YOLO at Mardi Gras in MS and AL, Feb 2022

Grand Isle, Louisiana was to be our next stop.  It was the last inhabited barrier island, but Hurricane Ida blasted it in August of 2021 and left no building undamaged.  Silly us, we didn't know; folks had just told us what a great place it was to park and stay on the beach.  And since we'd been liking the beach parking locales, we decided to try this one, too.  Unfortunately, the damage was so great that they had closed the state park to the public and were using the space to put up workers trying to clear the hurricane debris and start the rebuild process.  It was a mess!

We parked overnight next to a flatbed truck in a little pull-out at a curve in the road.  We couldn't stay here.  There was no place for us to park; it looked like a war zone.  The entire place was under construction after the total destruction and traffic was stopped repeatedly to give the big machinery room to move and do their thing.  We found a public beach access road and stopped for a minute to see what the place looked like on the ocean side.  Jason posing on the beach side. 

Nothing went unscathed.  It was depressing.

Much of the debris ended up in the surrounding waters and wetlands.  

Twisted metal

bent/broken beams

beached tugboats.

We had to endure the long traffic stops and the long stretches of raised roads and bridges to get back off the island.  We stopped to buy a birthday card at a Dollar Tree store.  Every single envelope in their entire card display was sealed shut!  I had to tear one open to use it.  The clerk explained that the high humidity while the store was closed up for the recent hurricane was the cause, but there was nothing they would do about it.

Mardi Gras was just around the corner and even the schools started decorating with beads and trinkets.

We spent the night at a park where you just drive into a big open area under the trees and park wherever you want. 

 

Nearby is the the Honey Swamp with these magical cypress trees with their 'knees' poking out of the swamp water.  Tours of the swamp are available, but most of the creatures they advertise that you might see can be seen around our cottage.  Alligators were the exception, but we saw plenty of those along the canals and ditches in Louisiana.

With Mardi Gras, each community has their own parade, so the parades cover many weeks leading up to the actual Fat Tuesday.  We'd stopped to do our laundry in Waveland, Mississippi and heard their parade was the next day, so we just hung around in Pass Christian and came back to park in the laundromat lot the following day to watch the parade.  We set up early, as advised, while regular traffic was still driving on the parade route.

Jason set up early to watch.

The only black cop we saw was related to the only group of black folks we saw, who decided to set up in right front of us.

The crowd builds around Jason.

One of the first floats to come by.

Loved the gold shoes on these two guys in the bucket of a tractor.

More floats

The guy in this float brought his inflatable mate-able doll with him.

Beads, bags, balls, toys and candy were flung from the floats.  If you didn't pay attention, you could get clobbered by a handful of necklaces or Moon Pies.  If they couldn't get the necklaces untangled fast enough, they would throw the entire wad --ouch.   Afterwards the street looked like someone puked up a rainbow.

Broken bead necklaces littered the street.  Many of the necklaces broke when they hit the pavement, but there were lots of them that were still intact, too.

My haul of bead necklaces from the parade.  A full grocery bag plus balls, frisbee rings, toys, and other associated junk thrown from the floats.  

Near the bridge over Bay St. Louis, these cool bas-relief panels adorned the roadway.

Across the bridge, we ended up in Pass Christian and Gulfport.  That's the Gulfport casino at the end of the sidewalk where I won $20 that afternoon.

We stayed near the marina and this community area.  Here the morning fog makes the area look all grey.  We asked a passing policeman if it was okay for us to park here; he said we'd be fine as long as nobody complains.  He doesn't enforce any no parking rules and didn't seem to care at all.

We moved on to look for a camp site.  We found one, but it was still smoldering from a 'prescribed burn', so we moved to the next closest one.  This was the POW Lake Recreation Area Campground near Saucier, MS.  It was used to house Italian and German prisoners in WWII, but these ammo bunkers are all we saw that remains.

The billboard here warns us of alligators so we gave the lake a miss.

The ammo bunkers have been colored by graffiti.

The next stop was just a bike trailhead with a big parking/camping area.  This guy was working on his 'jet kayak' and Jason went to talk to him and investigate the unusual vessel.  Meanwhile, I was talking with a local who'd come to hunt squirrel.  He ended up filling me in on Mississippi's gun laws (even though I told him we didn't carry guns and we didn't need to know).   He insisted we should have a gun, and then proceeded to tell me about his extraterrestrial encounters and experiences, some while he worked for the government.  It became a bit of a woo-woo moment.

We like parking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nature.  As long as we can be level, we're good.

Mississippi and Alabama don't last long as you traverse the coast, and before we knew it, we were in Florida.  

What a sunset.

  Another pretty sunset over the soft white sand.

