2014 - CONNECTICUT TO TEXAS

FLORIDA to TEXAS

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Niceville, FL, to Robertsdale, AL

VERY chilly this morning, possibly even lower than forecast - 38 degrees inside the RV and a low of 24 degrees outside, as of 6:30am.

So I ran the propane furnace to get things warmed up, as the reverse-cycle heat is unlikely to contribute anything much, even if it would run at all at these temperatures, and went back to the warmth of my bed to wait the 20 minutes or so until I could see the dawn sun beginning to light up the tops of the trees outside the bedroom window.

Either by accident or design, the bathroom heats up very quickly and efficiently, so shaving and showering was entirely comfortable.

Outside temperatures seemed to respond fairly quickly to sunrise, so after breakfast I was able to switch to the reverse-cycle heat and save my propane as I sat down to a couple of hours of work - much of it trying to get a decent start on the framework for the web version of this journal.

Time for a home-brewed (cafetière or coffee press, depending on whether you're in the UK or the US) coffee at 10:30am, by which time the sun had been warming the day nicely.

At midday we left the peace and quiet and seclusion of Rocky Bayou State Park, via the dump station to empty gray and black water tanks, and stopped a few miles down the road for a grocery shop.

Then on to Pensacola to try to find the historic downtown area close to the marina where I had stayed in early 2004 during an extended winter trip on my business's inventory Lagoon powercat.

Turned off the highway to follow the bayside road and after a couple of miles saw a building I recognized, so made a right turn, found parking right away and there I was... right where I had enjoyed wandering around 10 years ago (when I decided I had reached the westernmost limit of my powercat cruise as the weather had turned so cold there was still ice on the boat at midday - not unlike the weather now).

So I celebrated this kind of "closing of the loop" by wandering around again, taking pictures of many of the same old buildings, not rendered more photogenic, unfortunately, by all the cars parked in the way...

Stopped at a street corner downtown which had a series of converted Airstream trailers as a "food court" to pick up a loaded cheese/bacon/turkey/guacamole sandwich for lunch which I took down to the waterfront overlooking the marina in which I had stayed in 2004.

With the wind light and the sun out, a very pleasant afternoon for walking around, which I did for a little longer - by which time it was getting too late for anything other than finding an overnight spot within an hour's drive.

Plan A had me heading to a Lowes store, and their potential WiFi connection, but with another fairly cold night forecast this changed to Plan B at a Camping World store where I was able to get a power hook-up.

Thursday, November 20, 2014 - Robertsdale, AL, to Slidell, LA

Up fairly early with a plan to make a short run of around 15 miles to the closest Starbucks for a fortifying coffee and, more importantly, WiFi to allow me to check out where I might park and then stroll around in Mobile, as well as knocking a few other things off my list that required Internet access.

On the road shortly after 8:00am, took the slow road rather than the Interstate, stopped for fuel, so pulled up at Starbucks a little after 9:00am. Not the best coffee and very poor WiFi connection, to the point where I gave up in frustration and decided to go with the very limited information on Mobile that I had been able to download.

In the event, the route into Mobile was straightforward and, after a couple of parking options skipped, I ended up at the Civic Center which was being descended upon by hundreds of bus loads of school kids, apparently there for the Mobile International Festival.

I parked among the school buses and took a stroll around town - not very appealing mixture of old, tired and contemporary, the few interesting buildings appearing very isolated.

The best views on offer were a miniature version of Bourbon Street and the new hotels being built close to the waterfront. The replica Spanish fort is actually only a couple of outer walls hiding the Interstate 10 tunnel exit.

So I skipped out of town fairly promptly, fortunately directly back onto Interstate 10, and headed for the Gulf coast road.

This took us through Pascagoula (not worth a stop); Biloxi (which appeared to be a miniature version of Las Vegas) with a photogenic lighthouse in the middle of the road opposite a small pier leading out to the very calm waters of the Gulf; the ship-building center of Gulfport; and - having entered and left the state of Mississippi the same day - on to our overnight stop at Walmart in Slidell, Louisiana.

We're parked "strategically" at the edge of the lot so that we can pick up the usual strong WiFi signal being broadcast from Lowes (conveniently right next door), although the hoped-for TV station for Thursday Night Football seems to be eluding us...

