Contrasting Campgrounds & "To Kill A Mockingbird"

 Isacc Creek Campground (COE); near Monroeville, Alabama

One of the great things about traveling around is seeing the change in landscape. The travel distance to this campground was only about 120 miles, but what a change. In the morning, I pulled out of my campsite and drove along the sandy beach of the Gulf of America. By early afternoon, I was camped in the southern hill country along the banks of the Alabama River. 

Leaving Fort Pickens Campground. The Gulf of America is on the other side of the sand on the right.

My campsite at Isaac Creek Campground. That's the Alabama River in the background.

Looking out my door in the morning at the Alabama River with "smoke on the waters". 

I found two thinking benches just downstream of the dam. 

I don't know the exact number, but I would estimate that I've camped in a little over 100 different Corps of Engineers (COE) campgrounds since I started traveling 11 years ago. (By the way, that 11 year anniversary was 3 days ago.) This campground is the only one where the campground host texted me on the morning of my arrival telling me my campsite was ready. With the new fad of later and later check-in times, it was good knowing I could show up anytime that day. I found her supervisor and praised her actions to him. He smiled and said, "Yep, that's Kathy". Another thing happened that was uncommon. The people in the adjacent campsite had some of their family visiting and were cooking burgers and such on the grill. The mother of the bunch came over and offered me some burgers and tator salad. That is only the second time in my travels and with stays in over 400 campgrounds (all types) that I've been offered food by a neighbor. The first and only other time was when I was camped at Foscue Campground (COE) at Demopolis, Alabama (couple hours north of here). Southern hospitality at its finest. 

Thinking of Southern Hospitality reminds me of one of the very first full-time RV'ers blogs that I used to follow before I started traveling. It was the Wandering Wishnies. They were an older couple from Wisconsin who, on a whim, sold everything and bought their first RV and hit the road. They hadn't been down south before so they weren't familiar with the southern way of life, only the stereotypical versions of rednecks. She was the writer of their blog and through her words, she showed us how she and he became enlightened and realized they had been deceived over the years. I can remember some of her words as being "The people here in the south are truly friendly and polite and not just putting on." After many years of traveling, they sold the RV and settled down, in Arizona I believe. Oh well, I hadn't thought of them in a long time. I may go back and re-read some of her old blog posts. That is the wonder of blogs, being able to see things/places/people through the eyes of other people. Cue the melancholy music :)

This is the unusual dam I wanted to see. There wasn't a good place to get a good view. You can see the six gates but to the right of them is a "fixed crest spillway". Except in flooding situations, you can't raise the upstream water level any higher than the elevation of that spillway. You can lower it by using the gates, but not raise it. Of all the dams I've seen, I haven't seen this combination.  

I got this picture off of Google Earth,,,,yeah, yeah, copywrite infringement, I know. It gives a bird's eye view of the dam structure. They must have been in a flooding situation since all gate are open. 

Besides coming here to see this unique lock and dam near the campground, I came here to visit the Monroeville Courthouse Museum. Monroeville is the hometown of Harper Lee and Truman Capote. They grew up together as neighbors and childhood friends. For those younger readers, Harper Lee wrote the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" which was also made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. In recent years, some misguided people have tried to have the book banned from schools and libraries because they think it is a racist novel. I don't think it is and just by showing how life was in the 30's in the deep south doesn't make it racist. Miss Lee addressed the subject herself in an interview from 1961. She said "My book had a universal theme. It's not a 'racial' novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization----not necessarily Southern civilization. I tried to show the conflict of the human soul----reduced to its simplest terms". 

If you've seen the movie you probably recognize this courtroom. Many people think the movie was shot here, but it wasn't. Hollywood took lots of measurement and pictures to make an exact replica in Hollywood. It was still kind of neat seeing the real thing.

