The next stop is going to be our last one in the eastern Sierras before the caravan officially disbands for us to all go our separate ways. We will continue to head north towards Mammoth Lakes to camp at Crowley Lake. Before that happens, we are going to double down on the Burger Barn in Bishop before we leave because it is that good.
Every time we are in Palm Springs, we have to go to Ace Hotel. Thanks to Marlene’s parents who spend a week each year at their Palm Springs timeshare, the girls have associated the city with swimming. Ace Hotel is the perfect place to go for that. Their pool is open to everyone, guest or not, with a small daily use fee.
Being here near Palm Springs feels like we are already home. This is one of our go-to places for a getaway while we are home based and even though we are still technically full-timing across the country, it definitely feels like our trip is all but over. Officially, it will be in a couple of days but it is hard for us to make that distinction. We still won’t have a house to move into for a couple of weeks but we will be sleeping under a roof supported by walls sitting on a concrete foundation at Marlene’s parents house.
Today marks our 200th day on the road since we left Las Vegas. Technically we have been in the Airstream for much longer than that but the daily posts did not start for this trip until we departed from our 5-night hotel stay in sin city. We are getting very close to home and by the end of today, we will be even closer.
Our campground in Dickinson is located about 20 miles southeast of Houston. It is just about right in the middle between Houston and Galveston just a few miles away from Johnson Space Center. We intentionally found a spot there so we would be able to spend the day at the Space Center after we check out in a couple of days. Today, we are headed into Houston.
Today the clouds dissipated and left us with pools of water once again in the low lying areas around the campground. Our stay here has been a little disappointing as many of the reasons why we liked this place last time were not quite the same. The facilities all seem a lot more run down than we remembered. Half of the campground was closed and slow internet has prevented me from getting a lot of work done.
The forecast calls for some rain in our future so we decided to take the opportunity to get back into New Orleans to do some more sightseeing before it is too late. Once again, we are taking the bridge in and forgoing the Algiers Ferry. Maybe our next visit won’t land on the perfect storm of tourists in the crescent city and we will be able to get back on that boat across the Mississippi river.
Being back in New Orleans is a pretty big milestone for us. Since leaving Florida, we don’t have many plans to stay anywhere more than a couple of days. New Orleans is the only big city we planned to spend more than a couple of days at until we got back to the west coast. Once we leave Louisiana and head into Texas, there are going to be more transit days and for longer distances.
Last night we tried to eat dinner at the buffet of Biloxi’s Boomtown casino but we were unable to get in there with the kids. Since it is just a casino and not a hotel, no one under 18 is allowed inside. We actually didn’t care that much about it. We were just trying to patronize it for allowing us to park overnight.
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.
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.
