March 29-30, 2003
March 29-30, 2003As the first leg of our journey back west, we decided
to visit Jacque's aunt and cousins in Norfolk, VA, with her parents.
The trip to Norfolk was rainy, though uneventful. We parked
the trailer on the street in front of Aunt Marie's in Norfolk and had some
good food and a great time visiting Tim and Phyllis and Cindy and Wirt and
some of their children. (Brian is holding "Desi" the pug in the picture...)
We finally started heading west on Monday morning.
We drove across southern Virginia and were surprised by the amount of clear
cut lumbering that was being done there. We drove across North Carolina,
but we didn't stop to see anything since we will soon be living there and
will be able to explore the area in the future.
We spent the night in King's Mountain State Park in South Carolina. Unknown
to us, this park locks its gate at 6 pm. Luckily, even though we arrived
around 6:15 the ranger happened to drive by while we were scratching our
heads wondering where we were going to sleep that night. He unlocked the
gate and let us in and told us the combination. This was a beautiful campground,
with large sites, in the forests of northwestern SC. We spent a lovely evening
with a campfire, even though it was a bit cold.
The State Park where we spent the night is next to
King's
Mountain National Military Park. At the visitor center the next morning, we
learned that a Revolutionary War battle was fought here. According
to the visitor center information, this battle was thought to be a turning
point in the Revolutionary War, as it was a major victory of the
Patriots over the Loyalists.
We continued heading west, across South Carolina and Georgia
and into Alabama. Somewhere along the way, we passed the
world's largest peach.
We spent the night at Lakeside Landing RV park on
a lake near Pell City, AL. We saw some really neat birds, including
great blue herons. This park was also right near the Talladega Raceway,
site of the coming weekend's Winston Cup NASCAR race. There were lots of race
fans around, which was really cool. Unfortunately, the RV park decided that
it would be a fine idea to more than double the price of a one night stay
and not honor the Good Sam discount, because of "race week."
And the tap water tasted bad, too.
We continued heading west, across Alabama and into Mississippi.
We took a detour off of I-20 to visit Eutaw, Alabama, in honor of one of our
favorite dogs.
We had originally planned to continue on I-20, but at the last minute decided
to take a detour off of the Interstate and head south on the
Natchez Trace Parkway,
a unit of the National Park Service. What a great idea!
This parkway was a lovely route through the fields, forests and swamps of southern
Mississippi. We spent the night in Natchez State Park in Mississippi -- a
beautiful state park with a large lake. Lots of very interesting bird
sounds to keep us company in the evening.
Our plan was to continue heading west, but we needed some
exercise first.
Jacque and Kasie jogged to the boat landing and picnic area on the lake,
then Kasie had some fun swimming and retrieving in the lake. (Since then,
she has been shedding her winter coat and making the trailer a mess!) Barney
didn't feel up to the hike to the lake, so he and Brian stayed back at camp.
On our way out of the park, we narrowly avoided running over a snake. We
weren't sure what kind it was, but it didn't have any rattles!
Still heading west, we drove across Louisiana on I-10.
We crossed the Atchafalaya Swamp, which is a very interesting swamp -- the
interstate is one very long causeway. We looked for, but didn't see any alligators.
Drove into Texas, through Beaumont
and into Houston. Spent many too many hours negotiating the rush hour
traffic and stop lights of Houston. We ended up at
Traders Village
RV Park in Houston -- which is only notable for the fact that it is one big
parking lot with 100's of RV spaces and has a weekend flea market associated
with it. It was extremely well illuminated (not good for sleeping) and all
of the women's (and most of the men's) restrooms and showers were closed
for remodeling. The Trailer Life ratings for this park got it all wrong.
We would have much prefered a cosy little state park somewhere, but none
of our maps showed anything in the area. Needless to say, we headed out early
the next morning.
Heading further west, we passed through Austin, capital of the Great State
of Texas. We weren't there in the evening, so we didn't get to see the bats
fly out from under the famous Bat Bridge, but we did have a chance to stop
for lunch at another Roadfood destination, Threadgill's. Excellently good
food! We had things like fried green tomatoes, okra, greens, red beans and
rice, squash casserole, and pecan-crusted chicken-fried chicken. Down the
block we walked past the Metaphysical VW Repair joint -- yes, Austin is
a college town.
Without planning to, we found ourselves in the middle
of Texas Hill Country in bloom--lots of Texas Blue Bonnets and other flowers.
We stayed off the interstate and on a back road so that we could see more
and had a lovely traveling day.
We spent the night in Pecan Valley RV Park in Junction,
Texas. This was a very small (only 12 sites!) campground in someone's
field. But, it was lovely. Large pecan trees shaded the sites
and they fed deer in the evening. We counted about 20 deer in the lawn
at one point.
