Traveling on I-10 through Mobile, Alabama, I can never resist taking a picture of the USS Alabama, a grand and mighty battleship. Then in Baton Rouge, we stopped for me to visit again the USS Kidd, a destroyer of the same class I served on many years ago. This ship survived crippling kamikaze attacks at Okinawa. It doesn’t look like much from this angle. We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center and while there, motorcycles began roaring in. In all about 112 heading for the Harley dealer in Beaumont for free lunch. They are not all here yet in the photo below. As usual ML can find stuff to do everywhere. Did you know there was something to see in Orange, Texas. Well there’s the Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. Who knew?? (not as neat as the battleship!) It was getting hot, so we were glad to get back to our air conditioned RV and head on home. We were gone 3 weeks, but it seemed longer. We did a lot, but spent more leisurely time in campgrounds than we usually do. We thank God that we are able to keep living our dream. So that’s all for now and until next time, stay tuned.
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Beach campsites are booked up this time of year, so we called to take advantage of cancellations. Sure enough, our chosen beach campground, St. Joseph State Park had openings on this day, Sunday, so we got underway to get over there. It’s out on a spit of land that is almost an island. The campground was shady, and even a bit tight for the big rigs that came in. Wifi was only available at the marina store, so this was our ‘internet café’. And the beach, well, the pictures will tell the story. There were a lot of fishermen on the beach and we spent much time just watching them catch fish. Many ladyfish, and an occasional pompano and redfish. (Below – three at a time) A group from Alabama had a jam session, with guitar, fiddle, and concertina (small accordion). Is that ML in there?? We didn’t have beach umbrellas, so we rigged our own with umbrellas, poles, and duct tape. Did the job. And finally, watching the sunset was a popular attraction. Leaving here, we have no particular destination towards home, but... Stay tuned.
After a day at the circus, we headed north to Hudson, Florida. To get there, we crossed over Tampa Bay via the Skyway Bridge. The reason for going to Hudson was to have one of our fogged up double pane window repaired. We overnighted in Perry, Fla, and ML made a new friend. His name is Monroe Lee. He’s running for President, so vote for him if you see him on a ballot. From Perry, we headed west (toward home) in search of one of those fabulous white sand beaches the Florida gulf coast is famous for. As we drove leisurely along a peaceful back road, we crossed a river with boat launch under the bridge and an apparent campground. We went a couple of miles down the road to find a place to turn around. Turns out the campground was a nice little county park. We hadn’t come very far from Perry and the day was young, so after checking into the campground, we jeeped out to the coast checking out a wildlife preserve and lighthouse. Going back to camp, we embarked on the reason we stopped here. Kayaking the river. That evening we decided to try out the ‘restaurant’ on the other side of the river. This was voted the best business in Newport, Florida. That’s because it’s the only business in Newport, not counting the boiled peanut vendor under a shade tree across the road, or the Tupelo honey guy down the road at the next intersection. Here’s the honey guy. Tomorrow on to the Beach. Stay tuned.
Our reason for staying near Sarasota was so that we could visit the Ringling Circus Museum. Sarasota was the winter quarters for the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus. John Ringling became very wealthy and built a fabulous mansion and art gallery here. Operated by Florida State University, the grounds now also house a circus museum and another building which had, among other things, the most astounding model circus depicting all the tents and features of the entire operation. It took over 50 years to build. Here is a panorama of the layout. The big top is to the right and other tents include a dressing tent, dining tent, cook tent, tents for the performing animals and on and on. (lights would dim periodically to simulate nighttime.) Here is a cutaway of the bigtop with the 3 ring circus inside. All this is to scale, including folding chairs and people and animals. Here’s the performers’ dining tent. If there are any old enough to remember, the circus travelled on trains. The ‘commissary’ would arrive first and be prepared to serve three hearty meals to around 1300 people. In about 4 hours the huge bigtop and the other tents were set up, ready for the parade through the town. I don’t know how many performances they would do, but at the end of the day, all was dismantled, loaded back on the train and headed for the next town. A real picture of logistic precision. Below is the performers’ entrance to the bigtop. The ‘freak show’ tent, concessions, and entrance to the bigtop. Inside the bigtop. Notice the folding chairs. And the trapeze artists were animated. This exhibit is definitely worth a visit. The museum building held actual circus artifacts, including the ‘human cannonball’ cannon and some of the circus wagons. Next was John Ringling’s mansion on the bank of the bay. This is a side view. The expansive marble deck and boat dock extend to the left. Can you find ML? Inside the opulence continues. Real gold of course. Ringling purchased much art and furnishings from estate sales of wealthy people. The chandelier below came from the Waldorf Astoria hotel, which was torn down to build the Empire State Building. The courtyard of the Art Museum And finally, the Rose Garden. From here we move north. Stay tuned.
