Rolling into and through Mississippi…

Eta finally decided to make a hard turn to the NE then back through central Florida near Cedar Key. Now that Eta is behind us we can redirect our focus on how we will get to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas where we plan to spend winter 2020. While we aren’t big fans of wintering in south Texas we decided to do so since it is half the cost of wintering in Florida or Arizona and since we will mostly be staying home due to the pandemic worsening we just figured we might as well pay less to do less!

Leaving Alabama we drove another 146 miles west over to a new park for us near Gautier, MS called Santa Maria RV Resort. We chose it because it is close to the Mississippi coast and it had great reviews. Once we arrived we were pretty underwhelmed and were not sure why people rated this park so high. It is basically a gravel parking lot with hook ups.

We decided to make the best of the situation and once we settled in, we took a walk around the park. It has two sections one near the entrance and another section  in the back overlooking a pond with what looks like mostly permanent residents. We found out later that many were transient oil field workers.

The next day we drove over to the Sandhill Crane Wildlife Refuge to walk the loop trail which we knew was a pleasant hike. We saw lots of wildflowers in bloom even now in November. While we didn’t see any Sandhill Cranes on the refuge we did see a small flock flying toward it after we left.

Another day we drove Over to Biloxi MS to walk along the beach. The sea was as calm as we have ever seen it. The walk was nice with a few shells and shorebirds to perk our interest. Lot of trees were down in this area too but not as many as we saw at our previous stop.

For lunch we drove over to Bozo’s Seafood in  Gautier MS. I read great reviews and even though it took a long time to get our shrimp po’boy (to go) it was indeed worth the wait. It was really, really good and stuffed with decent sized shrimp….a real road treat!

Before leaving we drove over to Chandeleur Islands Brewery in Gulfport MS and enjoyed a couple a pretty good brews even though we felt them to be way over priced. With the end of our stay in Mississippi I need to do some serious planning soon to map out  our way down to South Texas to arrive by December 1st…

NOTE:  We are currently in Duson, Louisiana for two nights before heading onward towards Texas…

Went all the way to Alabama to escape Eta!

We thought running from Eta was going to be pretty easy but apparently not. We planned to hang out in Inglis, Florida watching the depression but every time I looked at NOAA’s website the path seemed to be heading toward us.

On a rare sunny day so we drove over to Yankeetown on the gulf and walked some trails in the Withlacoochee Gulf Preserve. We found a nice boardwalk hike which was short, a mile or so, but at least we were excited to sneak in a hike in between showers.

After spending two days Inglis Florida we moved on another 140 miles to Lamont Florida to Stones Throw Away for one night. We stayed just one night because Eta would continue altering our plans as we it seemed we were always in its track.

The next morning we broke camp again and drove another 146 miles to Bass Haven Campground in Funiak Springs, FL way up in the panhandle of Florida hoping we might have found our way out of the the path of Eta. We scored a pull through site at this Passport America park right on the shore of a large pond with a nice water view.

We had rain but enjoyed the non rainy times sitting outside and watching the egrets feeding on small fish. I thought we might stay another day but after checking  NOAA’s website we were still in a slight risk of Eta coming our way.

Moving on we pushed westward  to Wilderness RV, another Passport America park we have stayed at before, in Robertsdale, AL about 106 miles further west. Finally it looked like we are out of the path as Eta which has altered its course to head back into central Florida and not up into the panhandle as had been suggested the day before.

At least here there were occasional non rainy spells so we snuck out for a drove over to one of our favorite Alabama coastal towns, Fairhope and then over to Gulf Shores to check out the beach. We noticed a lot of trees still down from Hurricane Sally which was a reminder about how active this hurricane season has been. It sure was nice to have our bare feet in the squeaky white sand ……

NOTE:  We are currently in Gautier, Mississippi for three nights before heading onward towards Texas…