Natchez State Park

Well, we've settled in at Natchez State Park in Mississippi. This is our first stay in a state or national park and I think we're going to really enjoy staying in these parks and plan on staying in them whenever possible. Not only for the natural scenery and beauty, but it's also much cheaper...which is always a good thing!

We got a late start today. We didn't get up until 9:30 and didn't begin packing up to move until after 11:00 this morning...that's a first for us on move day. We didn't get packed up and out of Poche's RV Park until around noon today. And we miscalculated how long it would take to get from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana to Natchez Mississippi too. We miscalculated the estimated mileage; there was lot's of construction in several long sections of the highway and it took awhile to get to the state park campground and set up.

But we're here and it's beautiful. After setting up, we took a drive a couple of blocks down the road to the lake and took several pictures. We peeked out of the RV tonight after dark and Wow...is it Dark! If you stepped a mere 10 feet away from our RV to get away from the light inside, you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face! Now that's a tad scary for me. I told Mark if the dogs need to go out tonight...they'll just need to go in the 'house'--'cause I'm not stepping foot outside this campground until daylight!

Oh yea, on a side note, Mark took Duffy out for a walk earlier this evening, and we're right next to a big forest, and a deer had walked right out into the opening, just a few feet in front of them. Mark said the deer just stood there watching them for a minute or so, until Duffy decided to take off after the deer barking. We also saw a bunch of wild turkeys right down the road too. Hopefully we'll get pictures of those in the next couple of days. We're planning on staying here in Natchez State Park through Wednesday night and will continue north in Mississippi Thursday morning.

Tomorrow morning we're planning on checking out some of the sites in downtown Natchez. There are over 100 antebellum mansions in the area and several of them are open to the public and we'd like to check them out. There are also walking tours of the downtown historic district that we're hoping to check out tomorrow as well. Well, that about wraps it up for another blog update. In the meantime, stay tuned! I've attached a few of the pictures from our current location.

Heading to Natchez Mississippi

We've finished up a very relaxing week here at Poche's Fish Camp RV Park. After checking out our "101 Most Scenic Drives in America" book yesterday, we're headed to Natchez, Mississippi for a week long trip from Natchez to Vicksburg.

We'll be following the Natchez Trace Parkway, starting in Natchez to check out the lavish homes from the civil war era that are still in existence. We'll move on to see beautiful pathways, a couple of State Parks and on to Windsor Ruins. I'm looking forward to checking out Windsor Ruins. It was built in 1861 for a whopping $175,000, which of course was an enormous sum of money in that day and time. It survived the civil war as first a post for Confederate soldiers and later became a hospital for the Union. Ironically, the building survived the Civil War only to be destroyed in 1890 by a careless smoker. All that remains of the structure are haunting skeleton of this once magnificent mansion is 23 weathered Corinthian columns, with ornate iron capitals touching nothing but the sky. I'll be sure and take lot's of pictures.

Then we'll check out a couple of Falls, a swamp, and Tombigbee National Forest. We hope to wrap up our Mississippi stay in less than a week, as we've made plans to be in West Virginia in 3 weeks for a Christian conference we'd like to attend. Sorry I didn't get pictures of where we've been, but if I get a chance, I'll snap a few on our way out of here tomorrow morning.

Mark finished up our week here by fishing again this afternoon. I think he got more 'bug' bites than fish bites! Well, that about wraps up the latest on what we've been up to and where we're headed...stay tuned, I'll update the blog with new pictures and info as soon as I can. Until later~

Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

We're now in Louisiana. We dropped the RV off Tuesday morning for repair and they weren't able to finish and asked us if we could stay in a motel so they could finish up this morning. So, we spent last night at a LaQuinta in Lafayette. Mark and I felt like a fish out of water in the hotel, we Missed our home on wheels! We picked it up around noon today and headed a few miles down the road to Poche's Fish Camp in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

We're planning on staying here through Sunday. Mark loves this place...it's like a fish farm of sorts. There are 4 separate ponds stocked with large trout. After cooking out this evening, I settled in for the night and curled up to watch TV with Clyde and Duffy. Mark grabbed his fishing pole and lawn chair and walked 10 feet over to the closest pond and fished for a couple of hours. I understand there were a few bites, but no fish...tonight anyway.

