No fret. It was only temporary.

I know Elaine. I need to write more often, but we’ve been on the go!

I spent a night in Natchitoches (still can’t say it correctly) along the Red River. Super clean, nice campground, and to my surprise, they had an exercise path! Totally cool and it motivated me to actually take a jog. What a beautiful day! Sorry Colorado friends. I think this was during your snowstorm.

Nothing totally exciting to report here except they had a wonderful shower and right after I took one I gave myself a second, and much colder, shower. I was going to wash my dishes – hooked up my hose – next thing I know, it has sprung around 20 leaks!!! I was drenched! How does that happen all at once? $50 replacement hose coming right up!

I have been to New Orleans before, but this was my first experience (but not my last) seeing more of Louisiana. It has it’s pretty moments.

Bayous all over the place. This was along the running path. I kept an eye out for Gators!

There’s water EVERYWHERE – when you come from dry states, it is amazing. I also thought it was amazing the number of tractor shops and RV centers I saw. How many tractors does one state need?

My first time through LA was pretty quick since I was on my way to Pascagoula, MS to see these awesome people

That’s Melanie, Steve, Dave and me. All SOB related people. Have I mentioned what a blessing SOB has been in my life?! We stayed one night at The Culpeppers house – Dave’s family is fantastic! Delisa (sister) spoiled us with great food and Joe (dad) was fun to visit with. Good ol’ Southern Hospitality, and they wouldn’t let us do a thing – oh wait, I was allowed to peel eggs. I think that is more than Delisa ever lets anyone do in her kitchen. Really, really enjoyed our time there!

Melanie drives a Sprinter van, and she decided to join me for a couple of weeks. She will admit that she was a little concerned about traveling with someone from Colorado, that we might have different views on certain subjects, but Nope! We have found that we think a lot a like and we’ve been having a blast! We had no idea where we wanted to go, so we went with the boys to Pensacola. I turned off Cliff, and followed Dave – it was a little weird not having my Australian friend telling me where to go, but Dave did great! I had my first experience at Buccees – craziness, and sleeping in the parking lot of a hotel (the guys were inside) – They were perfect gentlemen and offered us showers in the morning – was that a hint?

The guys hit the road, and Mel and I STILL had no idea where we wanted to go. That’s another thing we have in common, no solid plan and we are both easy going – takes a while to make a decision. We finally decided to stay in Pensacola for a couple of days. Uh oh. Try to find a campground there on short notice. The first place I called was $85/night and we had to get two spots. The second place was over $100!! We got 100% lucky and found Fort Pickens campground. It was a bit of a challenge to get there

But we waded through. There was availability and we took over an hour to pick a spot. We found the perfect spot after driving around and around (people thought we were lost and started teasing us), but when we went to reserve it, not available! That happened over and over. Oops. We finally just picked a spot and prayed we would fit.

Not bad I’d say. We weren’t allowed to let any of our tires touch the grass. My little camper fit like that and I had about 2MM to spare. We had a great long walk on a beautiful beach.

The sand squeaks. In this picture, there is a little white crab. Almost invisible. Can you see it?

I thought this was creative.

And that night at 9:00 I heard Taps! It was so cool!

The next day we explored Pensacola. I can’t remember the name of the street, but it was fun to walk with lots to see

Looks like a dinosaur in the park, but it’s just a tree.

Blue trees and painted pelicans.

Yummy Old Fashioneds – unfortunately they didn’t serve food, sooooo

We had our first fire that night AND I cooked a steak on the grill! I was very proud of us for pulling this off with success.

The dinner was fantastic, but unfortunately, our neighbor suffered from the brunt of me having an Old Fashioned on an empty stomach then sharing a bottle of wine. He couldn’t get his fire to start, and made some comment about girls building better fires than boys, it was a little embarrassing for him, so I just HAD to tease him a little bit. For some reason it was hysterical to me and through my giggle fit, I may have made a few fire starting suggestions and offered him a coal to get things going, which led to other silly jokes. I tried to stop myself, even apologized (while tears were rolling down my face), but when Mel joined in, it was all over!! Poor guy.

Mel owes me some pictures, so there is more of Pensacola, but it will wait until the next post.

Thanks for reading!

Tip of the day: When looking for a campsite, take it seriously when they say ‘sites go fast’! We thought they meant people reserved spots months ago, and they might be hard to find last minute. We had no idea that a site you like would be there one minute and gone in a flash – over and over! That’s how we ended up in a spot that was almost too small for us. We just grabbed whatever was available. Which reminds me – I better get on finding something for tomorrow.\