Fauntleroy was out to see us off this morning before we left Florida Caverns and drove to Big Oak Park just west of Tallahassee, FL. We arrived early so we went into Tallahassee to do some biz. We also crossed a time zone line just west of town so we lost another hour today.
First we went to the Ford dealership in town to inquire about getting the oil changed in Charlotte’s diesel engine. As usual, the dealership is difficult to deal with and they wanted us to hang out for a mere 4 hours for an oil change. I nixed that and asked if we could get an appointment but, of course, the assholes only do first come, first served so we bailed.
We stopped by B of A to make a deposit and, Zowie!, there was a Trader Joe’s across the street from the bank and we popped in to re-stock the Invader larders. We also shot down the road to a Camping World and bought some shit-dissolving enzymes for the waste tanks and a bottom step to help the gimpy old owner into his mobile palace.

Today is my birthday and Peggy bought me some bird seed because I wanted some to bribe birds to come to me. We drove into Marianna and scoped out some of the gorgeous historic buildings in town. Very nice.
The rest of the day we got to do what I wanted – nothing. Fauntleroy made an appearance again today giving us ample opportunities for pictures.

We went into Florida Caverns today. The caverns are really neat but the passages are really low in some spots and I almost shit my pants bending over and slithering through some of them. Nevertheless, the cavern is pretty spectacular and the tour takes visitors right up to the stalactites, stalagmites and columns. The tour guide was a nice kid but she pronounces stalactite as “stalagtite,” and said that her mnemonic trick to remember that the deposits are calcite is that calcite rhymes with “cow.” The tour is still fun for all but all the kids touch the deposits despite being told not to touch anything. Shitty parents, I guess.
There was an enormous Barred Owl that we spotted that lives in a Cypress tree in the swamp behind the the spot where we set up the Invader. He makes lots of racket, even before dark and is a truly gorgeous specimen. We have named him Fauntleroy the Assripper.

Today we drove to Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, Florida. Daylight savings started last night so we lost an hour out of the day so after we arrived and set up camp, we just loafed.

Today we laid low in Chickasabogue. The weather was great.

Today we drove to Chickasabogue County Park in a little burg called Eight Mile north of Mobile, Alabama. It is nice park but there isn’t much to see in this neck of the woods. We arrived early so we went into Mobile to take a look around. Mobile is a particularly unattractive city with substandard buildings except in a small area right downtown. However, in the downtown area we hopped on a free shuttle bus that drives patrons around about the only attractive part of town and the buildings there are quite nice but many of them are vacant.
We also went to ancient Fort Conde which was used as a fixed fortification by Spaniards, Frogs, British and the U.S. Part of it is renovated back to it’s former glory and it is great to wander around in the facility. Right down the street we also popped into the Mobile Museum which is a nice renovated building with some good exhibits but nothing to get excited about compared to other stuff we have seen.
I would have a hard time recommending Mobile as a destination.

We got up early intending to head for Alabama but the weather was shitty with intermittent rain and gusty wind. I paid another $12 to hang one more day here in Swampville, USA. The country around here is quite beautiful, very green and lush but one does not spot many teeth in the heads of the residents. We initially thought we may go to see the Tchoutacabouffa River which they pronounce as “Choota-kaboofa” and allege means “broken pot.” Seems strange that with spelling being such a lost art in these parts of the world, they would call the place Broken Pot since the spelling seems easier.

