I Have Gone Around the Bend (of Florida, That Is)

My last sunrise at Biloxi

Last weekend, I blogged from Biloxi's back bay, where I stayed free for two nights at the Palace Casino, in a lot that was right on the water.  I was about to leave town, when my RVing friend Lelia mentioned on FaceBook that she was sorry she had missed me while I was in Biloxi.  Well, I was still there!  

Me and Lelia

So Lelia, her husband Rick, and I had a really great breakfast at IHOP.  I love finally meeting online friends in person!  Lelia and her husband, whom she calls The Ole Vet, stay at those great family camps on military bases.  It was fun to learn about their life today and about the exciting careers they both had.  

 My Camping World campsite backed up to the woods, and this squirrel and I watched each other

My next stop after Biloxi was Robertsdale, Alabama, where I stayed overnight free at Camping World.  This Camping World store even has free water and electric hookups and a free dump station!  Also, free coffee, cookies and popcorn inside.  

 Pamela and me

Even better, it turned out that my friend Pamela, whom I've known for probably 10 years or more online from playing a fun word game, lives only about 10 minutes away.  So we had a super breakfast and great conversation on Monday morning.  

 Kadi and me on the beach

I had hoped to see more of the Alabama coast, especially Gulf Shores, but by the time I ran a couple of quick errands after breakfast, I needed to start heading east because I was meeting up with another friend, Kadi.  I had snagged a one-night reservation at Fort Pickens Campground at the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and Kadi was available to come camping with me.  We had a great time catching up since we had last visited in person in the Southwest.  

 Very abbreviated information about Geronimo and the other 200 or so Apaches who were imprisoned at Fort Pickens

I stopped in to visit the museum at Fort Pickens after Kadi and I left the campground.  I knew I'd heard the name of the fort before, but it wasn't until I saw the museum displays that I realized where.  Fort Pickens is where the United States Army imprisoned Geronimo and about 200 other Apaches who had evaded being put on reservations.  It is really hard to imagine what life must have been like for these desert dwelling people, separated from family, eating what would have been very strange food to them, and living in the confines of a prison.  I don't imagine it was much consolation to them that they were at the beach.

 Andy never made any funny faces while eating oysters!  I kept waiting, but it didn't happen.

 Andy and me at the beach

From Fort Pickens, I headed up into Pensacola to pick up my nephew Andy from college.  We had a splendid afternoon.  We drove back down to the beach and ate lunch at Peg Leg Pete's, a very fun seafood restaurant.  The lunches were huge, but we managed to also tuck in an appetizer of a few oysters on the half shell and share a piece of Key lime pie for dessert.  

My lovely "campsite" at Panama Beach City

After I dropped Andy back at school, I headed east once more on the Coastal Highway (U.S. 98) and spent a restful free night staying at the Walmart in Panama Beach City.  There were Walmarts closer to Pensacola where I could've stayed, but those towns seemed very busy, so I waited until I got to a smaller, more relaxed town.  It was quiet overnight, and the next morning I got a lot of things done before leaving--paying bills, getting my check register up to date, etc.

 Sonja relaxing at Wright Lake

After visiting with friends and family along the Coast, I decided I'd take some quiet time to myself up in the Apalachicola National Forest.  I got reservations for Wright Lake Campground, near Sumatra, Florida.  After two weeks on the road, it was nice to stay in one place for a couple of nights.  And, in some ways, it was even nicer that I had no phone or Internet.  I finished one novel, completely read a second novel, played my flute, and worked on continuing to "debrownify" the interior of my RV, Brownie.

Painting and collaging Brownie's interior

When I left Wright Lake this morning, I really didn't know where I'd head next, so I just continued driving Highway 98 on a portion of the road that is called the Big Bend Scenic Highway.  This is a different Big Bend than the one I'm familiar with in Texas.  This is the Big Bend in the state of Florida, where the Panhandle and the rest of the state meet.   

 My Horseshoe Bay view

Personally, I think the Big Bend Scenic Highway would be far more scenic if it stuck to the Coast instead of going through forest.  But I was able to find the Coast again.  I took a right at Old Town, Florida, and ended up at Horseshoe Bay, where Dixie County has a nice tiny campground.  Arriving early today, a Friday afternoon, I was able to snag a site right on the water.  And I will stay the weekend.   

The Southwest Turista in Louisiana and Mississippi

I am continuing to avoid I-10 as I travel east to visit my sister in Sarasota, one of these days.  She points out that I am only nine hours away, and I tell her it might be more like nine days.  I am at the beach.  

If you read my previous post, you know I had a few difficulties getting through Texas.  I didn't mention then that it was also really cold, and that I was worried about a whiny sound that Brownie makes.  But enough whining.  The fact is, things have been better ever since I got to the Gulf Coast.  In one day, I was able to go from wearing long janes under jeans to wearing shorts.  The humid air (sometimes 98 percent!) made breathing easier, and my recovery from a virus leaped ahead.  I stopped coughing so much and I had a little more energy.  The humidity also makes my arthritis and peripheral neuropathy way worse, but I'm making sure I eat lots of chile or chili or whatever every day, and that helps.

So...after it turned out that the Bolivar Peninsula was uninviting, I drove east, some of it on I-10, to L'Auberge Casino in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  I have fond memories of L'Auberge from my first trip there in 2011.  It was a bright spot in a sea of difficulties.  Things have changed at L'Auberge since then. The beautiful RV park and fun outdoor lazy river pool are gone, a new Golden Nugget Casino in their place.  I didn't mind, though.  I've learned so much since my first RV trip across the country.  Now I'm perfectly comfortable staying at a casino parking lot, with no power or water hookups.  I have solar and I drive a lot, so my house batteries stay charged, and I have a nice little 100W plug-in inverter that allows me to blog and watch movies.  