Friday, November 21, 2014 - Slidell, LA, to New Iberia, LA

Up fairly promptly, borrowed the Lowes WiFi signal again to do some fine-tuning of our day's plan, and then made some calls to the UK to arrange and re-arrange some appointments for when I'm back there in a couple of weeks.

Then off to New Orleans, finding convenient parking on North Rampart Street, as planned - short distance off the Interstate 10 exit ramp, easy access, reasonably safe, but also close to the French Quarter.

Walked down to Jackson Square (a mix of Covent Garden, Bayswater Road and the horse-carriages of Charleston), across to the river, back into the French Quarter - where I found a local coffee shop away from the main tourist bustle - south a few blocks and back along Royal Street, before heading back to the RV.

A couple of hours in total, but the time passed quickly, entertained by the many performers of all kinds out on the streets (a couple of particularly good jazz groups), the architecture, and the life of the French Quarter, which manages to be both a tourist trap and the heart of the city simultaneously.

Easy drive back onto Interstate 10 and on to Houma - billed as the Venice of America...

It certainly has a lot of waterways and bridges, and even a few turtles sunning themselves on artificial lily pads, but not quite the architecture or history of Venice - unless I just didn't go far enough towards the waterfront to find it.

But I did find a relatively modern cathedral (1936) and a large cemetery, with graves above-ground in the French (and therefore very much Louisiana) style.

Then another 75 miles or so of scenic roads, following the winding course of the bayou, reaching New Iberia (and our overnight Walmart) a little after sunset.

Saturday, November 22, 2014 - New Iberia, LA, to Palmetto Island State Park, LA

With a looming deadline for some Sound Yachting website work, in addition to personal admin, decided to make an early call on Starbucks just ¼ mile up the road for desk space, wall-socket and WiFi.

All done by midday, so then drove the short distance into downtown New Iberia to see the renowned Shadows-on-the-Teche house.

The house was surrounded by dense plantings and a fence, with a locked front gate, the only way to view being to take a formal tour - which did not appeal, nor did I really have the time - or a snapshot through the gate (which I took, and it's not such a special looking building from outside).

So strolled around town a little, saw a few other interesting antebellum houses, including one with a truly massive and clearly very old live oak in the middle of the front lawn, the trunk of which must have measured 5 feet across.

Quiet but architecturally interesting main street (including many original facades, such as the movie house), which must have been quite a place in the heyday of New Iberia when it was the area terminus for steamboat traffic on the Bayou Teche.

Then drove on to St Martinville, which has a rather imposing Catholic church in the center of town, and is also the site of the "Evangeline Oak", named for the heroine of Longfellow's epic poem "Evangeline" recounting the exile of the Acadians from Nova Scotia by the British in 1755.

Just another live oak from what I could see, in a rather dilapidated setting, so not even worth a picture.

As with so many of the places I've seen, St Martinville must have looked great "in its day".

With stormy weather forecast overnight and into tomorrow, I decided to head the relatively short distance to Palmetto Island State Park, just south of Abbeville, to seek shelter in the trees and settle in for the night, with (much) more work required on this journal which can usefully be undertaken while the weather is crummy.

As an unexpected bonus, discovered that there's WiFi in the park...

Sunday, November 23, 2014 - Palmetto Island State Park, LA, to Abbeville, LA

The forecast stormy weather came through in the early hours of the morning. Quite an extended event and pretty much prevented sleeping, between the thunder and the heavy rain pelting on the roof of the RV.

By dawn, however, the weather was quiet - although another rain event was forecast for around 8:00am - so I decided to wash the RV as it was already wetted down and would, hopefully, get a fresh water rinse.

Carried on my cleaning inside with a sweep up and dust down before showering and getting breakfast, though with no sign of further rain. And, in fact, it never did materialize and the city water supply must have had plenty of minerals in it judging by the water spots all over the outside of the RV.

Spent the morning working on the laptop, with a break for coffee around 11:00am, and finally pulled out of the park just before 1:00pm, driving out along the access road surrounded on all sides by swamp.

The Lowes in Abbeville generously, though unintentionally, donated their WiFi connection which was fully usable, unlike the park WiFi which, while initially promising, had become impossibly slow - probably all the bored teenagers dragged out in their parents' RVs for the weekend.

Then at the end of the afternoon, drove the few hundred yards to Walmart for overnight.

Monday, November 24, 2014 - Abbeville, LA, to Sulphur, LA

Humid but breezy overnight and in the morning - strong north wind in my face on the out leg of my run alongside the local airport, but at least the road was fairly traffic-free and, being absolutely straight, easy to see cars coming and to be seen.