It's also kind of neat that Miss Lee and Truman Capote grew up together in such a small town. Truman himself was an author of several books. The best known, for me, was "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The other connection between the two authors was the character, Dill Harris, in Mockingbird. It was inspired by Truman Capote as a child. Oh well, the things we see and learn along the way.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed another 100 miles or so north to another COE campground. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road. 

Fort Pickens Area Wrap-up

 Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground; on barrier island across the bay from Pensacola, Florida

Today is day 5 of 5 and tomorrow is moving day. Five days at a campground is unusual for me when I'm traveling although checking my future reservations it will happen a few more times before I get back to Louisiana in July. Hmmmm, I need to think on that some. This campground and area have been on my "list of places" to explore for several years and I'm glad I was able to make it this time. I'll probably not be back. Those two sentences sure sound contradictory, don't they? The reason being, I've seen what I needed to see on this barrier island and although there are more things to see on the mainland, it is just too far and too much traffic to explore from this campground. As summer gets nearer and the tourist invasion happens it will just get more hectic. I'm glad I have Starlink which was reliable and had blazing speed. My Verizon signal varied in strength from 1 bar to 4 bars and was unpredictable. The location of the campsite was great as the view out my back window was interesting. I'm right at the entry point to the campground and have an excellent view of the tent camping area. This campground has a high number of walkers and bicyclists which are great for people watching. 

Yesterday's exploration was the actual Old Fort Pickens from the 1800's. Right off the bat, no bad ju-ju. A little on the good side of average ju-ju. After so many years in this ocean environment and numerous hurricanes, it is surprising the amount of original fort still remains after nearly 200 years. Fort Pickens and three other smaller forts were located near the entrance to Pensacola Bay around 1834. Their purpose was to defend and guard against invasion. The bay was the deepest port on the Northern Gulf coast and was home to the Navy Shipyards.

This map shows the importance of the Fort in defending Pensacola Bay

The first thing I found interesting about Fort Pickens was that Geronimo was held prisoner there. That's right, the Apache leader from the southwest. In 1886, 400 captured Apache were sent to Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Florida. However, for some reason that I haven't discovered, several citizens of Pensacola asked that Geronimo and 14 Apache men be transferred to Fort Pickens. These men were separated from their families who remained behind at Fort Marion. The families were eventually reunited with each other in 1887 at Fort PIckens. One year after that, all of them were transferred to Fort Sill in Oklahoma where Geronimo died in 1909. As a point of reference, the Trail of Tears which relocated the Five Civilized tribes to Oklahoma happened between 1830 and 1850.

This placard in the fort is what brought my attention to Geronimo. If I had heard about this before, I sure forgot about it. One of the benefits of forgetting things is that you get to "re-learn" them. 

The second thing I found interesting was what happened at the fort just before the War of Northern Aggression War for Southern Independance Civil War began. 

A quick timeline:

November 6, 1860; Lincoln wins election

December 20, 1860; South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the union.

January 10, 1861; Florida becomes the third state to secede from the union. Florida sends a "letter of understanding" to the current President, James Buchanan, saying "if Northern reinforcements stay away from the Pensacola forts then the militia would not attack the forts." This was the same type of message that South Carolina sent to Washington D.C. about Fort Sumter.

March 4, 1861; Lincoln is inaugurated.

Beginning of April of 1861 President Lincoln orders reinforcement to be sent to both Sumter and Pickens.

April 12, 1861; Reinforcements and supplies arrive at the forts, War begins, lasts 4 years with about 620,000 soldiers dead and an unknown number of civilians.

I won't go into matters of the Civil War since I've covered them in other posts when I visited Fort Sumter, Appomattox, Shiloh and many other Civil War sites. It was just interesting both forts were being reinforced on the same day, April 12, 1861 which prompted the beginning of the war.

Entry to Fort Pickens. Those appear to be the original columns. 

Gun emplacements 

Although I had a small flashback to visiting the Catacombs in Rome, there weren't any bad vibes for heebie jeebies

One of the inside cannons. All of the arch-work is because of the need for strength to absorb return fire

 

A larger cannon up top and in the open. That is the Gulf in the background.

