Gulf Islands National Seashore

We are now near Gainesville, Florida. We are enjoying the slow pace of a very nice RV park in Northern Florida this time of year. The majority of Snow Birds and not come south yet. We are really looking forward to the latter part of this week, when our Daughter and SIL along with our youngest Grand Daughter will be joining us for Christmas and a trip to Disney World. I will write all about that in my coming entries, but for now it is catch up time.

We left Big Biloxi Campground on November 25 and drove the 40 miles over to Davis Bayou campground at Gulf Islands National Seashore. This National Seashore is made up of the area around the Davis Bayou and the off-shore barrier islands that protect the gulf coast from Louisiana over to the panhandle of Florida. We have stayed in this campground once before almost 5 years ago. This was the first campground that we stayed in after I had retired. I have great memories of this place.

We were able to easily fit into this site that was limited to 30 foot rigs

The National Seashore area is surrounded by the city of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It has the normal sounds and traffic of a city. Unfortunately, you can hear those sounds while in this protected oasis of nature. We did need to do some provisioning while we were there, so it did make it easy to find fuel and a grocery store.

We did get very active while we were visiting the National Seashore. I started out with a 4.5 mile walk around the park to see what there was to do. The next day, Kim joined me and we also walked well over 4 miles. We went to the visitor center and watched the movie. We collected a bunch of information about visiting the barrier islands, we may have to do that some day in our boat. Hmmm...we will see.

The scenery in this park is very beautiful.

We noticed that is was low tide. The park changes very significantly as it goes from low to high tide. The mud flats in the following picture were under water just a few hours later.

Here is a Great Egret fishing in a tidal marsh area

Beautiful Live Oak trees all through the park

This Egret is for you , Mom

The following day we went for a bike ride. I ended up with about 7 miles, Kim did not do as much, but at least she is exercising. The next day we got the inflatable Sea Eagle Kayak out of it's bag for the first time in over a year. We spent about 4 hours paddling around the park. We started with no wind, so we headed out into the channel. It was low tide, so it was just deep enough for our 9 inch skeg. We did hit mud in a few places.

Channel markers leading out into the bay.

As we headed out into the bay we passed the Marine Research Center. All of the structures in this area we destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

We watched as a local fisherman came by to check his crab traps. We rounded the corner and headed out into the bay. We passed a number of houses with boat docks along the shore. The opposite site was protected shoreline with birds and other wildlife.

In this shot you can see all the way down the coast to the casinos of Biloxi

Some Pelicans looking for their next meal.

As predicted, the winds picked up from the SE, so we just rode the breeze back to the park and into the protection of the bayou. We cruised around up and down the arms of the bayou checking out the birds. It was very quiet and enjoyable.

A Blue Heron and two Egrets in this shot

I got a couple of nice reflection shots to finish the day.

 We had a great time at the National Seashore. We can't wait to come back.

After staying 5 days, we left to go to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We have some awesome friends there and we were excited to see them again. I will write about our time in Gulf Shores in my next entry. Will there be boats in the story??

4 Hour Tour on a 40 Foot Sailboat

We arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi on November 18. We had plans to stay in the Big Biloxi Campground. Big Biloxi is a National Forest Service Campground. It has electric and water hook ups, but does not take reservations. We have found that campgrounds that do not take reservations are fairly easy to get in. You just need to arrive by early afternoon and arrive on a Sunday through Thursday. Big Biloxi is a nice little campground with easy access to the main highway heading south to Gulfport. We were only about 14 miles to the water. We only paid $20 per night and had great Verizon service and good OTA TV.

Site 15 at Big Biloxi - The largest site in the park.

This was the week of Thanksgiving, but that is not the reason we came to Gulfport. After spending all of last summer learning to sail on our little lake in Missouri with our Hunter 22, we wanted to charter a big sailboat and get out in some more open water. Neither Kim or I had ever been off shore more than a short distance in a boat, other than a large cruise ship or ferry. I looked at a map and the shortest distance to open water from Missouri is Gulfport. I looked for a charter company in the area and found North Star Sailing Charters. When I contacted them, Captain Jim King was quick to offer exactly what we wanted. We not only wanted to ride on his boat, we wanted to help crew it. Jim's response was "No Problem!"

Jim King is also an American Sailing Association certified instructor. I am sure he was thinking this was just going to be our first lesson with him. Jim is a retired Air Force Pilot. He flew C-130's during his time with the US Air Force.

When I contacted Jim to make final arrangements for our trip, we had to work around some weather issues. We decided on a 4.5 hour trip out to Cat Island. Cat is one of the barrier islands that sit about 6 miles off shore. We would not be sailing in the open Gulf of Mexico. This area between the barrier islands and the coast is called the Mississippi Sound. That was fine with us, 6 miles should give us a good taste of coastal navigation and some other large ship traffic coming in and out of the Port of Gulfport. The trip was scheduled for Tuesday the 20th of November.

