New Orleans

Although not particularly private, the camp sites at Bayou Segnette State Park were spacious, clean and full service. We arrived in late afternoon, rolled onto our site not too far from the washrooms and free laundry - yes, free laundry - and settled in for the week. New Orleans lay just a short $1 ferry ride across the mighty Mississippi. We were anxious to explore!

View of a street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. 

Many intersections in the French Quarter featured street musicians.

As we were camped at the State Park on the West Bank of the Mississippi, we had to cross over by ferry every day to visit the city. parking cost us $5 for the day and the ferry which ran each half hour cost another $2, half that for seniors like us.

One pretty sight apart from the busy waterfront was this tall ship from the Netherlands. She was sailed by a few young crew as far as we could see, all very friendly and able to speak English.

This was also the end of the road for my traveling companion. After an early morning drop off at the airport I was alone again and began to make plans for heading back eastward and northward in the coming days. Next stop, Georgia!

Louisiana - Breaux Bridge

Safely parked in our first Louisiana campground in Breaux Bridge, just off the I-10 highway. The highway had been horrendous because of its undulating surface which was so bad I was forced down to 40 kph and running the flashers! It was unbelievable that an interstate highway was still in this condition, especially in an oil state, but there you go...

The campground facilities were excellent and other than the road noise from the nearby highway, we had little to complain about.

 We were lucky to run into a lady walking her dog in a little park beside the river. She took the time to lead us in her car to the Pont Breaux bar and grill. This turned out to be a very drab looking place from the outside, but was a legendary place for Cajun music. Just about everyone you can imagine has either played here or visited. We stayed for lunch and then a few days later returned for supper and to listen to some live music. The place was packed on a week night forcing us to wait at the bar for a table.

Breaux Bridge is on the Bayou Teche, a muddy looking river which slipped along one end of the campground. This lovely house was right beside the town bridge crossing the river. I loved the colours, the flowers, the whole setting of this house!

Meanwhile, the Bayou makes its muddy way through the rest of the town and on to the sea.

We enjoyed the town and found it a great place to explore the surrounding territory for local colour, music and food!

I even met a fellow Quebeçois who thought he might have met me in Kuujjuaq in 1974!  Possible, but I didn't recognize him...

   

Topsail State Park, Florida

Leaving Sopchoppy, behind, we headed to the coastal road and wade our way westward. We stopped for lunch along the way at a little family run diner which operated in a buffet style. You pointed to the dishes you wanted and the cashier tallied at the end of the counter. For desert we went next door for an ice cream cone and chatted with the owner. He operated the ice cream shop during the winter and then went to pan gold in Colorado in the summer! What a life!

 

Continuing along the coast we arrived at our next home for a couple of nights, Topsail State Park. It was a lovely, well forested park with decent showers and a much needed laundry which we took advantage of!

The beach was about a mile away and a shuttle ran every half hour during the day. Instead we decided to explore the trails which led out of the campground into the forests along the shore.

Once down at the shore itself we were taken with how white and sugary the sand was! It really did look like snow from a distance? 

The trails were not very well marked in places and a one point only my GPS told us we were getting lost! We back-tracked and finally found the trail we were supposed to be on and headed back to the campground.

In places the camp rangers had burned the underbrush leaving it looking black and a bit ugly, however this is a natural process and will actually make the area less prone to accidental fires which could prove very dangerous.

In the evening we strolled down to the beach to see the sunset. The shuttle had ended for the day. So the beach was nearly deserted. The white sand and green plants made a nice setting for the sunset. This place was certainly one of the nicest spots we had camped in during the trip to date!

Sopchoppy Delight

Allstays, the camping app I use said their was a County Park in Sopchoppy, Florida so that's where we headed next. Some friends had stayed at a state park a couple of miles down the road and liked the area, so we decided it was a good spot to stop and explore for a few days.

Driving into the town park it was not immediately obvious where the office was to sign up for a camping site. A man in a pickup truck headed our way, so I lowered the window and ask where I could register. He said, "Hang on, I’ll go round to the office." and then he got out of the truck and walked to the rear, lowered the tailgate and announced the office was open! He wrote up a few details and I signed in. We were registered for two nights! It was that simple!

The campground was nearly empty, but that changed the following day when a few more rigs showed up for the weekend. We checked out the washrooms behind the stage, the showers were hot and the facilities clean. A trail led across a bridge to the opposite side of the river, but we didn't follow it too far. We'd had a long drive and spent the evening chilling out.

 
 The following day we backtracked a few miles to a little trail system we had seen which promised sinkholes and underground rivers. It proved to be quite interesting as we followed the several kilometres of trails through a forested area.

In places the forest sat in water, while in other spots it was high and dry and the streams disappeared underground!

One curious sign suggested not to take a trail as it was closed for some unspecified reason. We headed off in another direction, visiting a number of sinkhole features and so on, eventually coming out at the end of the closed trail. Deciding we didn't have time to continue the loop we were on, we headed down the closed trail to see what the problem was. It turned out to be a bridge spanning a drowned cypress forest. The bridge must have required repairs so was closed. However another trail paralleled the bridge along the shore so we took it as the gps suggested it led back to the park entrance. In fact it led to the original trail closed sign we had seen at the outset!

 

Another kilometre or so and we were back at the park entrance having followed several rivers as they appeared and disappeared on their way through the forest. 

It was time to head back to the campground and forage for food!

I Go To Hell, Tate's Hell That Is...

