We arrived in Fulton at about 1:00 in the afternoon. We were happy to see all our friends there again. It took a long time to set up because of course there was a lot of catching up to do.

From now on I won’t be adding to the diary unless something happens noteworthy. We will try to post some pictures of events here from time to time.

Thanks to all who keep tuning in to our adventures.

Colin had a midnight snack last night and managed to break his tooth in half. He went into town this morning but the dentist here does not have week-end hours. We are booked into this park for two nights and can only stay one more so we are leaving tomorrow to go to Fulton and that way Colin can just go to the dentist there. We did get the laundry done and some of our travel mess cleaned up.

We headed out this morning going towards Galveston. We had to take a ferry across to the Island ......problem.......We had a gas can in the back of the truck with about a gallon of gas in it. NOT ALLOWED on the ferry. We got put into a separate line and then told that we either had to get rid of the whole thing or dump the gas and fill the can with water. But.....we could not dump the gas on state property. We had to turn around, leave and go to a gas station. We needed propane so we filled our tank and then offered the gas to the guy whole filled our propane. He was grateful to get it and even gave us water to refill the can. Okay back into the Ferry line up. This time they let us on. We ended up going all the way to Palacios, which is only a few hours from our destination in Fulton. It’s a very nice park fronting onto the water and a marina but there is nothing else around.

We ended up staying in a Wal-Mart parking lot because the park we were planning to stay in was no longer there. We left and headed towards Port Arthur and hopefully a place to have US Thanksgiving dinner. We passed by a huge number of properties with FEMA trailers on them. Some were rebuilding but there were a lot of driveways with nothing at the end of them. We also had to swerve out of the way to miss about a 3' long alligator in the middle of the road. We stopped for lunch at the edge of a river where a building had once been. It was not a very welcoming place......The mosquitos were huge and hungry and then the Sheriff showed up and kicked us out because it was private property. Our lunch was ready so we moved the truck and trailer to the side of the road and ate in the truck. When we arrived in Port Arthur we had the choice of IHOP or IHOP so we had dinner at IHOP. We then moved over to the Wal-Mart parking lot for the night.

Today’s drive was quite an eye opener. It started just outside of Gulf Port Mississippi with mile after mile of beach front property totally destroyed. Hotels flattened and shopping centres levelled. There had once been a board walk all along the beach which is now only broken up section with large gaps in between. We had to reroute our trip several times as some of the bridges we had planned to cross just where not there anymore. When we actually arrived in New Orleans we encountered street after street of uninhabitable homes, most with trailers somewhere in the yard. The amount of devastation we saw was incomprehendable. We probably drove for 40 miles and saw nothing but destroyed homes and buildings. They have a long way to go before things are ever back to normal there.




Some blown out signs but the buildings are gone.



Unstable apartment block.



This boat was sitting at the side of the highway.



Drydocked drilling platform?

Today was my day to go and do something I like to do. Colin dropped me off at the house mentioned above and he went off to visit Harbor Freight. The Bragg-Mitchell Mansion was built by Judge John Bragg in 1855 as his winter “Party Palace”. He loved to make money and his wife loved to spend it so there are many very special touches in the house such as closets which were unheard of in that time. There are beautiful crown mouldings, elaborately painted throughout the house. In 1964 the house was vacated by the Mitchell family, the second owners and left to sit vacant for 15 years. When restoration began they found quite a lot of beautiful antiques had been left as well as chandeliers and priceless Italian glass ware. All of these items are now displayed in the house. The house is now used for a lot of weddings and social event. I was not allowed to take pictures inside but I did take some outside.




Front drive of the Bragg-Mitchell Mansion

We are in a campground called the Wilderness Campground. There isn’t much here but it is very pretty and they have a hot tub. A good soak really hit the spot after a day in the car.

We got on the road and headed to Destin Florida. On the way through Panama City Beach it started to pour rain, it was slow going for a while and then the winds started to pick up. The emergency broadcast system came on the radio and warned of tornado watches in the area. We parked for the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot and the trailer was really getting bounced around by the wind.

I woke up this morning with a running nose, cough, and aches and pains......yuk! We kind of hung around the trailer in the morning and Colin made some lunch. Our toilet has been giving us problems but we were hoping it would hold out till we got to Texas.......NOT! There are cables that are used to flush the toilet and one broke about 2 weeks ago........today the second one went .....thus no working toilet and no running water as we had to turn the water supply off so the water didn’t run all over the floor. Colin headed out to see if he could find the parts. He made it to a Camping World Store with about 5 minutes to spare. He made it back, put the toilet back together, everything working again. About an hour later I went in to use the toilet and there was water on the floor. When he tried to tighten the connection he striped the plastic bolt. We stuck something into the pipe so we can at least use the water till we get a new part.