YOLO in Florida, Mar 2022

Our goal was to be in Florida in March to register the YOLO van in Florida when the sticker on the license plate ran out.  We had to have an appointment to deal with the matter and we had a week or so before we had to be in Cape Coral.  We took the scenic route along the beach.  The white, white sand here along the panhandle was stunning.  

We found a public access lot in Navarre Beach that didn't say No Overnight Parking and tucked in for the night and another beautiful sunset.

Someone left this pile of shells near the entrance to the beach.

The water tower and visitor center in Pensacola, Florida.  Colorful.

We drove back west along the Gulf Islands National Seashore on the panhandle of FL until we reached the end, at Fort Pickens.  We wandered through the old brick buildings like this one.  

Old floating mines that were used to protect the entrance to the harbor here.

Jason in a phallic pose with a big gun.

Brick archways in the old fort.

Another big cannon mounted on wheels that could be swung in an arc to fire at enemy ships.

They are rebuilding much of the fort to preserve it.  We always try to read the posted signs to learn what we are looking at.

The cobbled brick walkway in one of the buildings looked smoothed by time, yet still so uneven as a floor to walk on.

I like the teal and pastel pink and lavender of the sunset next to the white sand.  This might become my background wallpaper on my laptop.

And then we have the fiery orange and hot pink that bleeds into the purple to keep the eyes feasting as the sun goes down.  I'm really glad I'm not colorblind.

This old home caught our eyes as we waited for a train at a railroad crossing.

We had to collect our year's worth of mail from Green Cove Springs. While on the east coast in the Jax area, we visited a high school friend of Jason's.  Terry and Marti graciously hosted us in their new home  And they fed us like royalty.

Airboating seems to be a family recreation activity here where the water is shallow, with lots of weeds and growth.

Two friends with airboats were launching this one for its maiden voyage.  Unfortunately the trailer wheel fell in a hole and the back transom of the airboat, which is normally only inches above the water, fell below the waterline before they could get it off the trailer.  The boat filled with water in a hurry and the owner/designer tried to hold the back corner of the boat up while his friend tried to pull it back out of the water.

Water gushes out the two bung holes to drain the boat.  They moved the trailer over a bit to avoid the hole (created by power loaders who gun their motors to get their boats up onto their trailers) and just barely got the boat off without dipping the back end into the water again.  Surprisingly, the drivers of these airboats didn't wear life jackets, either.  Luckily, anywhere he took the airboat that day, he could step out if he got into trouble as it was mostly just knee deep.

Not an official camp site, but we stayed next to the water here where locals came to launch their airboats.

The early morning mist rising off the water.  The fishermen were out early.

Cypress reflections in still waters of the swamp.

While visiting our cruising friends Mike and Sue in Punta Gorda, we got to view their local marina holding their "Blessing of the Fleet" boat parade. The Burnt Store marina fire boat spewed a water jet while the boats turned in the corner basin with salutes, trying to miss the manatees that were lazing in the water there.

Our visit to the tax collector office (Florida's version of the DMV), didn't go so smoothly and we were forced to make another appointment to try to get our business with them completed.  Jason wanted a personalized plate for YOLO and making a change to the title meant getting original signed documents that we didn't have with us.  So we went to visit other friends in Bonita Springs for a couple of days.  We tested their patience, hospitality, and neighborhood covenants by parking in their driveway.  At least the van was clean.

Jason on the deck of Cathy and Floyd's home.  Their house overlooks a little lake that now contains a resident alligator.  We kept an eye on the local ducklings that had just hatched, as did the alligator.

Jason with Cathy and Floyd just before we left.  

YOLO looks at home in these classy digs, I think.

We headed back out for more camping in the area to await our next appointment.  We made reservations and got special use permits to use this camp site in the CREW Crystal Dome Recreation area.  We were the only vehicle inside the locked gate, but lots of birders and hikers used the area on foot.  The special use permit is free from the local water management district, and it gives us the combo to the lock for the gate so we can drive in and out.   

Out for a hike along the trails here, we happened onto this large gator.  It surprised us and we scooted past in a hurry to keep from disturbing it or enticing it to chase us.

A vagrant at an intersection.  Just loved his white-framed sunglasses.

Jason and I made it all the way down to Key West.  We drove at 3AM to avoid the hassle of the traffic both ways.  We found parking next to a park across from the beach, with public restrooms there.  We tried to use the public bus system while in town, but the bus never showed up where we waited in the sweltering humidity and heat of St. Patrick's Day.  These beautiful orchids brightened the wait, though.

The local pickup for large objects was this crane truck.  It picked up two big chairs and the full-sized couch (with the covers still on them) and placed them in the big dump trailer where we waited for the bus.  Snazzy.

We gave up on the bus and walked clear across town to Kermit's Key Lime store to get key lime pie.  Jason is savoring the tart taste of his slice here.

I went for the white chocolate-covered frozen key lime pie on a stick.  Awesome!  And it cooled me down after that long trek across town.

