It was a good thing we made a second trip into the city yesterday as today we woke up to rain. Actually, we have been hearing rain on the Airstream all night. We have been pretty lucky in the bad weather column of this trip in not seeing too much rain but it has finally caught up to us.
This morning we said good-bye to our ocean front Walmart parking space in Mississippi and headed west into the state of Louisiana. Our oldest kid, Ava, was super excited to finally cross into Louisiana. There are four places that she really wanted to visit during our current road trip adventure. First was to see our friend Carrie for Halloween (check!), then it was to go to Disney World (check!), then to see mermaids at Weeki Wachee (check!) and last, but not least, was to go to New Orleans… to eat beignets!
We made up some arbitrary rules awhile ago that in order for us to count a state as one that we have visited, we needed to tick off some boxes on a checklist that we will create. I am sure there are lots of other travelers who subject themselves to stricter requirements but the ones we decided for ourselves are pretty easy.
Last night I dug through our photos from Cedar Key and found one that showed the back of the yellow Landrover and trailer we have been seeing along our route. I remembered that they kept a blog and I was going to send them an a message through it about how we kept seeing them outside of our window.
This morning we are taking things slow. We spent a lot of time lounging around the Mish before the girls and Luka decided to meander around the campground and park looking for creatures. The rumor has it that there are bald eagles living somewhere in the park. As I stayed back at the campsite, Marlene and the kids went out on a little adventure.
Last night when we arrived at the Cracker Barrel, we were hesitant about parking for the night. After all, we had just been kicked out of a Wal-Mart that we felt was safe and accommodating when we arrived. There were no dedicated RV parking spaces like they usually do and there were also no other RVs here. We circled for a couple of times before deciding to settle into a corner of the lot.
Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park is at the end of the peninsula right across the bay from the town of Port St Joe. We thought hard about whether or not we wanted to come here as we did not know what kind of phone reception and internet we might have here. We took a chance and it paid off handsomely.
Last night was the coldest night we have had in a long time. It is definitely not shorts and t-shirt weather around here anymore as it dipped into the 30s for the first time for us since the Carolinas back in October. Hopefully this is just a cold spell that will pass as we intend on keeping our summer clothes around for as long as we can.
When we got here yesterday, we got our spot for just one night with the second night as an option and I think we are going to exercise that. Tomorrow, some Canadians are coming to stay for awhile. The rates are setup here that monthly stays are highly encouraged. We are paying $38 a night including taxes and Good Sam discount but the monthly rate is a mere $500.
We are once again in road mode. That means we don’t have plans to stay anywhere longer than a couple of days with boondocking nights in between during transit days. We really haven’t been in this mode for a few months and it is kind of exciting to get back into it.
Finally we have completed all of our obligations here in St Petersburg. We have had a lot of activities in the last few days since we got here. It started with our TV debut on WFLA, then our sailing day on the water with Kyle and finally yesterday, we drove up to Weeki Wachee for the big girl’s 6th birthday. We are here for one more night tonight and things are starting to slow down.
We are glad to be back at Fort De Soto today with the Mish detached and ready to relax for the next few days. With the TV appearance out of the way, we are now free to make as big of a mess as we’d like in the Airstream.