This was a nice view from up top by the big gun. The Visitor's center is in one of those building but was closed for renovation. The water in the background is Pensacola Bay.

I walked to the bay to check it out. Again, lots of fisher-people. The lady in lower right was sunbathing while her husband was doing his job of trying to catch supper for her. 

The tow boat and barge was a reminder that the bay is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed almost due north about 120 miles into southern Alabama to a Corps of Engineers campground along the Alabama river. I'm not sure about cell signal since the area is pretty isolated and Google Earth shows it as having lots of trees. Hopefully, if I can't get a cell signal, I'll find an opening in the trees for Starlink. That is one of the main reasons I bought Starlink is for situations just like this. We'll see.  

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.

Florida Beach

 Location: Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground, barrier island off Pensacola, Florida

Well as I said in my last post, I walked to the beach area to see what I could see. I decided to wear my sandals and debated with myself if I should wear socks. I have been advised pleaded with admonished by my daughter, granddaughter and others that I should never do that and that sticks in your head after a while. But, I was feeling rebellious and since I didn't know a living soul around this campground, I made an independent, executive decision as a man, and did NOT wear socks. My decision entirely.

I sent this picture to my family so my daughter and granddaughter knew I was complying with their demands. My X-wife (yeah, we're still friends) said my white feet below my tan lines looks like I'm wearing socks. I just shake my head sometimes. 

After a mild case of shame, I hung my head and started on my walk to the beach. The entire walk would be about 1.5 miles with half being in sand. I was pretty sure without socks that I would end up with some blisters on my feet and I intended to take pictures of them to send to the "no sock with sandals" people. But alas, no blisters occurred. Not sure why.

There is an elevated walkway that goes from the road to almost to the beach. It's in bad shape with loose boards which created tripping hazards. I was fully expecting to see the business cards of some "slip and fall" lawyers pinned to the loose boards. It wasn't quite as bad as I'm making it out to be, but whoever is in charge of maintenance needs to step up and do their job or look for a new one. No excuses.

I'm actually appreciative that they built the walkway. It would be a chore to trudge through the sand and brush to get to the beach. Oh wait, they didn't do this for people, it was so we wouldn't hurt the plants and stuff. Ok, I get it. 

This is some of the more mild disrepair. There were locations that could easily trip a child or adult. I'm still glad it was there, just wish it was maintained better. 

The end of the line for the boardwalk. Nothing but sand now.

The water looked nice and the sand looked clean but not the typical touristy beach. The tide was in and ebbing so it was somewhat peaceful. The sand is pure white and blinding in the sun. Yep, I forgot my sunglasses. I think I prefer the Texas beaches.

You top out over a sand dune and rewarded with this view. At first I thought that couple were arguing since the guy was raising his voice and they were face to face. After a minute, she turned away and I could see he was talking on the phone and she had been listening. It wasn't a good thing in public, but not as bad as I originally thought.

This is not the Florida beach that people are used to seeing. It is more of a place for surf fisher-people (look how PC I am) or people just sitting and watching the waves come in. 

This was two nice-looking, my age women. One was fishing while the other laid out on a towel. I talked to the fisher-woman for a few minutes. It was a nice but short visit.

That is an older couple that I've seen in the campground. They were sitting and enjoying each other's company. A complete contrast to the other couple. 

The campground has a lot of late teen/early twenties campers but I didn't see any of them on the beach. They were mostly tent campers and hung around the campground. I assume they are locals and have better beaches to go to when that is what they want. They were well behaved and respectful. Congratulations to their parents in raising them right. Since it's Sunday, most are packing up and getting ready to leave. 