Anyhow, I was so glad to be in a nice warm spot, I stayed two nights.  I enjoyed good food and I spent enough in the casino to constitute my rent.  

Boudin King

I stayed on I-10 for a little ways after leaving Lake Charles.  On the recommendation of my friend Chantel, I stopped for lunch at Boudin King in Jennings, Louisiana.  Oh.  My.  God.  It is well worth taking a few minutes to drive through this town.  I ate a fabulous meal (1/2 lb spicy boudin and a bowl of red beans and rice, which also had some great sausage in it) and had enough left over for another smaller meal later on that day.  The people were very nice, too.  The owner gave me a couple of samples before I chose the spiciest variety. 

You can also go to the Gator Chateau in Jennings, where they will offer you the chance to hold a baby alligator.  I touched it, but I did not hold it.  Steve accuses me of doing anything for a photo op, but there are limits.  

Tabasco tour, museum, store and cafe

My next goal was to do some sightseeing off of I-10, in smaller towns.  I headed down US Highway 90 for New Iberia and spent a quiet night parked near the garden supplies at Walmart.   The next day, I drove a few miles to Avery Island, the home of McIlhenny Co., which has been making its Tabasco pepper sauce since shortly after the Civil War.  I never realized until I took the factory tour that Tabasco was invented in order to enliven poor Southern diets after the War, nor did I know that the sauce is made of only three very high-quality ingredients, two of which come from Avery Island--the tabasco peppers and local salt.  The vinegar was imported from France originally--I'm not sure if it still is.  Anyway, I had a great time there, and I highly recommend a stop if you are at all interested in good food and how it's made.  They still have their own cooperage, and there is a rich culture amongst the workers whose families have worked for the company for five generations.  The gift shop had samples of many sauces, jellies, and even peppery ice cream!  I also enjoyed a late lunch at the company cafe, where I tried all of the sauces again on top of a gloriously messy pulled pork sandwich served in a bowl so you don't miss anything.  

 Sunset over the artificial lake at Cypress Bayou Casino

My plan (oh, Lord, when will I ever learn?) was to drive on a few more hours after the factory tour, but it was very windy.  I stopped at just about the next town, Charenton, at a little casino called Cypress Bayou.  It was one of those casinos that does not operate 24 hours a day and doesn't have a lot of restaurants or anything else to do, so I just relaxed and watched a movie.  I've been renting Redbox movies along the road.  There is always somewhere to return them, if not on time, maybe by the second day.  Still lots cheaper than the movie theater.

 Laura Plantation--hurricanes, fire, nothing can take down this possibly haunted place

The next day, Thursday, Day 10 of this journey, I had in mind to go visit a real plantation.  I had seen the plantation homes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson when I was about 10 or so, but that's a long time ago, and they told a rather sanitized version of how things were for "the servants."  I figured I could hear something more historically accurate these days, so I headed to Edgard, where there were once 600 plantations along the banks of the Mississippi River, each one of them a separate community, or as we would call it today, a blood-sucking corporation built on the backs of poor African Americans.  Whitney Plantation is a recently opened museum devoted to telling history through the eyes of the slaves, and I really wanted to go there, but they were pretty booked up.  So I followed another of Chantel's excellent suggestions and went to the Laura Plantation just down the road.  Laura was the name of a third-generation plantation owner who wrote a memoir about her childhood there.   

Creole Nativity scene at the Laura Plantation

These plantations are not like the ones I saw in Virginia when I was a kid.  The Laura Plantation was small, with very little separation between the house and the slave cabins.  It was a little hard to follow the docent's story because she was more interested in her own performance than facts, but I did get a little sense of what life might have been like.  

Afterwards, I bought a big praline in the gift shop, and my sugar high got me all the way to Pass Christian, Mississippi, the home of the world's greatest Walmart.  Well, the best one I've seen, and I've been to China.  It's on the beach!  Well, right across the highway from the beach.  Don't walk through the field, it's copperhead season.  But you can walk down the Walmart driveway and across the road and you are right in the sugary white sand.  

 At Palace Casino, my door leads to the beach

I could have stayed there at that Walmart for days on end.  I was tempted, but I've been watching the weather reports, and it looked like rain was on its way.  I figured, if it rains, I'd rather be someplace like Biloxi where there is beach plus other things to do inside.  So, here I am.  I have once again found the best free campsite possible, in a parking lot next to the Palace Casino parking garage.  I have been here since yesterday afternoon, and mostly it is used by locals who come down here to gaze at the beach or fish or catch crawfish.  Everybody loves Sonja when they see her in the RV doorway--I can't let her out because I've seen feral cats here, and apparently she doesn't like the beach, anyway.  

 Sunrise this morning at the Palace Casino parking lot

Palace Casino not only unofficially offers this free place to camp...they also have the most highly-rated casino buffet in town, so I had lunch there yesterday and ate my fill of Coastal and Southern food.  Yes, shrimp boil, boiled shrimp (not the same thing, duh), Creole shrimp, fried shrimp--oh, do I sound like Bubba Gump yet?  It was all delicious, every bite.  On top of that, Palace is the only 100 percent non-smoking casino in Biloxi. 

 This little Biloxi back bay peninsula is just outside my door

So, what's next?  I don't know.  Ever since I got through Texas, I've been able to slow down and take this trip one decision at a time.  I am getting to the part of the country where it's pretty essential to have campground reservations, especially since it's "the season."  I have reservations for Monday night near Pensacola, where I hope to get to spend a little time with my nephew Andy and my friend Kadi.  I couldn't get reservations at a coastal state park in Alabama, so until then, I believe I might just stay put.  I have waves 15 feet from my door, and I noticed some really appealing pastries at the casino's cafe yesterday.  

Really, why go anywhere?