A wall of stickers and ours were still in the van, darn.

We happened into a rum distillery just as they were ushering folks in for a tour, so we just ambled in with them.  We had a tiny taste of their rum in a teeny cup of pina colada.  These jars of unknown stuff were left unidentified as the owner gave us his spiel.

The owner is a chef and believes being a chef and using the best ingredients creates a better rum.

That's the owner in the red bandana.  His worker called in sick so he had to give the tour himself.  The clear elixir is pouring out of the copper still behind him.

Ancient rum runners of lore aside, he claims to be the first legally licensed rum distiller in town,

As we left one distillery, what do we see but another one on a different corner!

We reached the southernmost point of land in the USA.  It's traditional to blow a conch horn at sunset and this bronze statue commemorates the founder of that tradition.

The buoy that marks the destination for so many here in Key West.  People waited in line to get their photo with this marker, but we didn't require exclusivity in our photo, so we clicked and continued on our way.

Jason taking a call at the end of the earth.

The Conch Train as it travels through town full of tourists.

The infamous Duval Street in Key West.  We were there on St. Patrick's Day and the atmosphere was surprisingly mellow and low key.  No outrageous folks to be found.

Taking the beach toys back to the hotel, this worker looked dwarfed by her load.

An indigenous species preserve near the park where we stayed had lots of birds being rehabilitated.  A very stinky place, but this snowy egret had the softest looking feathers I'd seen.

Roosters were everywhere in this town!

 A giant conch shell, the symbol of the local high school.

Heading back north, we stopped in the Everglades Visitor Center.  While $28/pp for the ride through the swamp on their train was a bit much, we walked the boardwalk and spotted this brown anole lizard in mating mode.  He was molting his skin, but that didn't stop the repeated inflation of the red dewlap to try to attract a mate.

We awoke to the mist in the marshes by a local trailhead.  The trail itself turned to mud shortly after the start, so we didn't follow it.

The drops of dew decorate this spider web near the Gator Hook Trailhead.

Lots and lots of dragonflies buzzed around us here.  These black and yellow ones are Halloween Pennants.  This one liked the perch on our antenna.

Hiking along a trail, I spotted this thing nailed to a tree trunk.  No indication what it is for, I just have to guess it might be for bees or wasps.  I've never seen another one anywhere and there was no signage and no one to ask.

Jason on a hike through the trail area where we camped.  Later that hike, I spotted the elusive Florida panther.  When he realized I'd spotted him, he turned around and crossed back across the boardwalk and disappeared before I could get Jason's attention to see it.  Folks we talked with said they'd been hiking this area for 25 years and never seen one, so I was very lucky.

It's been a dry year for this marsh area.  The water level gauge shows all the way down to 0.00 inches.

Across the road was an orchard with oranges still loaded on the trees and falling on the ground.  I wandered over and picked up a few to see if they were ok to eat.  Yep, they were ok.  I think the orchard is probably a victim of 'citrus greening' disease so the fruit isn't being harvested and transported.  There is no cure for this disease that has now infected over 80% of the orange trees in Florida.  The trees will produce less fruit of much poorer quality until they die in a few years.  Orange juice will become a drink of the past.  So many orchards are now being bulldozed to make room for housing developments all over this state.

Rich and Jan, old cruising friends from when they lived aboard Slip Away.

We tracked them down in Tallahassee and spent a couple of nights telling stories and catching up.  We had a wonderful breakfast at their local Canopy Road Cafe and walked off a few of the calories around their scenic neighborhood.

We visited the Maclay Gardens State Park as it was said to be in bloom just now. Lots of camellias like this one on show for us.  This one looks so perfectly round. 

Jason in a ponderous pose overlooking the lake in the park.

This little green lizard, probably another anole caught my eye in the greenery along the walk.

The pretty color of the water in this reflecting pool really stands out in the green lawn.

A flower blown into the corner of the pool by the recent winds and rains.

Entering the little garden required Jason to bend to fit.

Bright yellow blooms on this weed are as pretty as any cultivated flower.

Open Pond Campground in Alabama was our last stop before making a push for home in Michigan.  For $4/night we got hot showers and fresh running water near our campsite.  We met a guy from Alaska and picked his brain for info about our upcoming travels for the two nights we stayed here.  Hard to beat the price and comfort offered here, and since you can stay up to 14 days at a time, lots of folks make this their winter base; easy to see why.  I had my hammock out and read if we weren't off hiking the woods around here.

These trees look like giant onions sprouting out at Open Pond.

The nasty reality of the higher gas prices.  We hit over $100 for the first time in fueling the van.  Bummer that prices skyrocket just as we've planned a long driving trip in our van.  Guess it's a good thing that Jason drives so slow!

Hopefully this gas will get us back to the cottage.  Jason will make some adjustments to the van and we will take care of dental appts and such before heading to Alaska.