Today will be an exploration day. I plan to explore old Fort Pickens which is only a couple miles away from this campground. I've visited many old Forts and battlegrounds in my travels. Some give off good vibes or neutral vibes. A couple have given off "bad ju-ju" vibes. The kind that makes you shake as tingles run up and down your spine. You get the sense that someone is there but they're not. The worst of these places was Fort Jackson on the Mississippi River below New Orleans. I felt lucky that I was able to walk away from there. My post about it is here >>> https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2023/12/where-mississippi-river-ends.html

I am curious how my vibe-meter reacts to Fort Pickens today. I haven't done hardly any research yet, so I don't know its history. Fingers crossed that all goes well.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.

Fort Pickens/Pensacola/National Seashore

 Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground; near Pensacola, Florida

We'll see if I can get pictures posted or not. My confidence level is about 75% (hint, hint, I've finished the post and it does include picture).

Today is day 3 of 5 here at Fort Pickens. It's been on my list of future campgrounds for a while now. It's a National Seashore Campground which means my Senior Pass gets me 50% off on campsites. I actually had reservations for this campground back in the fall of 2023 but canceled them because my air conditioner went out and I needed to get it replaced. At that time, I said, "everything happens for a reason and for some reason I wasn't meant to camp here at that time". Well, I'm here now.

 

Travel Picture. Interstate 10 somewhere between Biloxi and Pensacola.

This is from the road on the barrier island headed to the campground. Sand on both sides with a warning sign that I didn't fully read about some animal hatching and to stay on the road. 

The white sands of Florida beaches and the Gulf in the background.

Entering the Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens area.

Campsite C-1. Electric/water for $20 per night with senior pass.

The campground is usually hard to get reservations, but it's still early in the season, so I got lucky. Also, it is an old campground with smaller campsite pads which limits it to smaller rigs, like Liberty. They have a strict requirement that all tires, RV and tow vehicle, must be on pavement. Freedom and Liberty just barely made it. I would have been too large with my old fifth wheel. The beach and Gulf of America are about 1/4 mile from my campsite. I haven't made that walk yet but plan to today. On day one, after getting camp set up, I drove around and got the lay of the land. There is an interesting old fort worthy of exploring which will probably be tomorrow's exploration. 

My verizon signal is on again/off again. I've run across this before and assume I'm real close to being in the exact middle between two cell towers. One second I have a very strong signal and the next only one-bar. It's frustrating. The good news is Starlink has a blazingly fast signal. It's as fast has changing channels on cable TV. That blazing speed was a problem at first. It seems this new laptop came with something called One Drive which backs up files to the Microsoft Cloud. That sounds like a good idea, if I had known it was doing it. I had already transferred all 15 years of my pictures from flash drives to this new laptop. Unknown to me, One Drive was uploading them to the cloud. Due to the blazing speed, by the time I noticed what was happening, I had already blew through about 35 GB of data. Luckily I caught it before it uploaded all of them which would have been about 180 GB's. Oh well, although it will cost me a little, it was a lesson learned. 

Yesterday, I drove about 45 minutes to Pensacola Naval Air Station to see their museum. The museum is extremely massive in size and information. I think it is impossible to absorb so much in only one day, but I will not be back on this trip. I've been to aviation museums before but this one tops them all. I would rank it 8 out of 10. The one drawback for me was there wasn't a natural flow to museum. A person could easily get lost or miss seeing something due to the strange layout. Oh well, it was nice having a positive experience at a museum for a change. 

The entrance to the National Naval Aviation Museum is deception. Such a small entry point for something so large inside. 

This picture doesn't represent anything special, it is just showing a small part of the museum, a very small part.

This exhibit sparked my interest the most. I had not heard of this plane or what it had done. It is a Navy NC-4 and it flew across the Atlantic Ocean 8 years before Charles Lindbergh. I understand Lindbergh did it solo and non-stop, but for some reason I was led to believe he was the first "to cross" the Atlantic. It's not the only item of my childhood education that sort of led me in a different direction. Our children are different now a days, if they want additional information that can easily google it and find all they want.  

