Today was something of a multi-state epic journey that the founding fathers would have been proud of … we travelled from Louisiana through Mississippi and up into Alabama.
If we had taken a short detour – or got lost – we could have picked up Florida also because it wasn’t that far from where we were in Mississippi … but getting lost was never an option because of the magic of Google Maps.
We had an early start today … well, earlier than normal. We woke to the alarm at about 6.45am. I made myself beautiful (about 5 minutes), and while MBW made herself beautiful (>5 minutes) I loaded the suitcases into the back of The Don II.
Just as we were getting ready to lock up 3041 Burgundy St, New Orleans LA and hit the road, Danny popped over to say goodbye.
The house is essentially what I would call a duplex, but in Louisiana they call it a ”double shotgun”, so Danny lives in the other half of 3041 Burgundy Street.
Now I am no fashion expert, but while Danny was resplendent in a fluffy red bathrobe, I thought that it clashed with his pink toenails. Anyhow, I’m not one to judge …
We had a nice chat with Danny about his house, living in New Orleans, his job (he is a bartender and makes 20 different flavours of Bloody Marys I believe), and also discussed the ghost that lives in his house … she steals spoons and unplugs appliances apparently. I’m probably glad that we had that discussion as we were checking out and not checking in …
So today’s final destination was Montgomery Alabama and while we were always destined to go through Mississippi, we elected to take the scenic route.
The scenic route started with a stop at Walmart about 20km outside of New Orleans because we had no milk, so we’d had no breakfast and no coffee. And while we can function OK with no breakfast, we don’t function well with no coffee.
Shopping in Walmart in Louisiana is an adventure on its own … the shop carries everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, sandwiches, all the usual tins, bottles, jars and packets of stuff you’d expect to find in a supermarket, through to clothing, shoes, toys, pharmacy and …
… guns!
While we were there we decided to buy a cooler bag to carry our cold stuff … but they have never heard of a “cooler bag” in Louisiana so we needed to go through all other possible word combinations to come up with something that described what we wanted (an ice chest, but a soft bag, not a hard container).
That game of charades led us to the sporting equipment department (yep, it’s a mystery to me too) … which led us to the discovery of guns.
Anyhow, we bought our guns … err, sorry … we bought our milk and yoghurt and fruit and cooler bag, and headed off to have breakfast and coffee in the Walmart car park.
Then we went into a service station to top up The Don II for the trip … that was another adventure, this whole pre-paying for fuel before you pump fuel when the pump won’t accept your Australian Visa Debit card so you have to go in and explain your plight to the attendant, who can’t understand a word that you say … Sigh 🙁
Jack Reacher has a list of rules that he lives by (known as Reacher’s Rules), and one of them is to eat/sleep when you can.
I have a similar rule – pee when you can, because once you get onto the interstate you may not get another chance, and at 80mph you need the least number of distractions possible!
What was unusual about our trip today is that it involved a couple of times where we were crossing large bodies of water via a very long bridge. This happened for the first time just out of New Orleans LA.
What I found most intriguing was the GPS’s advice to “stay on the I-10 East” … like I had any other option! It was that or swim.
In this particular case we were crossing Lake Pontchartrain.
The scenic route Involved getting OFF the I-10 as soon as we could and getting back onto the 90, which took us into Mississippi …
… along the beach road …
… through Biloxi …
… where we saw some stunning houses across the road from the beach …
… and on to Pascagoula where we stopped for lunch.
Lunch included crab claws, shrimp (prawns), oysters, fish, hush puppies (I can’t describe them), chips and coleslaw.
The beaches in this part of Mississippi are beautiful white sandy beaches and the weather was stunning … although there was nobody in swimming so I assume that the water was cold.
We were told that these beaches were all man-made.
So I’m just putting it out there, but if Queensland Rail wanted to open up an ICT Delivery office in Biloxi MS, I’d be happy to move there and run it for you Alison 🙂
After lunch we hopped back onto the I-65 (that’s the interstate heading north) and crossed over into Alabama.
Alabama highways have a totally different feel about them from other states – lots of wide open spaces and leaves turning brown (although to be fair, the leaves always turn brown at this time of the year).
There were indications from Google Maps that there was a bad accident up ahead on the I-65, and we were keen to see more of the Alabama countryside, so we hooked off the I-65 and onto the I-31 North and went through rural Alabama.
Wide open spaces, land that goes on forever, skies as blue as … a millionaire’s swimming pool.
The speed limits are a bit slower that than the interstate (55mph Vs 75mph), but it was all worth slowing down to get a good look at it.
Incidentally, if QR wanted to open an office in Alabama, I’d be OK with that too …
All up we clocked up about 346 miles (550km) today, arriving at Emily’s AirBnB in Millbrook Alabama (on the outskirts of Montgomery AL).
The other day I mentioned the number of RVs that we have seen getting dragged around the USA. This one (below) is not the biggest we have seen – we have seen them with three axles – but it is still pretty big!
The other funny thing that we have seen is RVs that are the size of a bus towing a vehicle behind it. Now I know that you sometimes see this in Australia, but in the USA, everything is bigger – RVs don’t tow a little toy car behind them, they tow a full-size Jeep or Ford Ranger equivalent.
Tomorrow we are heading over to Atlanta Georgia, so it will be a pretty slow day – only a couple of hours driving.
Today’s song and the title of today’s post was a no-brainer – Sweet Home Alabama (Lynard Skynard). Turn it up!
Ciao
#G&KTAKEUSA2019