On to the Gulf Coast!

Friday, October 15, 2010

We were up and on the road by 8:30 today. We took I-59 South through Montgomery, then lots of small towns, finally we passed through Mobile and turned west on I-10 towards Mississippi. We saw lots of cotton fields today – some had been harvested and bailed – others were ready for picking.

Cotton Fields

Somewhere we saw a huge Confederate Flag flying along the highway – and I do mean HUGE – it was as large as the ones at Perkins if not larger. We stopped at the Mississippi Welcome Center and Jane fixed lunch. We have lots of “leftovers” from the DB 50^th Reunion. Jane was in charge of the caterer for Friday night and we have meatballs, cheese squares, celery, and carrots to add to the normal lunch fare. A new sandwich for us is smoked Gouda, smoked turkey, and red pepper jelly….mmm good!

We had to begin thinking about where we were going. We had two choices for campgrounds – Davis Bayou near Ocean Springs or Buccaneer State Park near Waveland. We set out to find the Sea-Bee Museum near Gulfport since it was only open M-F. We finally found it but were not able to get the proper clearance to get in before it closed at 4 …Had to settle for taking a photo of the Sea-Bee mascot.

Sea Bee Mascot in Gulfport MS

Next we headed to find a Best Buy – Ben had remembered the TV but forgotten the remote – so now we have two remotes.

We finally decided to back track to the Davis Bayou campground. It was 20 miles west to Buccaneer and 20 miles east to Davis Bayou – so we sort of flipped a coin! The Gulf Shores National Seashore is spread along the coast from Gulfport to Pensacola. This campground and a visitor center are here in Ocean Springs and there is a ferry out to the barrier islands from Gulfport. There are several festivals this weekend and we want to go out to the barrier islands. If we have time we will go to one of the casinos. Jane cooked supper – an invention of chicken, onions, celery, garlic, jalapeno, and some gravy over microwavable brown rice. We also had some of the last tomatoes from our garden.

Ben rode his bike around the campground; Jane walked around the loop and worked on the blog although we won’t be able to post to the web here. We have good 3G signal on the I-Phone but not a good WIFI signal. We can get several TV stations with the antenna. The cost here for electricity and water is $16 a night – for us with Golden Age Passport only $8. You sure can’t beat that!

Now we have to get out all the travel notes and plan the next couple days. Temperature is 67 degrees with clear skies. It should be great temperature for sleeping.

Our Campsite at Davis Bayou