I guess I need to publish this post "WITH PICTURES" so I can walk to the beach and check it out. The problem of the day is what shoes do I wear? Hmmmm, walking shoes to get to the beach and then change into sandals/swim shoes to walk through the loose sand and then along the beach before changing back to walking shoes. Going barefoot just ain't gonna cut it for me, maybe once on the beach, but not getting there. Decisions, decision.  I guess I'll carry a walmart bag for the shoes. Surely no one will laugh, at least not to where I can hear them. But hey, I don't know anyone around here so I can do anything I want, as long as it's legal.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.

National Seashore Campground

 Location: Davis Bayou National Seashore Campground; Ocean Springs, Mississippi. (just east of Biloxi)

Warning; There won't be any pictures in this post because I haven't figured out how to upload my pictures from my cell phone to this new fancy laptop. My old laptop gave up the ghost after at least 15 years of use. I had been nursing and cajoling it for a couple of years. Luckily. I saw the future a few months and bought a new laptop when they were on sale at Best Buy. I loaded a few programs on it, charged it up and set it aside until the day it would come to the rescue. That day was today. However, it seems computer stuff has changed a little bit over the last 15 years that I've been using my old laptop. The more I've gotten into this new laptop, the steeper the learning curve gets. Oh well, it will give me something to do instead of walking the while sands of the Florida beaches, or watching sunrises/sunsets or sipping coffee on the banks of Corps lakes. Yep, I sure am going to miss those boring activities while learning this new tech stuff.

This campground, Davis Bayou, is a small National Seashore campground. That means the senior pass is recognized and the camping rate is $11.00/night for water/electric. Good deal. The campground is perfectly maintained, and its condition is probably in my top 10. The problem is it fills up quickly due to its size and likeability. The camp host said he hasn't checked in a while, but soon, the entire summer and fall will be reserved. I made my reservation about 2 months ago and I felt lucky to have scored a spot. 

The campground is across Biloxi Bay from the town of Biloxi. I went there on my second day here to check out a museum and to drive through town. The museum, Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum ranked a 3 out of 10 but I think I need to check to make sure I haven't gotten unfairly jaded to all museums. The museum didn't surprise me too much since I've been disappointed in them for a while. The real surprise was the vibe I got from driving along the beach road through Biloxi. It wasn't a good or bad vibe. It was something on the bad side of center. One of those iffy things. To calibrate my vibe meter, I checked with 2 other people and mentioned how I felt and they both agreed. I guess that means I won't be back, but the campground is so great, if I can get reservations again I'll be back and will just avoid Biloxi.

I had pictures that I planned to post here but since I can't upload them, I'll just have to wait for me to educate myself. Once I graduate, with honors of course, from my Windows 11 Home Schooling Program, I might come back and post the pictures. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed to another National Seashore Park. It's Fort Pickens National Seashore. I've been waiting years to get there which usual means I've over-hyped it in my mind and will be disappointed. We will see.

Once again, I'm sorry for no pictures. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road. 

Escaping New Orleans & The Tchefuncte River

 Fontainebleau State Park; Mandeville, Louisiana (north shore of Lake Pontchatrain)

A map to put the places into perspective.

The wind was blowing hard when I passed thru New Orleans on my way to this campground. Accuweather warned me that a wind advisory had been issued for 9 a.m. and would last all day. My tow distance was very short since I was just going to the other side of Lake Pontchatrain but the wind is what was bothering me. There were sustained winds in the upper 20 mph with gusts in the mid to upper 30 mph. I hadn't towed in such conditions with my new truck and that was a concerning unknown. Over the years I've easily towed in those windy conditions while towing a fifth wheel and even my current trailer, but my new truck hadn't been tested in that way yet. I know there are a lot of people who tow their RV's with weight distribution hitches and/or sway bars, but I've always believed that if the trailer is loaded correctly, sway bars are not needed and if the rear suspension is strong enough, weight distribution hitches are also not needed. My RPod seems to have been designed with this in mind since the only things of any weight behind the trailer axle is the furnace, water heater and spare tire. 