No big plans tomorrow...we're planning on just hanging out and chilling the remainder of the week. I'll take some pictures of our park and post them tomorrow. Well, that about wraps up the latest for us...stay tuned~

Clyde Cleared for Travel/Heading Out Monday

We took Clyde to the vet today for his follow up visit and to have his stitches removed. The doctor said that as long as we were careful with Clyde for the next few weeks that we could go ahead and take Clyde back on the road. Yippee!!! We got our truck worked on today. We had the 20,000 mile check up (already!) and they had to replace the radiator due to a seam leak and they also found a problem with the A/C condensor and replaced that as well. So, the truck should be good to go for some time now, Lord willing.

We're still leaving Monday morning for Lafayette to have the RV worked on, but rather than return back to the Dallas area we'll continue East. We're heading to Tennessee for a few weeks to check out the Smokey Mountains and lot's of the civil war sites (thanks for the info Julie!). We're not really sure where we'll go from there, but have several ideas. We'll be back home for the holiday season, November and December.

We're planning on spending tomorrow going to East Texas to get some peaches with the family and Sunday Chris wants us to all go to 'Twisted Root', a new burger bar in North Dallas that he found out about on Diners Drive-In's and Dives. Then Mark wants to wash the RV and truck Sunday afternoon before so all is clean before we head out Monday morning.

Just "Where" Are We and Where Have We Been?

I apologize to those folks that have begun following our blog and e-mailed wondering what has happened to us since our trip to Yosemite in late June. To better track where we are and our plans, I'll 'try' to update our blog, even if just briefly, daily...or at least 'most' days.

Ok, where are we? We're back home in the Dallas area. Why? During our last day in the Yosemite area our little chihuahua Clyde injured his back leg some how when we had left to grab a bite to eat for Fathers Day. He couldn't put any weight on it and it was quite apparent it was serious, so rather than heading on to Malibu and Simi Valley to see the Reagan Library the next day, we decided to go ahead and head East as planned, only a few days early and a detour back home to Dallas, rather than on to Kentucky as planned.

So...we got back home to Dallas on June 25th and took Clyde in to see the Vet the following day. We were surprised that he had actually ruptured his "ACL" (the same injury that athletes have--didn't know dogs even had an ACL!). He also dislocated his knee. He required emergency surgery according to the vet. So Clyde had surgery the following day and we're still in the area awaiting clearance from the vet to leave. Actually, they want us to stay "at least 4 weeks"...! That's gonna be really difficult for us having traveled so much. Clyde is doing quite well so far and they say he's ahead of schedule and his stitches will be removed this Friday.

We're planning on staying here at Plantation Place in Sunnyvale through this Sunday and plan on leaving this Monday 7/13 for Lafayette to have some warranty work done on our RV. So we'll be in the Lafayette area thru at least 7/15 and will most likely head back home for a quick follow up visit with the vet. We hope Clyde is doing well enough for us to get back on the road and head East some time the week of 7/20. We always enjoy coming back home and visiting with the boys and Mark's family.

As for "where" exactly we're going when we finally head East...well, we're still not sure. We've kicked around lot's of ideas but haven't made any decisions yet. We want to check out some of the Civil War sites, maybe Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia/West Virginia and ultimately, we'd like to camp near Washington DC. We spent a few days there several years ago but didn't have nearly enough time to see all the Smithsonian buildings and only had a couple of hours at Arlington National Cemetery...so we're planning on spending a couple of weeks in the area so we can take our time checking out all that Washington DC has to offer.

We've talked about heading up to New York State for a few weeks as well, but of course, no firm plans have yet been made. Well, that about wraps up our current status and plans, at least, what we've planned so far...but that's one of the awesome things about this lifestyle, flexibility. When something comes up it's so easy to just change our plans. Well, that's a wrap for this entry...I promise I'll try to update the blog daily, even if we don't have pictures to include, as was our previous blog update schedule. Stay tuned~