We drove into Biloxi to the VIC which is a beautiful building with Old South architecture directly across Hwy 90 from the Gulf. It may look old but actually it is brand new because Katrina smoked the former VIC. Out on a divider in Hwy 90 is the Biloxi Lighthouse which is made from cast iron, of all things. The cast iron shell is lined on the inside with brick. This lighthouse survived Camille and only got knocked out-of-plumb by Katrina. It is fixed now.
From the VIC we went to Jefferson Davis’s Beauvoir estate which is about 2 or 3 miles towards Gulfport. This structure has been extensively renovated because it also got damaged by Katrina. The furniture inside is original but they ain’t too skookum on restrooms because there weren’t any in the house. The main house is five big rooms – an enormous entry foyer, a parlor, another room which seems remarkably like a parlor, a bedroom and a parlor. The guide alleged one of the parlors was actually a “liberry” which in the old days was a place where they kept books. In one wing outside were Mr. & Mrs. Jeff’s adjoining bedrooms and in the other wing was a dining room and a small butler’s pantry. The kitchen was installed in a completely separate building outside. A true Jewish princess’s dream house.
The claim that this was Jefferson Davis’s house might be a bit specious because he only owned the place for a short while, was not the builder and only stayed here once in a while. It should probably be called Jeff Davis’s beach house. He had a plantation somewhere near Vicksburg, died in New Orleans and is buried in Richmond, Virginia.
They also have a Texas-style Jefferson Davis Library facility near the house. Like Texas, they have built a large, elegant structure which consists of mostly empty space because they have very few exhibits and most of those are guns. There is a room where they have a computer where one can look up their relatives who served in the Civil War on either side but you must have their full name and their state of which we had neither. Peg met a woman here who explained that her basement did not flood during Katrina because she had installed what she referred to as “hubber” fans. This type of mechanical equipment is a rotary fan that “hubbers” just below the basement ceiling. In California, we refer to these items as paddle or ceiling fans. We do not actually know what “hubber” means.
We then headed to see the Seabee Museum at NCBC Gulfport. The museum is on a working Seabee base so we had to go through the usual pass and decal shit to get on base; fill out forms, submit to a security check, wait. Once done with that we headed in through the main gate where the contract security person did not bother to scan our ID documents and waved us through. The folks at Homeland Security would shit.
Once we found the facility, we popped in to have the lady inside tell us they had a really nice museum prior to Katrina but now they only have a very few items because the others blew away. It would have been nice if they told us the museum was toast when we were at the main gate pass and decal facility. Well, at least the fed knows we were in Gulfport today.

Departed the Big Easy headed east into Mississippi on I-10. Today was a short drive of only about 2 hours including stopping at the Mississippi VIC near the border. The VIC is in a very nice rest stop area that is also the driveway to the NASA Stennis Facility which I guess is a science center although I can’t be sure because we didn’t go there. Mississippi is actually quite pretty (at least along I-10) but the ground is close to the water table or sea level unless their civil engineering is faulty. Nothing seems to drain and there is standing water everywhere – on the freeway, on the roads and, most importantly, in the campground where we stopped for the next few days. The place is called Martin Lake but the lake just seems to be a suspiciously regular square excavation where water collects. They offer free fishing w/o a license which is of absolutely no importance to an angler like me. Our campsite was only covered by an inch or two of water surrounded by bog-like lawn areas. The humidity is ferocious; 80% or more.
Since we arrived early, we took a spin through Biloxi’s waterfront and continued into the same in Gulfport, an adjacent community. The first thing I noticed was that there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of beachfront property directly across the highway (Hwy 90) from the Gulf of Mexico that only had a few beautiful mansions standing on it. After a bit of thinking I realized that all the vacant property was only vacant after 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina which delivered a glancing blow to New Orleans but hit Biloxi and Gulfport directly in the teeth. Virtually nothing stands between Hwy 90 and the rail tracks about 6 or 8 blocks north of the shore. A great deal of construction has generated many new houses, rebuilt in exactly the same spot where they were washed away before. Casinos used to be located on river boats but now are brand new large-scale developments built on the shore. The river boat flotsam is probably in Tennessee.
Water kept forming on Charlotte’s windshield and Peg & I were hard pressed to determine if it was light rain or just the humidity hitting our cold glass. If it is this gooey when the temperature is 78 degrees, I wonder how awful it must be in the summer.

Last day in New Orleans. We woke up late, took showers, ate & then drove into the French Quarter again. Peg wanted to see the cathedral across from Jackson Square. It is okay if you like churches. On one side of it is something known as the Prebytere and on the other is something called the Cabildo. Together they make up the NO Museum but, as usual, they were closed when we got there.
The humidity is ferocious and the dew point is low so when we went to see the Mississippi River ½ a block south of Jackson Square. Since the river was colder than the air, dense fog forms over the river and blows into town. Very strange.
We hopped back into Charlotte and drove through the Garden District again. New Orleans is beautiful but it has some of the stupidest and most discourteous drivers in the world. The roads are shit and there is construction everywhere and they don’t provide access around blocked roads, lanes or other creative snafus.
We ultimately got back to I-10 after driving a ways up the river. Once back at the Invader, we did the dreaded laundry we bailed on yesterday. I also filled the fresh water tank, dumped the black and gray water, dropped the slide-out jacks, stowed all the shit and got ready for tomorrow’s departure. Thank God for CATV.