Thanksgiving in Mississippi

First off let me explain traveling for Thanksgiving. For the past four or five years Rita & I have been heading to warmer climates for Thanksgiving. We used our timeshares and have been all over. Galveston, TX, Houston, TX, Orlando, FL & Hilton Head, SC. Normally Jackie & the boys go along, but Jackie misses out on a lot of overtime opportunities.

This year it's just me, Rita & CC. Looks like this is our last camping trip of 2014. We have spent 75 nights in CC this year. That's not to bad since we didn't get CC until mid April.

So I picked Bay St. Louis, MS. We're at Buccaneer State Park. It's midway between Biloxi, MS & New Orleans, LA. I had testing at school Saturday morning & expected to be done by 4pm. So we planned on leaving after that, driving about half way & try dry camping along the way. (Dry camping is staying in a parking lot for the night. It's pretty common. Walmart almost encourages it as does Flying J gas stations.)

So I planned on staying at Flying J #607 in West Memphis, Arkansas. I lucked out & got done testing by 2:30. Headed home, Rita had CC all ready. We topped of the tanks & headed out. As is all too common for us it was raining and we drove all the way in the rain.

We have a GPS for CC that is designed for motor coaches. It takes into account length, weight & height. That being said it's like a lot of GPS's it's not perfect. This one got us close to the Flying J but told me to turn into the entrance of the station, but it wasn't the entrance. It was a truck only exit. It even had stop bars that damage tires. Unfortunately it was dark, raining and I turned in. As soon as I saw the warning signs about the tires I stopped. But I can't back up with Rita's car attached. So we hopped out, quickly unhooked the car got glares from truck drivers. Backed out & headed another 200 hundred yards to the "real" entrance.

I filled up while Rita asked inside about spending the night. She told me to pull over to the side. While I was getting in CC a security guard walked up and told me to park along the curb right in front. He said he'd keep an eye on us all night.

Rita fixed us dinner and we called it a night. I figured a truck stop would be noisy & we'd be up early & leave. Shockingly we slept until 8.

No rain today & we had a great drive to the Gulf coast. We kept seeing signs for fresh seafood so after we got to the campsite we set up in record time & went out for a FRESH SEAFOOD DINNER.
We went to a place called Tony's / Knock Knock Lounge. We went in a door, there was a smokey bar to the left, and through the door to the right was a smokeless diner called Tony's. Guess which one we went into. Tony's was awesome. We started off sharing a dozen oysters. Rita had a seafood combo. I went for the shrimp special. Half grilled, half fried. I'm not sure they should call them shrimp, because they were so huge.

Throw in a couple of drinks & it was a perfect arrival!

Monday we went exploring. Drove the coast road to Gulfport.

We stopped along the way at scenic overlooks walked down the beach & we found a local eatery at a marina called Shaggy's & indulged in more seafood.

We ate for about an hour, while we looked for Scooby, but we couldn't find him anywhere. As we left we yelled "Scooby Doo, where are you!" We then worked our way back to the campground for a campfire & relaxing.

Tuesday we drove to a Camping World north of New Orleans. Camping Worlds are fun for RVers. They have millions of gadgets for camping. Rita bought my Christmas present, a really cool collapsible step ladder. I told Rita I didn't think a 7 foot latter would fit in her little bitty Honda Fit. She was confident it would fit, and surprise to me, it did. It still amazes me what we can fit in that little car. We roamed around Camping World for a little while & then headed back to CC.

Wednesday was Norleans. We went to the World War II museum. Wow it is really cool. We saw all the movies there, then toured the museum. I've read a lot of books on World War II and my dad was a veteran of the war, serving in North Africa. So I already knew a lot about it. But having it all in one place was really interesting. Rita's comment was it was sobering & at times depressing. All the loss of lives.....

Here is a piece of the Atlantic Wall, complete with bullet holes...

The place was huge, it had full sized aircraft everywhere.

After the tour we went to cash in a gift certificate that I got from my nephew, Tim Boeker. In 1997 Rita & I went to New Orleans to celebrate our anniversary. We had a great time & planned on going back real soon. Tim knew that & on one of his trips there he bought us a gift certificate to Pat O'Brien's. The interesting part of this is he bought it in 1998 & we have never gone back. Luckily we have kept it all these years & took it down there. So we left the museum & drove to the French Quarter. Weaving down all those skinny streets was fun & we found street parking just off Bourbon Street. So we roamed around for awhile then hit O'Brien's for a bite to eat & some cocktails.

They didn't hesitate about taking the 16 year old certificate, though I think we won the award for oldest one. After we left we strolled around a little & then headed home.

Thanksgiving we slept in, then emptied the bay's under CC & really cleaned her out. Then we took out the old fashioned step ladder & put in my new collapsible one. Now I really have some room down there. We decided to ride down the coast road & see what was open for a late lunch. The 200 North Beach Restaurant was open & had a Thanksgiving special so we ate there. Dinner was awesome, surprise, seafood made it to the table again, that's every day so far..... After dinner we roamed around awhile & headed back to CC to relax. Overall a perfect day.
Have I mentioned the weather yet? Sunny & warm every day!!!!!!

Friday we went to NASA. It's only 15 minutes from the campground. It is the John C Stennis Space Center.

It has a museum / activity center. Plus they offer bus tours of the Rocket Propulsion Testing area. Every rocket engine since 1961 has been tested there. Plus massive jet engines & rocket engines for private enterprises. We enjoyed it a lot. However I wonder why people bring little kids to these types of tours. It relatively technical & it's pretty obvious these kids were bored & disrupting the presentation by the tour guide. But whatever, I'm widely known for my patience & understanding... Afterwards back to CC.

It has been our practice to try & do something everyday, sometimes for only 4 or 5 hours, then return to the campground & relax. It's what makes these trips so enjoyable.

Back at CC I started the campfire & thought about BBQing some ribs. While I was sitting outside reading, a couple pulled up in an Airstream & were backing into the site across from us. I moved some stuff out of the way so it was easier. After they were all done, they set some lawn chairs outside & were sitting there by themselves. Rita walked over & invited them to our fire. Bob & Phyllis were from Lafayette, LA. They came over & we had a great time sitting in front of the fire drinking, talking about camping, boating & anything in general. They were an awesome couple. We talked so long I wound up grilling the ribs in the dark a lot later than we planned. But who cares, we're on vacation.

Saturday is the beginning of the end. After breakfast we started tearing down our campsite & getting ready to come home. It's sad because this is the last trip of the year. When we get home CC gets winterized & then parked until April. We stayed as long as we could and planned on reversing our trip here, spending the night in West Memphis again.

Here's the aggravating part, as we were pulling out of the campground we clipped a low hanging branch & damaged one of the air-horns on the roof. I'll have to get it repaired when we get back, damn.

It was an uneventful trip home, though it always seems to take longer going home. After spending the night at the Flying J we got home by 2pm Sunday. Then the really sad part happened, we completely emptied CC for the winter. We normally leave her stocked for trips & only have to add fresh food & some clothes for our trips. But for the winter we emptied her, bummer.

Back to work Monday:@(

Next Saturday I'll winterize the plumbing.

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