On Our Way To Nashville..............

We made it to Hattiesburg Mississippi, as planned, and stayed at a nice RV Park, overlooking a Pond.

We didn't do much during our short stay, but we did make it to town for some shopping.

 

We left Hattiesburg and headed West, clear across Mississippi, to Marksville, Louisiana.   You asked, how did we ever decide to visit Marksville....???   Well, we belong to an RV Camping Club, that gives us 50% off the normal nightly rate, at hundreds of Parks across the US.  This was on our path to Natchez, so we stayed for a couple of nights.  The RV Park was beautiful, with very large spaces, lots of grass, and just a few minute walk to a huge casino.  There was also a free shuttle service to and from the casino.  We only paid $8 on Thursday evening, and $11 on the weekend.



 

Top pictures are Thursday evening.   Bottom pictures are Friday evening.



We found out that there are many people that know about this place. It filled up on the weekend.

 

There was a great walking path, along the river, if you wanted to take the long way to the casino, or just take a nice stroll. The weather was perfect.......

 

The casino entrance was made to look like you were entering a swamp area. There was a river, that flowed into a small lake. The lake had a couple of islands with small alligators. Very nice casino entrance.

We only went to the casino one evening, and Roberta's luck was not with her. On the other hand, I was the lucky one. The casino gave us $10 of free slot money when we signed up for a casino club card. I used their free $10, and left with $93. I am usually the one that leaves with nothing.  

 

After our short stay at the casino RV park, we headed out to Natchez Mississippi to meet up with our nephew Zach.  Zach is an opera singer in Boston and New York, and is going to be performing in Natchez.  Since we were in the area, we planned our trip so we could meet up for dinner and drinks, before heading up to Nashville.  Natchez is a very pretty town, on the Mississippi River.  There is a lot of history surrounding the Natchez Trace and the early American Traders, Indian Burial Grounds, and slavery.

 Mississippi River in Natchez Mississippi.

Louisiana is on the other side of the river.

 

Mississippi Riverboat Casino

 

There are many Antebellum (Pre Civil War) homes in the area, that are all beautiful, with huge landscaped yards.  Below are just a few of our favorites.

 

We were only in Natchez 2 evenings before heading further North towards Nashville.  We are going to visit an old friend, that lives just a few miles West of Nashville, or as he calls it, NashVegas.  Since we are new to the Nashville area, Gary and Debbie have volunteered to show us around.  We are really looking forward to reconnecting after many years.

 

The Natchez Trace Parkway is 442 miles in length, beginning in Natchez Mississippi and ending in Nashville.  It is a beautiful drive along the Parkway, with the speed limit being only 50 mph, and there is absolutely no commercial traffic allowed.  There wasn't much traffic, which made our trip very pleasant.

 

Along the Trace Parkway there are many Historical places to stop, but with us towing our wheelhouse, we had limited access.  We managed to stop at a few of the must see sites.  There were many Indian Mounds, that were created as burial and ceremonial grounds.

 

And the original Trace is well marked, and you can take a step back in time and walk along where many others traveled many years ago.

 

We only traveled 250 our first day along the Trace, and stayed in an RV Park just outside of Tupelo Mississippi.  To our surprise, Tupelo is the birthplace of Elvis Presley.  They have created a tourist attraction where they have the original house that Elvis grew up in, and lots of other memorabilia.  It was a very interesting stop.

 

If you have been following the news, the FBI, CIA, ATF and every police officer in the area were in Tupelo Mississippi the days we were here, gathering evidence about the Ricin attack on the President and another elected official.  The two suspects live in Tupelo.  Pretty Crazy.......

There is also a huge 120,000 square foot, Automobile Museum in Tupelo, that we visited one afternoon.  There are over 100 antique, collectible and classic cars under one roof.  Each car had a speaker at it so you could listen to the history of that car.  Very "COOL" place, if you are interested in cars.

 Here is a link to the website if you would like to check it out.

http://www.tupeloautomuseum.com/index.php

Here is my first car, when I was in High School.  I paid $300 for it.

 It wasn't a convertible, and it was blue.

"MEMORIES"

 We had never heard of, or seen, this Volkswagen.  It is a 1974 Volkswagen Super.

There were only 10,000 of them built.

And a 1994 Dodge Viper, with only 12 original miles.  "Never Driven"

 

So, if you are ever passing through Tupelo Mississippi, (Not your usual tourist trap area) you now know of a couple of places to check out.

 

We ran into Hohenwald Tennessee yesterday afternoon to fuel up, and grab a bite to eat.  We ate at Junkyard Dogs Steak House.  Very good food.  The only filling station in Hohenwald was Nick and Bubba's.  When I went in to pay after filling up, I had to ask what was "Baccer" that is on the sign outside.  Anybody want to take a wild guess what it is....????

 

 

Anyway, sorry this was such a long post, but it has been awhile, and we had lots to say.  Tomorrow we will pull up stakes, leaving Hohenwald Tennessee behind us, and point our rig toward Nashville.

As always, Thank You All for looking in on us, and check back later for any updates.

Roberta and Steve

 

Two Toe Tom................????????????????

Up the highway to Enterprise Alabama, we met up with our friends, Norm and Janet, in Esto Florida, at the Two Toe Tom Festival.  Esto is a very small town, just a mile or two from the Florida/Alabama boarder.

According to the local newspaper, there was an expected attendance of 11,000 people, but from what we saw, they would be lucky if there were 1000 that attended.  There wasn't much available parking, and we ended up parking our truck and 5th wheel in a church parking lot.

 Live entertainment included an Elvis and Minnie Pearl impersonator, and a couple of local bands.