On Monday, Kim and I went down to the docks to check the place out. We have been to the Gulf many times and I can never remember seeing it so calm. There was no wind! The good news was that there was some wind in the forecast for the following day. We walked around on this beautiful day and looked at all of the boats. We easily found the North Star dock. Here is a shot of Kashmir. She is a Catalina 40 MK2, a beautiful boat.

I had trouble sleeping on Monday night. I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. We got to the dock early on Tuesday and watched as Jim came in to dock after a morning lesson. We headed out at 1 PM. We got the motor started and after a short safety briefing,  Jim looked at me and told me to take the helm. I drove this big beauty right out of the slip. We cleared the channel and the lessons started. I turned her head to wind and we unfurled the sails and shut down he engine. We were Sailing! The rest of the trip was just a dream. We had autopilot, but I wanted to "drive", so we did most of the time. We had winds between 10 and 20 knots and a swell of 1 to 3 feet. This boat handled it all with amazing ease. I now see the advantage of a 40 foot boat in rough water. I do feel confident, I could have sailed on this day, in this water, in our 22, but it was so much easier in the 40. Kim enjoyed moving around the boat and taking pictures, she even took the helm for a while. We took hundreds of pictures, even Jim took a bunch he sent us after the trip.

Jim King giving me directions getting our of the harbor

Unfurling the sails. This boat had a mast furled mainsail.

We did see some dolphins

I had to dodge this barge

Kim riding the bow. It did get chilly as the day wore on.

Beautiful Sunset. This is where we want to be! Nice Hair!

We sailed down wind out to Cat Island. As we turned into the wind to head back in, the wind came up a bit and we were now feeling the wind that had been with us earlier in the day. We fully unfurled the headsail and this boat showed me what she had. We went to wind with a bit of heal and topped out at a bit over 6 knots. I was in heaven. 

Check out our angle of lean in this picture. 

We ended the day with a beautiful sunset. It was a near perfect day. Jim is a great captain and a great story teller. I would highly recommend his charters to anyone that wants to experience sailing. As far as this being my first lesson, I am sure this was just the first of many to come.

We ended up spending 7 days in Gulfport and had a fun time touring other marinas and checking out the area. Kim did fix dinner on Thanksgiving.  It was quiet, but still a nice day.

We love the gulf coast and were not done with our boating adventures. Come back to see where we went next and what kind of boat we would be in this time.

Natchez, Mississippi

We left Jimmie Dee SP on November 16. We were headed to Gulfport, Mississippi, but did not want to do the entire 300+ miles in one day, so I looked for a good place to stop. Almost directly in the middle was Natchez SP. We did not have reservations, but it looked like they had plenty of availability for the weekend. So, we did something we rarely do, we traveled to a new park on a Friday. As luck would have it they had a nice spot for us even though it was fairly full. It seems that it was hunting season and they were allowing people to hunt in the park. OK, no hiking here.

I was only slightly aware of Natchez. I had heard about a nice collection of Antebellum homes and that was about it. Well, did I have a lot to learn. Natchez was a thriving city in the early 1800's. Cotton farming in the near by delta was fueling a booming economy. The rich plantation owners built huge mansions. By the 1850's, Natchez was the home to over half of the millionaires in the US. The farms and mansions were fueled by slave labor. Natchez was surprisingly against the secession of the south, so when the northern armies captured and occupied Natchez, they left most of the beautiful homes intact. Natchez has over 1000 buildings on the National Register of Historic places.

We headed out of the park and before we made it a mile, I saw signs for the Natchez Trace. Natchez is the southern terminus of the Trace. This ancient roadway runs over 400 miles from Natchez to Nashville, Tennessee. I have driven part so this scenic parkway before, but this was the first time in years. This roadway was originally used by the Natchez and other Indian tribes from this area as a trade route north. Before we went too far on the road we came to a sign for Emerald Mound.

This was an ancient city dating back to the 1300's. I was blown away by the size of the area that had been cleared and mounded to be used by these ancient people for rituals and sport. They built a huge mound that is over 8 acres and about 100 feet high, by hand.

We did stop along the trace to take a walk on a section of the original road that was bypassed when they built the new beautiful winding parkway. After that history lesson, we drove down the trace to the end and then headed into the city of Natchez.  The National Park Service has a historical park on the grounds of Melrose. Melrose is one of the mansions dating back to the 1840's. We decided that would be a good place to start.