Couldn't resist wiping the heavy dew off the RV while cooling down from my run. Certainly helped remove the water spots - at least, from those areas I could reach from ground level.

Drove back to the nearby Lowes store as the first order of business was to send out the latest Sound Yachting Newsletter that I had worked up - timed nicely to go out and be received at 10:30am Eastern Time (for the majority of the mailing list recipients), thus 9:30am "press the button" deadline in my current Central Time Zone.

Then off on our long day of scenic driving through several wildlife reserves, essentially round the perimeter of Calcasieu Lake, at the southern end of which we had to take the ferry across the channel connecting the lake to the Gulf of Mexico, just being squeezed on as the last vehicle on the crossing.

Louisiana's Outback Creole Nature Trail might have been rather more scenic if the roads had not been arrow-straight and the scenery a little more varied...

...but plenty of birdlife around, most noticeably herons - both white and blue - by the score but none of the crocodiles we are periodically warned about.

Our final northern leg took us to Sulphur, a town whose name originally derived from the sulphur mining there but which is now dominated on its southern side by the huge Citgo chemical processing works which one of my two GPS systems insisted on routing me past (the other would have avoided them, but I unwittingly chose the non-scenic GPS route to finish the day).

Yet another Walmart parking lot overnight, but well out of the way of traffic in a quiet spot and so spent a comfortable night.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - Sulphur, LA, to Conroe, TX

Efficient highway routes will be on our schedule for today rather than anything scenic.

Firstly we head onto Interstate 10, crossing over the Louisiana border and to our welcome into Texas.

And just to emphasize how large the state of Texas is, a road sign shortly after crossing the border shows the city of Beaumont 23 miles ahead, which will be our first stop...

...and El Paso, on the far western side of Texas, an astonishing 857 miles ahead - and all those miles are on Interstate 10, which runs right across the state.

In Beaumont we pulled up at a grocery store conveniently next to a Starbucks for morning coffee and Internet fix.

Then a very short run down the road to a Barnes & Noble store, eventually finding the long sought-after single page map of the US that has proven so elusive.

Back on the road we head onto Route 105, pulling over at Walmart in Cleveland, TX, for our planned overnight stop.

However - but for only the second time on this trip so far - I was told that this particular store no longer allows overnight RV parking there due to the small size of their parking lot, which certainly was pretty jammed.

So, rather late in the day, sun just setting, I have to quickly produce a Plan B for our overnight parking.

20 miles further on down Route 105 is the city of Conroe and a much larger Walmart, which is happy to accommodate us overnight on their mostly sloping and pretty busy parking lot.

Hey, ho. Such is the life of a wandering Walmart parking lot cruiser...

Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - Conroe, TX, to Navasota, TX

Overnight was actually comfortable and quiet, but I had to adjust the route for my run this morning after finding the nearby residential community that I had planned to run through was gated and I couldn't get in...

Such is the life of the wandering jogger...!

I'm heading for Navasota as a good friend from the boat business days, Les Thompson, has bought a spread there and is building a home. Les and his wife, Melanie, have generously invited me to spend Thanksgiving with them and even to leave the RV there while I make a brief trip back to the UK.

So my morning routine is arranged to give me time to tidy up the RV, buy some wine, whisky and flowers to offer to my generous hosts later in the day and finish up a couple of work items over a late coffee at Starbucks.

Then the final 40-mile drive to Navasota and Les's spread, which turned up just a couple of miles off Route 105 exactly as his directions had said.

This evening I'm comfortably wined and dined (good Texas steak) and the RV is in a great spot under the trees but looking out over the lake that Les has personally designed and excavated, and we're hooked up to power and water.

So here we are at the end of our meandering drive from Connecticut to Texas.

We've passed through some very scenic and interesting places - some old, some new - friends visited along the way, 5,000 miles under our wheels, Thanksgiving turkey and trimmins waiting for us tomorrow.

A fine adventure so far...

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"Now hold you hard", as they would say in Norfolk (UK, not Virginia)...

The adventure will continue - and thus this narrative - but not until I get back to the USA from a short break in the UK.

I expect my wheels to begin rolling again around the 20th or 21st of December, and the next chapter in this narrative to appear early in the New Year, just in case you wanted to check back on future meanderings...

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