The windy conditions were going to be exacerbated (oops, that word slipped out from my previous life) by having to pass over the Twin Span bridges on Interstate 10. We were completely exposed to the wind. Ok, OK, I've built this up long enough. The new truck, "Freedom", did just fine. "Liberty" shook her booty a couple of times when some strong gusts hit us in our starboard quarter (wow, something must be wrong with me, those words go even farther back into an earlier life,,, it means the back, right corner), but Freedom put her right back in line. I'm now comfortable and confident in the new truck, although I still don't like all BS stuff on her and she better quit hollering at me if she knows whats good for her. That car she was hollering about wasn't even that close. I have a pair of wire cutters and not afraid to use them, if I can figure out which wire to cut. Oh, crap, nevermind.

At least the roads were in good shape. It helped ease my concerns about the wind.

This campground is on the north shore of Lake Pontchatrain. The entire area has a strange vibe to it. Although today is day four of my stay, I still haven't put my finger on that vibe. It feels like a strange combination of a touristy coastal town and "any small town" in the USA. It's not a bad Ju Ju feeling like I had gotten down at Fort Jackson a while back, but more like a heeby jeeby type of feeling.

Our campsite. Notice the Starlink attached to the grab-bar at the door. It worked fine even though I didn't fine tune the alignment.

This is looking out my back window. The squirrel eats it nuts while looking at the window. At first I thought it was looking at me, but I think it was seeing the reflections in the window. It was interesting to watch.

This road is inside the park and lined with live oaks with spanish moss.

It is a nice sculpture down by the shore. That is Lake Pontchatrain in the background and a nice fishing pier on the left. 

Strange looking bench before going out on the pier.

Another strange bench. This one is at the end of the fishing pier. The boy on the right is the grandson to the grandfather to the left, but not in the picture. They were making memories.

A view looking at the fishing pier. When I booked this campground, I had hopes of some nice sunsets but the weather hasn't cooperated. That's that strange bench on the left again, almost like a throne with it's own concrete pad.

Besides getting a prescription filled at Walmart, my plan was to visit two other places. Turned out that I couldn't get to one of those places because of emergency roadwork. I was able to get to the other one though. It was the Maritime Museum of Louisiana located in Madsionville which is the next town over from Mandeville. It is located along the Tchefuncte River (pronounced chah-funk-tuh). I figured I hadn't been disappointed in a museum in so long that I would give this one a try. Score = 6 out of 10. The best parts of the museum were the documentary videos stationed inside the museum. One video that liked in particular told about life along the Tchefuncte River. The river is only 70 miles long and empties into Lake Pontchatrain. The majority of lumber, bricks and pine pitch that was used to build New Orleans was made or harvested in this area and floated down the river then across the lake to New Orleans. After the Yankees captured New Orleans during the Civil War, the line of demarcation between the Union Troops and Southern Independence Fighters was the Tchefuncte River. There was a lot of interesting activity back then in terms of trade, blockade running, smuggling, etc, all of it seemingly centered on this river.Too much to get into in this post, and unless something strange happens in the future, I don't have any plans of returning to this area, so if I learn more about it, it will be online or library time.

The entrance to the museum. They do have a nice building. 

Some of their displays with half of a paddle wheeler replica to the right. 

This "jacobs ladder" gave me some rough flashbacks. I had to climb one of those when I was in the Navy. My ship and our sister ship was getting underway and I was sent to our sister ship to observe and critique their "sea and anchor" detail in their Combat Information Center as both ships got underway. To get me back to my ship, they put me on a Captains boat and took me to my ship. It hadn't even crossed my mind how I was going to get onboard until I saw the Jacobs Ladder hanging over the side. Stepping onto that ladder from a moving boat while the ship was making probably 5 knots was an experience. Climbing the ladder was something I only want to do once. My heart still races just thinking about it.

