Day 41 - (11/04) Pensacola, FL

Tuesday - we explored Pensacola today.

We drove downtown and took a driving tour through the historic district.

We then drove the 3 mile Pensacola Bay Bridge to Gulf Breeze island and then on Bob Sikes Bridge to Santa Rosa Island. We walked Pensacola Beach. The beach was beautiful, clean, white sand stretching for miles.

We returned to the city and went to the Wentworth Museum to take in some of the history of Pensacola. It dates back to 1559 and is known as the City of Five Flags because of the struggle to control it by Spain, France, England, America and the Confederacy. The road to Ft. Pickens (west) and Navarre Beach (east)

We spent the evening watching election returns.

Day 40 - (11/03) Pensacola, FL

Monday - we travelled to Pensacola today. It was a relatively short drive (109 miles).

We continue to take the beach routes. They offer wonderful views of small communities and life in the area. There's much less evidence of hurricane damage here than in LA and MS.

The weather continues to be wonderful ... 38 of our 40 days of travel have been sunny and clear. What a blessing!

We're now in the FL Big Lagoon State Park. It's located on the Gulf coast just west of Pensacola. We're surrounded by palms, pines, sand and marshland. We're warned that alligators and snakes are legitimate residents here.

Special sights ...

• The drive across Mobile Bay was breathtaking
• The battleship USS Alabama, a B52 and an F4 were on display at a museum on the Bay

Day 39 - (11/02) Gautier, MS

Sunday - this was a relaxing day of touring Pascagoula, MS. First we went on an airboat tour of the swamps and saw an alligator ranch. Then we went to the shipyard and saw the USS Makin Island (LHD-8), an aircraft carrier under construction. We finished the day with dinner at Huck's Cove.

The Alligator ranch is where alligators are raised for population growth. Natural survival rate is about 1%. Ranches increase survival to about 98%. An alligator farm is where alligators are raised for business (leather goods and meat). Did you know alligators grow 1 foot per year for the first 6 years, then 1 inch per year? They don't eat if the temperature is below 73 degrees and live for well over 100 years.

Bert was our tour guide. He's a retired tugboat captain who was raised in the swamps since age 5. He works as a volunteer and is devoted to his "gators".

This airboat really flies! Carol loved it when Bert went FAST.

This is the USS Makin Island under construction in the Pascagoula shipyard. The keel was layed 05/22/03. It's scheduled to be deployed at San Diego in late 2009.

Oil rigs under construction.

Huck's Cove - front door. Pretty impressive huh?

Huck's Cove - back door. We ate on the back patio.

Day 37 - (10/31) Convent, LA

Friday - this was a day of touring plantations. We saw Poche Plantation, Laura Plantation and Oak Alley Plantation. All were quite different and beautifully restored.

Poche Plantation

View of Poche RV Resort from river dike

Carol on the dike ... waving toward RV park- tankers, tugs and work boats are behind her.

Laura Plantation displays life of a Creole family who ran the farm for 200 years. Do you remember Brer Rabbit, Tar-Baby and Uncle Remus? The slaves on Laura Plantation were the source of these stories.

Laura Plantation - home and office

Slave quarters at Laura Plantation - there was a row of 2 that stretched for 3 1/2 miles.

Oak Alley Plantation was built for the owner's new bride. She didn't like plantation life and spent most of her married life partying in New Orleans.

The "Big House" at Oak Alley Plantation.

Carol - the alley of 28 live oak trees in the background.

Day 36 - (10/30) Convent, LA

Thursday - We travelled the "Old Spanish Trail" today. The trail meanders through Cajun country. It was the longest National Geographic route to-date.

The sights provided a collision of contrasts ... old vs. modern, man vs. nature, broken vs. new. The contrasts applied to homes, trailers, cars, and boats. We saw oil rigs being constructed, operating oil wells and refineries, sugar cane fields and refineries, beautifully preserved antebellum plantation homes, decaying slave quarters, hurricane damage, and more. Many of the differing sites were side-by-side.

We saw Spanish moss, cypress, bayous and swamps. The density of the bayous was very interesting. We saw an armadillo, but no alligators.

We did see a number of interesting small towns with historic areas that included plantations and mansions.

Poche Plantation

We stopped at LeJeune’s Bakery in Jeanerette for some French bread. It’s been a town staple since 1884. The bread was warm and delicious!

What does Avery Island, Edmund McIlhenny and capsicum pepper plants have in common? Think Tabasco pepper sauce. We toured the factory and grounds. They make nearly ½ million bottles per day (the count was over 457,000 at 4pm) and ship to 19 countries. It’s truly a hot product.

This was a 10 hour day of exploring. We were beat when we got back to the RV park.

Day 35 - (10/29) Convent, LA

Wednesday - today we drove 186 miles from Sulphur, LA to Convent, LA and checked in at the Poche Plantation and RV Resort. We're 20 minutes from Baton Rouge and from New Orleans.

The trip offered many new sights. One section of I-10 (36 miles) was elevated above a huge swamp, part of the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Area. Here's a view from the car window travelling at 60 mph.

We saw miles of sugar cane fields, many sugar refineries.

The route was I-10 to just west of Baton Rouge, south on LA 1, east on 70 at Donaldsonville, over the Mississippi and south on LA 44 along the river. To our relief, the bridge was MUCH wider than the two we crossed when we came west.

The RV park is beautiful and offers many amenities. The Mississippi River is just beyond a dike across the road from the park. Tugs, tankers and work boats offer periodic horn blasts to remind us they're busy over there.

We attended a buffet dinner hosted by the park and met some very interesting, friendly folks. One man was from Scotland. He is a project engineer working on a new refinery. He had lived in Marysville, OH for 15 years ... what a small world we live in!

Folks down here are McCain supporters and make it well known.

Day 34 - Sulphur, LA

Tuesday - it was cool this morning (mid-40s). Are you sure we're in Louisiana Toto?

We took the National Georgraphics "Creole Nature Trail" journey today. It goes from Sulphur to Lake Charles on LA routes 27, 82, 14 and 384. The area is called Louisiana's Outback. It's a 180 mile journey. It normally offers lots of wide-open, unpeopled spaces. Today it included an upclose and sobering view of hurricane devastation by Ike and Rita (2 years ago).

LA routes 27 and 83 showed us the good and the bad …

• A marvelous view of the Intracoastal Waterway (a shipping route that runs from Texas to the Atlantic coast)


• Brackish marsh with few trees
  
• Sabine National Wildlife Refuge
  
• Small town of Hackberry – in the midst of recovery from hurricane Ike
  
• The town of Holly Beach – wiped off the map by hurricane Rita 2 yeards ago
  
• Highway berms were gone – carved away, leaving 2-3 foot drop-offs
  
• Small car and foot bridges destroyed
  
• Buildings damaged or destroyed


• A commercial fishing boat on its side, on land, on the wrong side of the road
  
• Debris all over the place


• Positive, friendly people
  
• Hundreds of recovery workers – they’re mobile workers, they fill the RV parks

Our journey ended at Lake Charles … at Richard’s Boudin and Seafood. This was our first encounter with Cajun cuisine. Our server did a wonderful job of explaining the options and what to expect. We had: shrimp gumbo, boudin (spicy rice sausage), garr ball, pistolette (craw fish in a pastry), fried shrimp dinner (with fries, hushpuppies and cole slaw). The shrimp was fresh and absolutely delicious!