Skip to main content

Alabama

We left the park and followed highway 90 along the coast. Very scenic ride - beautiful old homes on the left and the ocean on the right.  Had to stop for some allergy meds for Joe.  Bad for him and his sneezing, but I like knowing that plants are alive here.  Since we had never been to the beach in Mississippi, we did.  White sand, cold water.

Our first real stop for the day was a casino in Biloxi.  We spent $44 to use their bathrooms and have a bloody mary.  I had heard that they allowed overnight parking, and we both agreed we would have preferred staying there for "free", but would have likely lost more gambling than we would have on the campsite.

Drove through Mobile and had lunch on the causeway east of town.  So many seafood restaurants to choose from.  We had lunch at Felix's Fish Camp.  I ordered a po boy because my friend Paul always talks about how good they are.  I don't get it, its just a messy sandwich.  We had a good view of the gulf.

After lunch we backtracked a bit to get to the USS Alabama, a battleship that was built in the 40s.  This was such an awesome site to visit.  The tour was self guided, and we spent almost 2 hours walking through every part of the ship.  It would have had around 2300 men on board, and accommodations varied from the captain (had his own room and bathroom) to officers (many slept in the offices, but at least had a private door) to everyone else (slept anywhere a bunk could fit or a hammock could be hung).  We went down a few stories into the engine room, and up a few stories on the outside.  This ship was huge.  I would go back, we didn't have time to see it all.  There is also a submarine you can tour at the park, so we did that.  Very tiny and tight quarters compared to The Alabama.


We could have spent hours more on the ship, but eventually had to hustle through to make it to our campground for the night.  Crossed out of Alabama and into Florida.  Our campground is just outside of Pensacola.  We got in just as the sun was setting, so put on our headlamps and followed a walking path past several signs warning us of alligators, ending in a swampy area next to the intercoastal.  We watched some boats go by and enjoyed the peacefulness.

Did not get eaten by alligators.

Dinner was leftover shrimp and ramen.

170 miles
 175.11 spent
31.64 Walgreens
44 casino
42.72 Lunch
2.75 toll
34 USS Alabama
29 Big Lagoon State Park

Comments

  1. Oh boy, Paul would love a po boy sandwich! Haha The battleship looks really neat, I'd like to see it too!! Be careful with the Gators!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Totals

  We spent around $110/day, which is pretty close to what we were expecting based on past travels.  We did start with groceries and fuel, but will end with some food and maybe some fuel, not a full tank though.   Fuel $517.62 Grocery $432.68 Campsite $390.00 Restaurant $80.00 Stuff $71.98 Tolls $25.50 Firewood $20.00 Park fee $13.00 Laundry $8.00 Van wash $2.50 Trip total $1,561.28

Heading north FL to NC

On our way out of the campground, we stopped at an "overlook", which was a surprisingly big ravine.  Too much brush and trees to get a good picture.  Headed towards Jacksonville and then back on the interstate.  Lots of boring driving here.  Van odometer switched to 270k. We could have probably driven a bit further, but decided to stay the night an hour north of Charlotte at Stone Mountain State Park (no, not the one with the people carved into it, this is different and way cooler).  We have stayed here many times before, and our goal was to try to hike to the top and back (probably 2 hours) as soon as we got there.  We got stuck in traffic around Charlotte (no surprise) and by the time we got there it would have been to dark to make it back safely. We drove back into town and had dinner at Skull Camp Brewing.  Their parking lot was a mess, and we parked on a pretty steep hill full of loose and washed out gravel.  "Are we going to get st...

Florida Gulf Coast Part 1

We are staying in the same campground again tonight, just a different spot.  The best thing about the van (compared to tent camping at least) is that everything is pretty much ready to go.  We just have to unplug the power, make sure nothing is going to fall off the counters, and hit up a place to dump out the bucket under the sink that catches the dishwater.  We usually forget to check the counters, but nothing has broken yet. It was a little chilly this morning, not quite 60 at 8am.  We were just a few miles from a few mile stretch of Gulf Islands National Seashore, so headed there first.  We were all ready to give them our parks pass, but before 9am they don't charge to get in.  Neat drive down through the park, and eventually we pulled off and crossed the dunes to the ocean.  Very secluded place, felt like we had it to ourselves.  We walked the beach for an hour.  I was worried it would rain, but stayed dry, just super humid. Next w...