Across the mighty Mississippi (did I spell that right?)

We've made some miles since we last posted.  We drove up the gulf coast of Florida stopping at Appalachicola National Forest to camp for the night.  It just so happened that it was the opening night of the next Twilight movie, so Curtis dutifully drove me into Tallahassee so I could keep with tradition.  I think he survived without too much trauma, although he may say otherwise.  When we got back to the campsite, we heard a rather large rustling above the truck and were surprised to find a big black bear up the tree.  We moved the truck so he could scurry down and run away, but we're convinced that the bears came back and danced around the campsite while we were sleeping based on the large amount of poo nearby.   Either that or we just chose to camp in that bear's personal toilet.

We stayed an extra day (at a different campsite) to check out the mountain bike trails nearby.  They were not at all what we're used to at home--no roots, rocks, dropoffs or general wet muckiness--but were flat and fast and had jumps and banks built in.  In other words, super fun.  Here's Curtis flying down the trail leaving me in the dust:

That was our last night Florida, sad to say.  We stayed in Alabama the next night, getting up early to get to New Orleans.  We spent the day wandering the French Quarter, stopping to have lunch at a nice little cafe where we had our first real sweet tea and listened to an older woman rocking out on the sidewalk with her little keyboard and laundry bag for tips.  We strolled down Pirate Alley, chose to not have coffee at the very crowded Cafe du Monde, and walked along the Moonwalk in the baking sun.  We didn't stay past sunset, so I think we probably missed out on a true New Orleans experience given the activity on Bourbon St.

Rockin old lady to the left

Best sweet tea ever

Just a sample of the many, many mardi gras shops

We found a campsite at a state park just outside New Orleans and I am very excited to report that I saw my first Armadillo!  And it was alive!!!  Turns out, they were everywhere in the park and couldn't care less about how close you get or how many photos you try to take.  Except, apparently if you fart near one they run away terrified.  I won't go into details on how we discovered that.  

From New Orleans, we moved on to Mississippi.  What to say about Mississippi. . . . other than I spent 3 days trying to find something nice to say about it.  We were camped out in Homochitto National Forest outside Natchez.  We went there because of a write-up in National Geographic Adventure magazine that raved about the road biking and mountain biking and all the other lovely things to do there.  Let's start with the campground.  It was pretty standard for national forest camping, but $7 a night where we've usually had free camping.  And when we do pay $7 it usually has a bathroom on site.  Instead of a mile away.  So that was manageable, until the campground host decided to come to our campsite at 7 in the morning and rub on the windshield, peering into the truck to read our permit number.  Keep in mind we sleep in that truck.  Even worse, it's a self-registration payment place and he is not even a park employee.  Just an old busy body who couldn't remember that we paid and gave him our permit number the day before.  At least he was nice enough to introduce himself to Curtis, but completely ignored me standing 2 feet away from him.   Add on horrible mountain biking trails, unsafe road biking, and a grocery store whose idea of "food" includes eggnog in a can and you can see why I did not take kindly to the greater Natchez area.  

BUT, this was cool:

These are Windsor Ruins, the remains of a old mansion that burned around 1890 leaving only the columns and the ironwork.  Unfortunately, the spiral staircase had been removed to be used in a building at a nearby college.  National Geographic Adventure almost redeemed themselves by recommending this spot.

So this brings us to Thanksgiving, where we stayed at the same campground and I cooked up a feast on the tailgate of the truck.  We had cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and pumpkin muffins for dessert.  Curtis stoked a rip roaring fire for us to enjoy all afternoon and evening, and we even shared our muffins with our campground neighbors :)

Round one: muffins and cranberry sauce

Round two: stuffing and sweet potatoes

The feast!  Not bad for the back of the truck

Please excuse the dorkiness here

We left Mississippi  yesterday morning (hooray!) and are back in Louisiana staying in the Kisatchie National Forest.  On the way, we stopped at the Cane River Creole National Historic Park to tour Oakland Plantation.  We timed our visit just right for a guided tour of the main house with two of their volunteers.  Curtis and I were the only people there so we had our own personal tour!  They were so nice and talked up the town so much, we decided to stay an extra day to see downtown Natchitochez (don't even try to pronounce it).  

So we're hanging out in a little coffee shop in the historic downtown now.  Curtis had one of their famous meat pies for lunch and we had hoped to stay for the fireworks show that they put on every Saturday night, but I'm thinking with the amount of rain falling outside that those fireworks are probably not going to happen.  Kind of like the "Snow Fest" sliding hill that they were supposed to have on the riverfront. I don't see that happening anytime soon.  So we'll wander the downtown here for a bit longer and find the Steel Magnolias house (this is the town where the movie was set) and then go find our campsite for the night and set up our tarp to stay dry.  On to Texas tomorrow!

P.S.  On a side note, the south has not been friendly to my skin.  In Florida, I was bit by something that left raised, blistered bites all over my thigh which still have not healed.  Then something bit my back and itched bad enough to dose myself with Benadryl just so Curtis could live with me.  In New Orleans, I woke up with my feet on fire, covered in bumps and itching like crazy.  It's manageable during the day, but every night I wake up with the feeling that my feet are in a boiling cauldron and then proceed to claw at them until I can fall asleep again.  The worst part is that itching doesn't make it stop.  It's slightly less horrible while you're itching, but then it's worse after!  Last night was the first night that I didn't actually have to scratch during the night, but I still woke up with itchy feet.  I think maybe it was chiggers, but Curtis is convinced I stumbled into some poisonous plant somewhere.  Either way, it's pretty awful.  Just thought I'd share.