7-8-09 Wednesday (Zombie Attack Warning)

Goodbye Mississippi and hello to, oh wait.  It’s very rare, but let’s talk food.  If you’re hungry, I’m gonna make you hungrier.  As we’re driving along, we spot a billboard for a BBQ buffet.  Now, we’ve never been to a BBQ buffet and they aren’t very common.  I call to make sure there’s some where to park the rig.  Yay!

This place, The Front Porch (no website), located in Hattiesburg, was da bomb.  The carving station has ribs and ham.  The buffet had fried okra, greens, black eyed peas, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, fish, etc, etc.  A salad bar, soup bar and a dessert bar as well.  90% of what we ate was great.  $10 each.

Just outside of Louisiana, still within Mississippi, we saw fields of trailers.  They were bumper pulls.  Were these the famed FEMA trailers?  If so, there were tons and tons of them.  We were expecting mobile home, single wides.  Maybe they were there for another reason.  A sun tan in the field?  It looked like this:

During our time, be it short, in Mississippi (I just like typing that word), where was I?  Oh, on several occasions, while in Mississippi, I spotted burnt spots on the road asphalt.  Probably car fires.  I’m just amazed that I’d see so many though.  Mississippi, the spontaneous combustion state?  New motto?

We made it into Louisiana.  We drove the long ass bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, some of which is scary because it narrowed down with a wall on the right side which had no shoulder.  It leaves little for error when driving the motorhome.  Jim and I become white knuckled.  Jim calls this situation, the Wall O’ Death.  We avoided the reaper yet once again.

Our campground, French Quarter RV Resort, is nice.  It’s very pricey.  On arrival, we spotted some sites that had gazebos complete with table/chairs, ceiling fan, and lighting.  It was a little extra but we upgraded.  In case we decide to entertain outdoors, this will be ideal.  The website has lots of photos.  Jim is a little bummed that the beautiful restrooms/showers aren’t air conditioned.  One of the sites has a private use outdoor kitchen.  I’m sure that’s big bucks.  The entire place is brick pavers.  Very nice.   As usual, we tried out the hot tub which wasn’t hot.  An employee apologized and said one heater must be out so he turned up another.  Of course it didn’t get to temperature fast enough.  I’m hoping it will be better on the next use. 

After we got settled in we got a golf cart ride past the “bad area”.   Rampart Street is some sort of dividing line between good and evil here.  Well, so it seems.  So after dark, the RV park will take you via golf cart, past the bad part.  Jim asked the driver what being in a golf cart does to help safeguard us.  He replied, “I have a gun.”  Oh, OK.  Unfortunately this area is known for crack addicts I guess.  Once out of the RV gates, we’re basically driven across an EX Winn Dixie near a visitor center.  I envision zombies swarming after us as we cross the danger zone.  It’s weird.

7-7-09 Tuesday (The Pessimist's Son)

Elvis has left the building!  We were into Mississippi within minutes.  As a matter of fact, while exploring Memphis the other day, we “accidently” crossed the state line into MS.  Meanwhile, AR could be seen from downtown Memphis.  We hadn’t realized we were at all 3 states.  Anyway, onward to Jackson, MS we went. 

Here we are.  The campground is fairly simple but the lake with the proverbial ducks makes it pretty.  We could have paid a little more to be lakeside but we don’t sit outside.  Look out a window?  Well, Jim gets an awful glare on his laptop so the scenery we’d see while our fat asses veg, is blocked by privacy shades.  If we smoked, we’d be outside enjoying the view.  Oh well, give up smoking, give up beauty.  See how that is?

Above: Clea and Dasher get ready for the journey.

 

Above/Below: Dasher lays between us against the “doghouse” which covers the RV’s engine.

 

Above/Below: Home for the evening here in Jackson, Mississippi.  The campground is named “Wendy Oak’s RV Park”.

 

Above: in the campground, on the edge of the road sits this vendor selling flags.  Gay pride, Confederate, POW-MIA, American.  He’s got it all.  He doesn’t care who or what you are, just buy a flag.

 

Above: The description is below.  Wake me up when you’re finished.

 

Above: This church found it necessary to create a vehicle corral, complete with barbed wire.  Scary. 

We drove around the downtown area for a while and then came back to the RV for dinner.  We’ve decided to go to New Orleans a day earlier than planned.  We’ll leave a day earlier and see if we can spend a couple of extra days in Unadilla, GA.  We really like it there. 

We finished out our thrilling day with a Walmart shopping trip.