Jeff and Lea's house

     For years it's been a standing family joke that someday we will buy an RV, drive around the country, and park in our kid's driveways for extended periods. Well, here it is! We're in Jeff's driveway!! Jenny, you're next!!

     The highlight of the day was to go up to Frisco to the cycling oval to watch Drew do some of his practice runs. He will be competing later this year in Trexlerville, PA, and it was fun watching him zoom around the highly banked oval track.

Jeff and Lea's House

     After 800 miles in two days, it was nice not driving! We had a delightful morning working in Jeff and Lea's backyard raking leaves (11 bags!), cleaning the pool, watching the dogs get to know each other (it's working out great!), and overall just being with family.

In the afternoon Jim drove over to Hurst, and brought his mother Kay and sister Mary Lou back over for a barbecue dinner. Lea's parents, Ken and Kay joined the party and we had a great time together as family. Mary Lou brought a cake for an early birthday party for Jim, and we then spent some time watching slide shows on their wide screen TV. A very nice day overall!

Traveling from Lafayette to Dallas

     This was a pretty boring day, as we drove 400 miles from Lafayette, LA to Dallas and were on I49 or I20 almost the entire way. Interesting scenery was virtually non-existent, and outside of stopping at the Louisiana Welcome Center (near Alexandria in the MIDDLE of the state, no less) and Texas (larger than life size, as one might expect), the only other interruptions were rest stops or gas stops. Weather was supposed to be rainy and miserable. It wasn't; only liquid on the the RV came from smashed bugs! It was sunny, but very, very windy; coming across Texas, for the most part, Jim could only do 55-60 mph in a 70 mph zone because of the wind. Oh, update on mileage--we've now traveled 3201 miles and are average 15.7 mpg!!
     Arrived at Jeff and Lea's house around 6pm, and let Rosie get acquainted first with Winston, Jeff &  Lea's King Charles Spaniel. They hit it off fine, though there was a bit of a mishap. Rosie decided to take a drink out of their backyard pool and leaned forward too far, and splash! She swam to the side, and with a little assistence climbed out. Wasn't a real happy puppy, particularly when we put her in the RV alone to dry out and cool off (she's VERY excited being here and finding all kinds of new toys!) Then Winston met Dudley (10 pounds vs 150 pounds!), and they also are doing fine. Dudley is fascinated by this little dog running around, and Winston is a wee bit intimidated but doing OK. After our Pizza dinner, Dudley retired to their deck out back while Rosie stayed inside to play with Winston's toys. Winston persisted in following Rosie from room to room barking, until Lea picked him up and held him. All in all, the dogs are doing great!
After dinner Beth helped Jim set up the RV, and she is fascinated by it and is sleeping on the spare bed with us in it tonight. In fact, she went out early to read in bed after getting in her pajamas, as she thinks it's really cool!
     No new pictures today. Outside of the arrival excitment here with the dogs and the grandkids, can't say we saw much on the drive worth photographing!

Driving the Gulf Coast

     Very heavy rainstorms, with some thunder and lightning during the night. More was promised today by the weather folks, but they were completely wrong--no rain at all! Very heavy winds and rough sea at the Destin beach (note the waves in the photo of the volleyball net) when we awoke, but as the day went on it was in the 70's most of the day and sunny. Excellent driving weather, in fact!

     After decamping, we left at 8am fully loaded and went to a Cracker Barrel for a final breakfast with Bailey and Lois. We enjoyed having them as companions for the past week! We then left at 9am, and eventually drove 422 miles today finally arriving at the KOA campground in Lafayette, LA at 6:15pm. Though it was a long day and a long drive, we really enjoyed the route we took and got to see the aftermath of Katrina, even five years later.

     Becky and Jim had previously driven the Texas to Florida route (Becky twice!), and there are few routes more dull and boring than taking Interstate 10 between the two. We opted instead to turn off I 10 at Mobile, and take the old US 90 route along the coast. As we reached Mobile, we saw the Battleship Alabama and the other ships/planes in the museum park from the road, but didn't go close up. We got onto US 90, and after driving through typical evergreen forrests lining the highway with rain laden drainage ditches on the side, we arrived at Pascagoula. It is clearly a Northrup Grumman town, totally dedicated to shipbuilding and repair, and that industry seems to drive the economy there.

     After leaving Pascagoula, we drove along a stretch of beautiful white sand beaches, literally for about 40 miles through Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach and Pass Christian. What a riveting drive!
       In sharp contrast to the beautiful beaches  across the highway, the devastation on the land was mind numbing. Five years after the hurricane, the empty lots, the concrete foundations with nothing on them, the live oaks with 1/2 their branches torn away, the hundreds of empty buildings--just unbelievable! The photos are merely representative of what we saw mile after mile. Thepicture on the left, as an example, is the current Gulfport fire station. One of the walls is still missing!!

Down the center strip of highway is a divider about eight foot wide, that clearly was once covered with palm trees. Most of them are completely gone, but on several of the stumps some local artist (or artists) have carved birds and other assorted creatures--the slim picture up top is one of those shaped like a pelican. As Becky puts it, perfect example of turning lemons into lemonade!

     After Gulfport we got back on I 10 and took it through downtown New Orleans. The carnage that Katrina reaped is mind boggling. What we presumed was Ward 9 is still almost totally denuded of life. Blocks and blocks of empty, destroyed buildings. Going through the city, and out to the north is more of the same, though not quite as bad. The whole ride through that area gives one a perspective you'll never get from news reports on television. What a nightmare so many people lived through, and probably still are today five years later.