The history of Melrose is very interesting. I think that is what is cool about each of the houses. Each has it's own story to tell. This estate was built from insane money made in the cotton business. They held between 10 and 25 slaves to run the estate. I was very conflicted while touring the house and grounds.

Our tour guide. This tour was only $10 each. Some of the other homes were much more.

Men's parlor

The large device above the table is a fan. A rope would be pulled over by the fireplace by a slave.

Much of the furnishings are original from the house. In that time, when you sold the house, most of the furnishings stayed with the house. 

I liked the house, but loved the grounds. I walked around the barns and slave quarters and imagined what life would be like for all of those people. In the slave quarters there was an awesome exhibit that included interviews of former slaves done around the turn of the 20th century. A real lesson in American history. 

I loved the beautiful trees.

Carriage house with original carriages. 

We then decided to go to the old downtown area and do a walking tour. 

The downtown streets are interesting, but do not date back as far and the cities like Charleston, SC that we visited last winter. 

They have beautiful churches:

Catholic cathedral

First Presbyterian Church

We walked to the banks of the Mississippi river. That is why this city is located here. They used the river the ship the cotton all over the world.

Barge fighting the current up river.

We walked down and back up a very steep hill to the waters edge. This is an area called "Under-the-Hill". This was the rough area on the docks where they loaded the barges and bought and sold slaves. It has now been turned into a restaurant and bar district.

We walked by a number of other beautiful homes.

After the steep climb from the rivers edge, we both deserved a nice dinner. We stopped at a local bistro and enjoyed a good dinner. The food was only average, but we engaged in conversation with a couple of local gentlemen that were involved in tours of the mansions. That conversation made the dinner memorable.

We made it back to the park after dark and knew we had only scratched the surface of what there is to do and see in Natchez. It really is a "must do" if you are traveling in the area.

The next day, we were headed to Gulfport. I was more than excited! I will write all about the next chapter in our sailing adventure in my next entry.

This is Our Way to Travel

We have been living in our trailer for almost 6 years now. We have been retired and traveling much of the last 5 years. In that time we have found a pace and a type of travel that we find very enjoyable. When I say that we can't wait to get back on the road, what I am really saying is that we can't wait to get back in OUR travel mode. Our travel mode consists of moving every 3 to 5 days and moving no more than 150 miles. We like to find an almost empty park on a lake and we would like to pay less than $20 per night. Now, is that too much to ask?

If you look back at our sites in Russellville, Arkansas and Lake Texoma, Oklahoma, they were both COE parks that we paid $15 per night in Russellville and $14 at Lake Texoma.

We left Lake Texoma on Sunday November 11 and headed East. We are now moving in the direction of the gulf coast. We have a plan to charter a boat and do some sailing in Gulfport, Mississippi and we were eager to get south. Our first stop was in Southern Arkansas on Millwood Lake. We found an out of the way COE park called Cottonshed Park. The place was mostly empty and we got a huge site right on the lake. The price was $15 per night and had good Cell and OTA TV reception.

Although it was cold and rainy while we were there, it was perfect weather to enjoy the peace and quiet of this beautiful lake. The wildlife was active and the humans were not.

Nice fishing bridge that connects the two areas of the campground. You can see our trailer, just to the left of the bridge.

I went for my daily walks around the park checking out the local inhabitants. I saw a number of ducks and other water fowl. As you can tell by the pictures on my front page of this blog, I love bald eagles. I did see one in a perch up in a pine tree. I only had my phone with me, so the picture is not very good, but at least I have proof.  

I was able to watch him fly away, but was unable to get that image. We ended up staying three days and saw one night get down to 27 degrees. We agreed that is too cold and it was time to head further south. We were hoping to totally avoid freezing temps this year, but the unseasonably cold weather caught us. 

We did have one nice sunset while we were at Millwood Lake

Our next stop was about 180 miles away in Louisiana. We selected Jimmie Davis SP on Caney Creek Reservoir. We like Louisiana State Parks. The are usually nice, affordable and have laundry's that used to be free. In this case the washer was 75 cents and the dryer was free, so Kim took time to get our laundry caught up. We again had a nice site on the lake and paid $21 per night. Good Cell and OTA TV at this location also. 

Here we are again parked by a lake. Just the way we like it. 

I did a lot of hiking at the SP. Kim even joined me for one of them. The lake was beautiful and they had a complimentary boat dock for the park guests. 

We had some awesome sunset while we were in Louisiana.

This shot was taken at our site. Not bad...

Mom, this Blue Heron shot is for you. 

It felt so good to get back to nature and to have no commitments. We both enjoyed the quiet week. 

Next up was a bit of a surprise to both of us. We thought that Natchez, Mississippi would be just another stop on the road, boy were we wrong. In my next entry, I will write about our visit to Natchez. We really liked this town.