That's the Tchefuncte River from a nice city park in the town of Madisonville. 

Tomorrow is moving day with thunderstorms in the forecast. This has surely been some strange weather the last week to 10 days. I'll be headed east to a National Seashore Campground just the other side of Biloxi.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.  

Random Thoughts and Thinking Rings

 Location: Bayou Segnette State Park; Westwego, Louisiana

This post is going to be a little different than most of my other posts, mainly for two reasons. Rain, sometimes heavy, occurred two of the three days I was here and this is the third time I've been in this campground and area. Both of those reasons resulted in almost zero explorations. I did find a couple of things that sounded interesting, but both were closed until Wednesday which will be tomorrow and moving day. I stayed here back in 2016 and explored downtown New Orleans. I'll post the links to those three posts. Although conditions have improved somewhat in New Orleans in the recent months, it is still considered an unsafe place for a person that explores on their own, like I do. Back in 2016, I didn't hesitate to travel around the city on foot as well as using every streetcar line. Here's the links if you're interested in New Orleans >>>>>>>>>

https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2016/02/new-orleans-part-1.html

https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2016/02/new-orleans-part-2_22.html

https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2016/02/new-orleans-part-3-and-last.html

This last link is from my visit here in 2023 when I traveled as far south as I could alongside the Mississippi River.

https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2023/12/where-mississippi-river-ends.html

I promise I'm not turning my blog into a link-only blog. This one and the last one were special circumstances. Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be moving to a new-to-me Campground on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. New explorations and favorable weather awaits (fingers crossed).

This is my promised road picture. It is South Louisiana between New Iberia and Morgan City.

My campsite here at Bayou Segnette SP. At $13.33 per night, with the senior pass, for water/electric is a good deal. The previous camper left a lot of trash and a few whiskey bottles behind. I cleaned it up a little and let the people at the office know about it. I figured they just hadn't had enough time to clean since I checked in early, so I didn't complain loudly. I just wanted to make sure, if they kept records of this kind of stuff, they knew it wasn't me. 

A few random thoughts:

1) I've checked my blood pressure and blood sugar every morning for the last several years. Like a good little former Engineer, I keep the results in an Excel spreadsheet so I can run averages, trends, graphs, etc. It works good when I try something new so I can identify if it's working or not. One such thing is a supplement I started using a few months ago. It is Berberine/Cinnamon/Chromium. I had read it was good at regulating and lowering both Pressure and Sugar. I've been using it for almost 6 months and it has, on average, lowered my blood sugar by almost 20 points and it has regulated it to reduce random highs. It has also had a positive effect on my blood pressure. I'm really satisfied with it. The only problem is the first 3 bottles I used had those three ingredients all in one capsule. I had a hard time finding that brand so I've had to get Berberine by itself and Cinnamon/Chromium by their selves. It's just a small inconvenience for such positive effects. 

2) My new truck (Ford F-250), is getting about 10 1/2 miles per gallon while towing Liberty. This is an improvement of about 2 to 3 mpg from my old truck (Ford F-250). That was good news although I still miss my old truck. This new one keeps hollering at me for no good reason. 

3) Last year, I bought 10 silicone rings of various colors. I have them in a zip lock bag that is hanging on my medicine cabinet door. They are located there so they will be very visible. After brushing my teeth in the mornings, I'll think about a subject, a word or a memory that I want to remember or think about during the day. I will then reach in and blindly choose a ring. The reason for the different colors is so I don't get used to the ring. I want the color to spark my mind whenever I casually see it during the day. While wearing it during the day, it will jog my memory/remind me/knock me up side my head so I will ruminate (fancy word for deep thinking) on whatever I thought about that morning before putting the ring on. For example, one morning I was remembering my father who passed away many years ago. Every time I noticed the ring during the day, I would remember different things about him. Don't get me wrong, I don't need something to remind me of him, but this way, I thought of him a lot more that day. Other days, I may chose a subject like "honor" or "loyalty", "truth", "liberty" etc. It is surprising how much you can think about a single word when the ring reminds you throughout the day. Yeah, yeah, some of ya'll are going to think I'm crazy crazier, but I don't care. Hey, guess what, tomorrow's word will be,,,,, "crazy".

