fun in Florida!

Here we are, dipping our toes into the cold Gulf of Mexico in the state of Florida.  We were so happy to be here,  to visit with our friends, and experience all that Pensacola had to offer.  We have to say, our travel guides - AKA friends Irv and Elaine, did a great job showing us around a place where they lived for over 30 years.  

The first evening we arrived, we settled in to camp and then drove the 8 miles or so from Fort Pickens campground to I & E's condo in Pensacola Beach.  It was fun to get to see their lovely condo and also to use a proper flush toilet. Just keepin' it real, folks! Ahhh the joys of non-RV toilet paper.  Sorry, TMI I'm sure, but it's been many weeks since spending any negligible time whatsoever inside a home, instead of a motor home.  

We like to think that I & E's dogs remember us....  You can see Dazie in this next photo, snuggling up to John.  Hey, whoever said we were "cat people"? We love dogs, too.... as long as we are not the dog-owner! 

The first evening, we decided to get some fresh seafood at a wonderful restaurant, Peg Leg Pete's.  Elaine snapped this one of us getting up close and personal with Pete himself!  

I tried a new food at Peg Leg Pete's.  Grouper. People, if you have not had grouper, you need to give it a try!  Delicious! 

The next morning we woke again to gorgeous sunny skies.  Here we are, out to lunch at a place called Atlas. Yep, warm enough to eat outside, gotta love that!  

It was here that we both tried the WORLD FAMOUS "grits a ya-ya".  Let me preface this by saying that I personally love grits, but you don't need to love them to love "grits a ya-ya".  This was FAN-tastic, folks!  They mix the grits with smoked gouda cheese and Lord knows what else, then top them with perfectly spiced grilled shrimp.  Yes, I most definitely snapped a photo of this outstanding dish....

The hubs and I shared an order of the shrimp and grits, as well as a side order of the quintessential southern favorite, fried green tomatoes. Lawd have mercy, this was one incredible meal!  Here are the tomatoes:

After brunch, we made our way to the Pensacola Naval Air Museum.  Another fabulous place!  We took a trolley tour around the outside grounds and then checked out the huge inside area.  

There are simulators inside and John decided to go try out the Blue Angels fighter pilot cockpit simulator. I didn't consider this for even a moment as I knew if I did, I'd lose that stunning brunch that I'd so recently consumed. John survived it beautifully and lost not one of the grits a ya-ya. 

After the museum, we went back to the motor home, packed up an overnight bag, said good bye to Jinx, and went back to I & E's condo for a night in a real bed and a morning in a real shower. Heaven.  We had a lovely dinner and visit that evening, a nice sleep, and the next day, a pleasant shower.  

Morning broke bright and sunny. We had a delightful breakfast with our hosts and then drove back to the motor home where a none-too-happy feline awaited us.  He showed his disgust with our abandoning him by promptly throwing up his kitty breakfast.  Okay Jinx, we get it.  Don't ever ever leave you all night again.  Of course we felt slightly guilty that he had been trapped inside for quite a while, so it was outside for Jinx shortly after we returned home.  It was then that an animal came out of the thick brush.

Luckily, John had a good grip on Jinx's leash at that moment.... Jinx made a crazed run towards the armadillo!!!  Here's a snap of Jinx and John right after Jinx had been "reeled" back in.  He really wanted to go out there and get that thing!

John wandered as close as possible to the armadillo and got this shot:

Okay, we may have all gone a little "armadillo crazy". It was the first one we'd ever seen, in person!  

There were lots of Great Blue Heron nests in trees near us.  I took a photo of one, waaaaaay up there.

You can see that the clouds were starting to form from the Heron photo above. We were in for a WILD NIGHT from Mother Nature that evening.  But first, we went out to Fort Pickens with Irv and Elaine.  Needless to say, they've been there oodles of times but were gracious to escort us to this interesting historical place. Here are Suz and Elaine ambling in to the fort. Let me amend that. Elaine is ambling.  Suz is hobbling.  It's pathetic, really.

Here is another view of three of us, checking out the fresh water cisterns... or something like that.

We drove to the seashore after visiting Fort Pickens. This is the most beautiful white sand beach I have EVER seen.  The sand is really soft and hard to walk in, but sooooo pretty and clean.  As you can see from the next photo, the clouds were really taking over by now.  Pretty, nevertheless.

We enjoyed one more dinner with I & E before returning to our motor home for the evening.  During the night we were awakened at 4 am to the most torrential rain we've ever experienced while in the motor home.  Maybe ever. It was insane!  There were huge claps of thunder, bright flashes of lightning, and winds that were really shaking the coach. We even broke all our rules and let frightened Jinx onto the bed with us.  It was something else, I'll tell you!

In the morning, I woke feeling pretty cruddy.  Unfortunately, I had a sore throat and knew I was coming down with something.  The next day was another nasty one - weather wise, and we didn't really get the chance to say goodbye face to face to our friends. I continued to feel rotten and was simply not up to socializing.  So, we spent an extra night at the Fort Pickens campground, waiting for the weather to break, and for Suz to feel better.  Let me put it this way..... the weather broke.  

Here's a snapshot of the road as we headed out of the Gulf Shores National Seashore.  The wind and rain of previous days pushed a lot of sand over the road and yes, they had to plow the roadway again.

Seriously, it looks like snow, doesn't it?!!  

We left Florida and began our trek westward.  Be watching for the next post soon.... it could be a bit shocking!  Bye for this time - from John, Jinx, and Suz - the carrier of a full and proper cold.

Mississippi to Florida

Hello everyone!  When we last spoke, we were headed to Florida to visit with friends Irv and Elaine.  We didn't have any internet access while in the Florida campground, so we're updating the blog now that we are back in Louisiana. Five days ago, we said farewell to Bay St Louis and drove along the Gulf  of Mexico coastline, off the interstate freeway system. There were many gorgeous homes along Highway 90, here's just one.

As we got closer to Biloxi there were some pretty cute shops/stores. Gator city and Sharkhead appear to force customers to walk through some rather ominous looking sets of teeth!

Since we were driving slower (not on the freeway) we had a little visitor come up front to hang out with mom and dad for a while.  He has sure become a great little traveler. :)

Soon we were driving through downtown Biloxi, a smallish city, known for it's casinos.  No, we didn't stop and try our luck.

Next up was downtown Mobile, Alabama.  Looked like a nice place, but we kept plugging along towards our destination.

Finally, we'd made it. Florida. Folks, Florida is a LONG way from our home in Washington... we were overjoyed to know we were finally here.

Our campground was at Fort Pickens, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The drive to the park was pretty amazing. Here is our driver taking us right past those incredible white sand dunes.  

It's such a narrow strip of land that in places you can see the ocean and the bay on each side.  This next photo almost shows that, but not quite. They literally have to PLOW the sand off the road from time to time, depending on the wind and weather.

Upon arrival at any campsite, one of our first "duties" is to take Jinx the RV cat out of the RV for a look around.  The person walking the cat wanted to be cropped out of this photo, so it looks like Jinx is walking himself!  He loved this place (on the sunny days). Lots of nature to explore! Next time we'll show you some of the nature we encountered.

The next post will be all about our little adventure in Florida plus the visit with our friends.  It was pretty satisfying to make it to our most easterly destination on this leg of the trip.  We spent five nights at Fort Pickens... one extra due to very nasty weather that sometimes happens in the Sunshine State!  More coming soon!!