Moving up from Ft. Myers, we found this State Park just east of Sarasota. We wanted to visit Sarasota, but we spent a lot of time in this nice park. Again, this is a swampy wildlife area. We took an airboat tour and a tram tour. I suppose this is a ‘hammock’, but the old oak trees are spectacular. There was a walkway in the treetops between two towers. Couldn’t see much from there, but the second tower was higher than the trees and offered a spectacular view. We debated about kayaking in this little river, but ML was scared that an alligator would take a bite out of our inflatable kayak. We struggled with this idea long enough until it started to rain and settled the issue. There is a viewing platform at the end of a dam and several alligators were lurking around. That didn’t bother a Viet Namese couple who were netting Talapia. These fish are considered harmful to the ecosystem so removing them from this water is encouraged. They said they gave these fish away, so we took a couple and had them for dinner. Tomorrow we move on. Stay tuned.
Sanibel Island is known for ‘shelling’, as it is positioned so as to catch shells from incoming waves from the Gulf of Mexico. The island was populated with high-dollar homes, resorts, and condos. Also a wildlife refuge. I will close this now to keep the size of this email manageable. I will try to catch up in following emails. Here is a map of our travels up to now. Stay tuned.
Just a short hop from Penny Farms to historic St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States. Very ‘touristy’ with narrow shopping streets, restaurants, stately old homes, and the fort. From St. Augustine, we ventured down the coast to Titusville, the area of Cape Canaveral. There was a rocket launch scheduled for Saturday morning so we scouted out locations along roads to watch. Turns out the pier at our campground looked out over the water to the launch area and was the best place from which to watch. It also turns out that the launched was ‘scrubbed’ for what ever reason, and we were very disappointed. This was at the Manatee Hammock county campground where we spent a couple of leisurely days. We were curious about the name and later found out that ‘hammock’ is an Indian word meaning ‘grove of trees’. We also drove by the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center. Since we had been to the Miami area before, we decided to avoid that congestion and head on across the state to the Ft. Myers area and Sanibel Island. Stay tuned.
We're off to Florida via Auburn, Alabama. We need to color in Florida on our map of 'states visited in our RV', and the reason for going by Auburn is to attend the graduation of grandson Chris from the College of Engineering. Here he is with proud grandparents. From Auburn, we cut across Georgia to enter Florida near the east coast. Before leaving Georgia we visited the Okefenokee Swamp and took a boat tour. We saw various wildlife. Click on the pictures to enlarge. Flat, open areas in a swamp are called 'prairies', similar to dry land prairies. Before leaving the official Swamp area, we visited a homestead which had been occupied up until just a few years ago. No 'faucet' water or electricity. There were a couple of items I remember playing with at my grandfathers farm. Finally leaving the Okeefenokee, we went south to Penny Farms, Florida which is west of St. Augustine. Penny Farms is a retirement community started by J.C. Penny back in the 1920's. We didn't go there to retire, but to visit friends of ML she knew 40 years ago when she lived in Florida. (that was BC - before Chuck). The residents (I call them inmates) are required to perform a few hours per week of community service work around the place. Our friend performed his service in the PET manufacturing facility. PET stands for Personal Energy Transportation and they manufacture tricycle-type vehicles designed for victims of land mines. Hand cranking makes the front wheel turn, and they are designed with big tires for use on dirt and rocky roads. These cost about $250 to make (with volunteer labor) and are given free to people in lands were land mines are still dangerous. There are other facilities like this around the country. They had some hookups there, so we spent the night in preparation of moving on to St. Augustine the next day. Stay tuned.
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Who Are We?Chuck and Mary Lou have been traveling in their RV since 2002 and have lately been taking longer, extended trips. This is our way to share our experiences. Trip Reports
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