Our first stop was San Marcos de Apalache. This was the original site of a Spanish strong hold in the 1700's. It has been rebuilt for various purposes over the year. Today the small museum is built on ruins of a sailor’s hospital which was built from the remains of the old Spanish Fort that stood nearby. There was not a lot to see except for various ruins of different buildings.
Next we drove on to the wildlife refuge and out to the Light house also built from the remains of the Old Spanish fort. There were a variety of water birds and also a resident Bald Eagle and his nest. It was a great day for a walk as it was not too hot out side.




















































I thought the supersonics were all grounded?

When we did our boat trip we got some great sunset shots in a little place that we anchor called Steinhatchee. Things have changed here a lot. There has been a lot of development and building going on. Still a very pretty spot and the seafood restaurant we enjoyed the last time was still there. Great fresh oysters. We drove on a little further to a very small town called Keaton Beach. The campground was tiny but we had a spot facing right out onto the Gulf of Mexico. The sunsets here were not disappointing either. We had our own crew of Pelicans on posts right outside the window.

As some of you may not know we have a GPS in the truck which routes our trip and tells us where to turn and how to get where we are going......usually works very well. Colin was talking and missed one of his turns so Martha (our name for the GPS”) rerouted us to the next possible road.......only problem was it was a dead end road, not only was it a dead end but there was no place to turn the truck and trailer around. We backed up about 500 feet to a small farm field gate where we figured we could do the turn. Some people on 4 wheelers arrived from the house at the end and told us it wouldn’t work but we proceeded anyway. As I was directing Colin so he would not hit the stone post the guy on the 4 wheeler decided to drive behind the trailer.....that’s right, I didn’t see him. He didn’t get squashed but he could have! Because of the way our trailer is shaped at the front when you do a sharp turn the front end can hang out quite far. I was watching the front to make sure it cleared the tree and I was not watching where I was stepping..... Suddenly I felt this stinging on my foot.....I looked down to see my entire foot covered in Fire Ants (very aptly named!) I kicked off my sandal and started brushing the biting little beasts from my foot....of course they then got onto my hands. After a wonderful little dance on the road .....by the way Colin missed the whole performance, I got into the truck, minus one shoe which was so covered with ants I threw it into the back of the truck. To put this into perspective......Fire Ant bites feel like someone injected tabasco sauce into you and it is instantly extremely itchy!!!! All totalled when all was said and done I had about 25 bites on my two feet and my hands. So while I am frantically wiping the welts on my feet with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol, Colin is yelling at me for not seeing the guy behind the trailer. I give up!!

Well of course to make the ice maker fit......everything had to come out of the storage compartment and everything had to come out of the truck boxes. Of course since everything was out of the truck boxes, they had to be washed out......nearest carwash......10 miles away. Colin and Splash went to wash the truck and I was left to sort out the various piles of stuff. And naturally in the midst of the sorting process it started to pour rain.

I frantically started moving stuff under the trailer as the rain came down harder and harder. This really nice lady came along in her golf cart and helped me get everything under the trailer before me and the stuff was totally soaked. Now we had to wait for the rain to stop and Colin to come back. It was dark by the time we were all done but surprisingly enough everything fit ..... including the ice maker .....in fact we seemed to have extra room and things were more easily accessible. Who’d have thunk it???

Colin decided we needed an ice machine....so off we went to Costco where he had researched out the best price. He assured me that we could make it fit into our storage compartment.....which by the way is already full. There was no changing his mind so the ice maker was purchased. It works great and makes ice in only 3 minutes.

We took a drive into Punta Gorda today. We found a neat little water front area filled with shops and restaurants. We took a tour through and checked out the boats tied up there. We found a short cut home and also a large shopping area that is very close to where we are staying.

We drove to Fort Meyers to check out another Flea Market. It was a really clean nice one with big clean bathrooms and all the buildings were all nice and clean as were the stalls.
We bought fresh tomatoes and some red oranges from the vegetable section of the market.

Next we drove to Punta Gorda to view another boat. Project Boat......for sure! It was the kind of boat we like but there was just soo much work to do on it. There was a lot done to it already but more that still needed doing. I think we will remove this from the list of possible replacements for the Maid of Steel.

We started to get ready to leave the park and then it started to pour rain. We waited for a bit but decided we better go out in the rain to get going. The problem was it was too wet not to wear a rain coat and too hot to wear one. By the time we were packed up we were both soaked. We headed across Florida for a very boring ride ..... there just is nothing to see.
We signed up with Pass Port America which gives us half off the regular price of certain campgrounds. Instead of it being $204.00 for 6 nights it was only $102.00. Sounded good to me.