My rings of many colors. I haven't settled on what to call them yet, but am leaning towards "thinking rings". I think I paid like $10 for all 10. 

On that crazy note, I'll end the Random Thoughts. As I said, tomorrow is moving day. I'll be taking about a 20 mile detour to avoid crossing Lake Pontchartrain on the Causeway (bridge). The causeway is the longest continuous bridge, over water, in the world at a little less than 24 miles. The reason I'm avoiding it, is it doesn't have shoulders. Although there are two lanes in each direction, if Freedom or Liberty has any problems, we're blocking an entire lane for an undetermined amount of time. Therefore, I'll detour by way of I-10 which means I'll be passing through most of New Orleans. As usual whenever I pass thru a questionable and large city, I'll just crank up the music and check for bullet holes when I get to the campground.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.

Palmetto Island State Park

 Location: Palmetto Island State Park; Abbeville, Louisiana

I stayed at this campground back in December of 2023. It's conveniently located so I can visit my sister who lives about 35 minutes away. I didn't do any out of the way exploring this time due to rain showers and visiting time, but I did re-read the post I made back in 2023 and it was pretty good. So I think I'll post that link here and then post some recent pictures from this trip with captions. If the link isn't hot, then look at the archives on the right under December 2023. 

https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2023/12/cajun-country-and-tabasco-factory.html

Campsite here at Palmetto Island SP. The rate is $15.83 per night for full hook-ups. Camping is half price for seniors (62+). The warned me not to hook up my sewer hose until right before I pull out on the last day. Apparently, the black bears have taken a liking to sewer hoses and ripped several away from parked RV's. 

The view out my back window while sitting at my computer desk. The frond-like plants are palmettos. 

This is the entrance to the state park. It is a reminder that there are animals around here that can kill and eat you. I'm more concerned about the black bears than the gators. I'm also keeping an eye out for the Rougarous that are suppose to be around here somewhere. 

Southern Live Oak trees with spanish moss along the road leading to the State Park.

I forgot to take a road picture so I got this one on the way back from my sister's place. The water on the right is a crawfish pond and the back dots are the traps catching the crawfish. Sometimes rice is planted in the ponds, but not always. By the way, it's "crawfish", not "crayfish". 

I had a hankering for some shrimp but wasn't sure if I wanted them sauteed like above or in a gumbo. 

I decided to go the gumbo route. But I ain't going to make the roux from scratch, no. I pulled one of the gumbo boxes I carry when I'm traveling up north (Yankee country). It makes a pretty good gumbo, although I like it with chicken and sausage better than shrimp. That is my electric skillet I'm making it in. That was one of the best things I bought for the new RV. I use it as a pot or skillet. I haven't used the gas stove in over a year. 

This picture may start an argument among some people. There is always a controversy about having the tator salad in a saucer on the side or in the bowl like I do. Of course mine is the right way and those other mis-guided people will come to their senses in the years to come. I will accept their apologies at that time. The red dots are cayenne hot sauce. 

I'm putting this picture here as documentation. In my last post I said I would take a picture and use it to see if Liberty is slightly nose down and it appears she is, which is good. I'm satisfied with the way the hitched up couple look in the picture. It would be nice if I could send the picture to the original Freedom and Liberty, but they don't have internet access. Oh well.

I'm sorry for such a boring post, but if that hot link was good, that linked post is informative and pretty good. Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be heading a little over 100 miles east to another State Park near New Orleans. The rainy weather is due to pass and it looks like it may get warmer and more humid. Hopefully not. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.