My son Lee has made the suggestion to check out Tate's Hell, so when we passed a sign indicating the state forest by that name was just ahead, we pulled off and headed down a single tracked sandy road. The further we went the more concerned I became that this wasn't the best place to tow a camper, but the road didn't get worse so we kept on going. After several miles we came to an intersection and turned left following the signs. Another left shortly thereafter and we had arrived!

 

 We headed up the tree lined track, turned the camper around and got out of the car. This was Hell? It was actually an elevated boardwalk over a section of the swampy forest which for some reason had been dwarfed. Perhaps a crucial lack of nutrients had resulted in the dwarf trees, but all the same it was an interesting area to visit.

As you can see in the photo on the left, the boardwalk climbs above the forest and curves around slightly to give a good view of the area below. The dwarf trees are surrounded by normal sized trees, but appear stunted and slow growing. 

 

Finally after having a good look around, we headed back to the main highway and continued our way westward. There were lots more interesting places to see along the way!

Bad Day In Naples

Thinking it would be interesting to drive south down Route 41, we headed south from Pine Island roughly following the route laid out in a 1935 guidebook. Needless to say there were changes, lots of them! In fact there were changes even from a few years past when I had taken the same route south to the Everglades. Most notably, there were no more open spaces. It was mall after mall after mall divided briefly by traffic lights. It was at a traffic light that the trip took a nasty turn...

Waiting for the light to change green, we took a sudden impact from the rear. Someone hadn't stopped in time and smashed into Big Trill! I got out and walked back. A young girl was at the wheel on a middle sized car. She claimed her sandal had come off the brake pedal, but I suspect she had been texting someone. In any event, I suggested we pull off to the side and exchange insurance info etc. As I turned right another car clipped the right corner of Big Trill! Obviously in Florida even when it's clear there has been an accident, charging ahead on the right is common practice! 

 

Once on the side street, it was apparent the young girl had run off. We dealt with the second car, exchanged info and so on. We then dealt with the damage. The rear bumper had been pushed in, the right tail light was gone and the fibreglass on the right corner around the bumper was cracked in multiple places. We headed for a hardware store and between that and a deli counter at the grocery store we created a new red tail light. Duct tape covered the cracks in the glass and once again we were on the road headed south.

We were so happy to pull into the Riptide RV Park on Key Largo and find our spot waiting for us. The natives were friendly and the sunset beautiful. Life was good once again...

Return to Hillsborough State Park, Florida

I had stayed at Hillsborough State some years ago in my Teardrop camper and had enjoyed my stay there, so I was interested to revisit. One of the things I wanted to do was hike some of the trails across the river as I had not done that previously.

Once again, it was difficult to reserve a site longer than a single night in any park, so we had to get out an explore quickly and then pack up and move along.

There were more trails than we really had time to explore, but we did cross the river and head down one fine trails. We were surprised to discover it soon came to a fence forcing me to turn along it and then head back into the forest and back to another bridge! Crossing the bridge, we followed the river for a while seeing an alligator and some paddlers in the water below. Where's my kayak! It seemed odd to be in Florida without one...

Turning back along a trail which headed towards the park road, we discovered around a dozen or so vulture like birds in the trees and on the ground. The odour of a large rottening animal permiated the air. The birds were enjoying themselves, feasting away on this find.

We continued along the path and arrived back at my camper. It was time to pack up and leave. On the way out we drove around the park looking for where I had stayed before. It wasn't easy to find the exact site, but it was most likely in the open area furtherest from the river sites. The park certainly was full. I had inquired at the gate about any cancellations, but the ranger didn't seem to want to bother looking. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. A lady volunteer  working in the office smiled and rolled her eyes...

We headed down the road...

Charleston, South Carolina

 

Winter in Quebec was proving once again to be more of a snow, rain, freeze cycle than a real winter, so it was time to see if Big Trill was up to a big trip south. I had done lots of tweeking to her over the few years of ownership and the Kingston trip gave me positive feedback, so off we went on the last few days of February, 2017.

The route the first day took us south through Vermont, over the hills to Rutland and then on to Albany, NY where I stopped at a Walmart Inn in Latham for the night. Fortunately the night was relatively warm so I slept well and was back on I-87 in the morning. By late afternoon I was in Maryland. The dreaded I-95 was scaring me with every bump and bang it's badly kept surface presented. Up again the day after another night Chez Walmart, the horror of the interstate continued. I stopped on the border between the two Carolinas for the night, again Walmart,  and the next morning thankfully got off I-95 soon after crossing into South Carolina. I took rt 52 to Lake City and from there onto Charleston itself. 

I had reservations at the James Island County Campground, but the desk at the campground had no record of them! Fortunately, they had space and I settled into this wonderful spot for several days. 

I spent much of the time cleaning and rearranging the interior of Big Trill. She was incredibly dirty and I had brought way more stuff than I needed, so the time was well spent!

I connected with my Facebook friend Mary Ann and she kindly met me and showed me around the city and some of the neighbouring spots of interest...

  

A walk around the old section of town revealed a lovely seaside park as well as some secret gardens hidden behind old walls and wrought iron gates. Yet, Charleston was not just about the past, we treated ourselves to a take out meal at a genuine English fish n chips joint where even the owner's accent was the real thing! He was from Manchester!

The road soon beckoned southward, so cleaner and tidier, Big Trill and I headed back to the I-95 via rt 17. Soon the bumps and bangs would begin anew...