The park in town was a beautiful setting for this festival, and the weather was perfect, not too hot or muggy.

 

There were plenty of food and drink vendors, so we were able to try some of the local favorites

Like we said in an earlier post, we aren't sure about these boiled nuts, but we seem to see them everywhere. We broke down and tried some, and we were not impressed.  They boil the peanuts, shell and all.  We were told to put the entire peanut, shell and all, in your mouth, cracked the shell and remove the nuts, just like you would do with sunflower seeds.  We were told that if we ate enough of them that the flavor and texture would grow on us, but we really did not like them.  I guess it is one of those things you have to grow up with.

We only stayed for a few hours, and then followed our friends up to their 76 acre ranch, just a few miles outside of Enterprise Alabama.  Our friends had an area where we could park our wheelhouse, with water, power and sewer, overlooking their pond.  Norm took me out  in his yacht for a few hours of fishing.  Norm gave me his pole, with his favorite lure, and I was the only one that caught any fish.  I think Norm had it planned that way.  We had way too much fun, and the next evening we had a fish fry down at their Pond House.

There were 4 or 5 peacocks roaming around the ranch, along with a couple of dogs and the cat.

We had to say goodbye to Norm and Janet, after only a 2 night stay, and pointed our rig to the West.  We wish we could have stayed longer, but we need to make it to Natchez Mississippi to meet our nephew.  We made it as far Hattiesburg Mississippi , and will be leaving here tomorrow.

As always, Thanks for looking in on us.  We will post again in a few days.

Take Care,

Roberta and Steve

Apalachicola Florida

Our visit to Apalachicola Florida has been nice.  The town is a small fishing port, and the Apalachicola oysters are excellent.  There are numerous shops with lots of antiques and art.

Down along the river is where you see the fishing and oyster boats.

Our stay here will be short, since we need to meet up with our friends on Saturday in Enterprise Alabama.  Last night a storm rolled through off the Gulf, with rain and high winds.  There were tornado watch alerts, but mainly Northeast of here.  Since we are surrounded by water, there seems to be an infestation of No-See-Ums.  These nasty little flying sand flees are horrible, and it seems like we have been eaten alive.  We will not miss these little blood suckers.

Across the bay is the island of St George.  This island is about 22 miles long, but probably less than a half mile in width, at it's widest point.  The beaches on the Atlantic side are beautiful, and there are mostly newer homes.  We did not see any restaurants along the beach at all.  There were a few eateries in the small downtown area, one small grocery store and a few shops.  Most of the island is private homes and rental houses.

Driving across the bridge to get to St George Island, you are literally in the middle of the water. 

 Even our Garmin GPS shows us surrounded by water.

We stopped at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store to pick up a few items, and found these on sale.

We aren't sure what it is about boiled nuts, but we have being seeing signs for them all over the South.  They don't sound very appetizing to us, but we may have to give them a try one of these days,just to see.

Tomorrow we will be on our way again.  We are going to meet our friends in Esto Florida, right on the Florida/Alabama state line, and attend the Two Toed Tom Alligator Festival, and then follow them to their ranch in Enterprise Alabama.  The festival should be interesting, so we will let you know what we get ourselves into.

As Always, Thanks for looking at us, 

Steve and Roberta

Crystal River Florida

Back on the road again, and enjoying the new sites.  We are currently at Lake Rousseau, just a few miles from Crystal River Florida.  What a nice area, right on the Lake, with a canal that leads to the Gulf of Mexico.

Today we took a drive down to Cedar Key, about 40 miles West of here.  This old-fashioned fishing village is now a tourist area with several seafood restaurants. The village holds two festivals a year, the Spring Sidewalk Art Festival and the Fall Seafood Festival.  We walked around the town, and of course, had to find a place for some clams and a brew.  (Roberta had a burger)

This is another town that most of the locals main mode of transportation is the Golf Cart.

I think only us tourist were the ones with the cars.

 

 

 

So tomorrow we will be moving a little further West to Apalachicola Florida.  We have to check this town out since Tim McGraw mentions it in one of his songs, "Southern Boy".  From what we have heard, it is yet another pretty cool place to visit.  We will let you know what we find out.  If you get down along the Gulf Coast of Florida, we would highly recommend stopping by Cedar Key.  It is about 28 miles off  Hwy 19, but well worth the drive.

 

Thanks again for looking at us.

 

Till Next Time,

 

Roberta and Steve



Still Just Hanging Out In Sunny Florida........

The weather up North is still trying to turn to Spring, so we have decided to just hang out down here in SUNNY Florida until the weekend.  We had originally planned to head to Nashville this week, but there seems to be a COLD front that is taking its sweet time leaving.  We are currently in a small town by the name of Wauchula, about 75 miles east of Tampa.  The RV Park is nice, quiet and we have just been relaxing in the sun.

 

We are moving up North about 150 miles on Friday, back to an area called The Villages.  We really enjoyed our time there last month, so we decided to pay it another visit before leaving Florida.  We plan to stop and see some friends that we met last year outside of Palm Springs, at their ranch in Enterprise Alabama.  They have invited to stay as long as we want, and have accommodations for our RV, with power, water and sewer.  We only plan to stay a few days and then head East to jump on the Natchez Trace Parkway somewhere around Jackson Mississippi.  The Natchez Trace Parkway is about 440 miles in length, and stretches from the Southwest corner of Mississippi and ends just outside of Nashville Tennessee.  We have heard that it is a beautiful drive, with National Park campgrounds along the way.  If you would like more information about the Parkway just click on the following link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez_Trace_Parkway

 

Not much more going on for now, so check back in a week or so for any updates.

 

Thanks for looking at us,

 

Steve and Roberta