     The other observation we made comes down to, what was the US government thinking when it made the Louisiana purchase? Miles and miles of totally useless swampland! We couldn't believe all the swamps, the bogs, the water and the causeways that we were exposed to. Not a particularly nice place to live!!

     We're glad, however, that we got to see the sights we saw today, and it was clearly worth the extra few hours of driving to do so. Quite the education!

Another easy day at Destin

     This was a pretty relaxing day here in Destin. While it rained during the night, we had a partially cloudy but mostly sunny day in the high 60's, but with a high wind and heavy surf.
     Becky and Lois had a great time exploring the huge outlet mall near here. She bought Jim's birthday presents and gave them to him early--nice slacks, shirts and socks that are needed and appreciated. Also bought a few items for herself. They had lunch and enjoyed the day.
     Jim did a lot of computer work, and became familiar with the map program that Greg found for us and set up. Nice to have an expert consultant in the family! You can now see the results on the first page of the blog, where we can now put in our various stops along the trip. Jim also reconnected with one of his best friends from high school, Ken Howard, who he hasn't talked with in 44 years! 4 of us from the "Royals" High "Y" group (YMCA youth groups) have now reconnected, the other two being Jim Holden and John Danielson. Becky was able to track Ken down via her internet "sleuthing", which she's very good at!
     Late afternoon we went to the Bass Pro Shop just to explore it. Somewhat similar to LL Bean's and Cabela's, but not as large and primarily dedicated to fishing. We went to dinner at Longhorn Steak house, then back to our respective RV's for a quiet evening.
Our allergy problems seem a little better today; possibly because we've gone to air conditioning instead of fresh air. Guess we'll find out more tomorrow when we head west!
Weather prediction for tonight is thunderstorms, though they seem to be angling north of us. Packed up as much as we could so we can get an early start tomorrow.

The Naval Air Museum at Pensacola

     We drove to Pensacola this morning in Bailey and Lois' Jeep, and stopped at the Good Sam Club mail depot to pick up their forwarded mail. This system has worked well for them doing their two months here in Florida. We arrived at the National Museum of Naval Aviation around 11, and ate lunch at their Cubi Point cafeteria (so named because the Naval Air Station at Cubi in the Philippines was considered a crossroads location, as is this Museum).

It's a terrific museum, with two large halls crammed with vintage and modern aircraft. Jim took the picture of Becky and Bailey (and friend) at the USS Shangri-La model as they were reminiscing about the time they went onboard that actual aircraft carrier with their dad when they were much younger. The Corsair aircraft pictured is the final aircraft that their Uncle Frank flew during World War II, when he was a U.S. Marine instructor pilot at Pensacola and elsewheres.

The final museum photo is of a Dauntless Dive bomber depicted in a special exhibit as being underwater in Lake Michigan, where there are well over 100 aircraft "buried" that crashed during training in World War II. One of the reconstructed aircraft is out on the exhibit hall. The special exhibit features a short movie from the History Channel talking about the training that was conducted on Lake Michigan, where over 17,000 Navy and Marine pilots completed their mandatory 8 carrier landings on two converted river cruise boats fitted with flattops. Great exhibit!

      On arrival back at the RV, we found a small flood in the passenger compartment. It seems that, for some reason the water refilling the toilet had been running the whole time we were gone, and we have no idea why other than to guess that the refill valve stuck. Fortunately, nothing of importance was damaged and the dogs were none the worse for wear.

     The wind has become really heavy, and the sea is quite rough. We noticed they only had a "yellow" flag up for caution, but by the time we left for dinner it had been changed to a red danger flag (meaning don't go in the water!). It's hard to tell from the photo at the top how rough it is, but the lighting is accurate. Note how close to the water some of the RV's are--we're back about 100' from there, and up one level.

Baily and Lois gave Jim his birthday presents tonight, which he thinks are really neat. One is a USMC license plate holder, which will go on the front of the SAAB. Second is a USMC teeshirt from the Museum earlier today. The third is a USMC flag to go on our flagpole back home. Becky says he can put it up once she gets a Girl Scout flag to fly! Dinner was at "Cheeseburger's in Paradise", a theme restaurant hyping Jimmy Buffett music and a "Key West" theme. Apparently he gets a royalty from them, but has no ownership interest. Huge hamburgers, and good place for dinner.

In the evening we returned to our respective campers, and Becky spent a good 2 hours brushing the dogs as we watched NCIS. Jim worked on photos and blogs.

Hopefully we'll feel better tomorrow!

"On the Beach" in Destin

     We spent the morning cleaning the RV inside, doing laundry, and watching the dogs. They're quite enjoying the outdoors, and particularly exploring the campground walking in the fine white powdery sand. We're parked just above the beach front, as far as one can get for full hookups (water, electric, cable and sewer). You can see our RV above (second from right), and right next to us (second from left) is Bailey and Lois's. The adjoining photo is of Sadie the collie, and Bailey--our dogs can't understand why she was up there and they were down below with me.

In the afternoon we drove a few miles to the Henderson Park Inn here in Destin. It was designed and built by 2 brothers from Ogunquit, ME. They wanted to re-create the famous Sparhawk Hall from Ogunquit, so they had this inn designed and built back in the 70's to look as much like it as possible. Becky and Bailey had actually stayed at the original one in Maine, and the top photo is of the two of them walking out of the Henderson Park Inn.

     The rest of our non-exciting day was shopping at Publix, the "upscale" supermarket chain in this area.

     Becky and Jim are both still suffering from Pine Tree pollen; Becky in particular.

We shared a meal in "The Chateau", and watched the movie "the young Victoria" which we quite enjoyed, and made it a relatively early evening.