Alabama, Mississippi and Florida

Mobile, AL

We have covered a lot of ground since Saturday! We are no longer in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama, but here is our story for the past 2 days!

When last I wrote we had dry camped in the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter in Prairieville. Saturday afternoon we drove a little over 100 miles to Slidell, LA and stayed in another Walmart Supercenter across from one of our favorite restaurants......Cracker Barrel. We learned something important about this dry camp.....never pick parking lots shared by other large anchor stores....in this same parking lot was a Lowe's, and as a result the parking lot was very cramped, but we found a level spot and spent the night.....just was very difficult maneuvering into and out of this lot.

Today driving was wonderful. We drove I-12 to I-10, and it was straight, level and smooth. I just set the cruise control and held on to the steering wheel. One funny thing though I have to report in the interests of full disclosure. In my head I thought we would merge on to I-10 EASTbound then exit in Slidell. As we approached the junction Elaine told me to take the WESTbound exit.....since that didn't comport with my brain's understanding I didn't and kept going EASTbound. She was right, and I was wrong......again.....haha! We had to drive into Mississippi, exit 10 miles further east and drive back.....we were within 2 miles of our destination and I added 20 miles by not taking my wife's direction.

We did a little shopping in Walmart, and settled in for the night watching NCAA March Madness.

Sunday morning we got up around 7am and headed over to the Cracker Barrel (of course you knew that was coming, right?) for breakfast and coffee. After breakfast we had to open the rear of the trailer, unhook the 'Bird and reposition it because when we crossed the bridge (inadvertantly) into Mississippi the car bounced around a little (awful bridge) and moved to the right. In spite of that we were still underway by 8:40am....one of our earliest starts in recent memory! Again it was another 117 miles of straight, level, smooth I-10.....set the cruise control and just hung on to the steering wheel. We did pull off the Interstate to use one of Mississippi's wonderful rest areas....wow, these places are like parks. They also provide free dump stations, which we used for our gray tank water.

Due to our early start we got to our destination for the day, Daphne, AL, around 11:30am! We pulled into the Walmart Supercenter and were blown away by how nice this lot was....surrounded by trees, and very quiet! The manager gave her blessing to our over night stay, and we got the bikes out to tour around Daphne. The Walmart is not far from the ocean, so we headed there first, and then several miles down the Easter Shore Trail, which is a nice bike path. This is the first time we have ridden in 10 days, and the weather was perfect....mid 70's, and around 40% humidity. We found a cool little cafe (East Shore Cafe) where Julianna (young college student) provided wonderful al fresco service.

Tunnel under Mobile Bay

As the sun set I watched another NCAA March Madness game, and was not disappointed...another close game. The temp inside the coach got down to 63....that's the lowest in several weeks! Nice to sleep with the windows open again.

Beach near Walmart in Daphne

East Shore Cafe

Today, Monday, we got underway around 8am....another early start. Our destination for today was De Funiak Springs, FL....another tough 119 miles eastward on smooth, straight highway.....we're now in the Panhandle where it is a little hilly, but we knocked out the distance by 11am. We are at yet another Walmart Supercenter that allows overnight parking. We quickly got our bearings, got the bikes out and went for another bike ride over to De Funiak Lake, the spring fed lake.....it is almost perfectly round....probably about a mile in circumference. A lot of very old Victorian homes surround the lake. On our way off the freeway Elaine spied a winery, so after riding around town for an hour, or so we headed to the winery to taste some local wines. Chataqua Winery is a quaint local winery. We ended up buying two bottles.....once, Sugar Sands White, is really yummy!

Lake DeFuniak

We got back to the coach around 2pm, and I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some office work, and going through the mail my son had forwarded. I even took a nap today for the first time in days.....what a great day!

Tomorrow we head for Tallahassee, and then south to Cedar Key, FL!

I will post the pictures I took the last two days in a couple of hours....so check back for the great pictures!

Thanks for stopping by!