Arkansas to Florida Sights

Since we got married in early 2011, I have driven from Arkansas to Florida so many times.  Our typical route is down highway 65 into Louisiana to I-20, over to Jackson, Mississippi, down highway 49 to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, then highway 98 to Mobile, Alabama where we connect with I-10 into Florida.  Once past Tallahassee, we go down highway 19 to the Holiday/Tarpon Springs area, sometimes using the Suncoast Parkway toll road to avoid the many many stop lights along Highway 19 between Homosassa and Tarpon Springs.  Above is a picture of Lake Providence, which is also the name of the town which runs along it.  It is a large Ox Bow lake, which means many many years ago it was part of the Mississippi river.

So why do I show this house above?  It is located on the outskirts of Lake Providence.  Back in 2011, the house was under construction.  Here in 2014, it is STILL under construction. Back in 2011 it was still being framed.  By 2012 it had the outer board and insulation around the frame.  The last time we saw it was in 2013, it had plywood over the roof, no shingles, and the outer board was still showing, no brick.  No it looks like they are getting close to being down with the outside….but a blowup of the inside still shows sheet rock, and I doubt the floors are done.  I told Marcia that perhaps they are just paying for it as they go along…let’s hope they live long enough to enjoy it.

Just south of Lake Providence is the small community of Transylvania.  Have shown this on the blog before, sure an interesting place….

And we had to include a picture of the Mississippi River.  To the left bank is Vicksburg, to the right is Louisiana, the river view is to the south.  Has a real good flow going for October.

As stated in an early blog posting, we stayed overnight at Okatoma Resort & RV Park just north of Hattiesburg.  This is a picture of the entrance road (right side) and exit road (left side), and in the middle they had a nice little Doggie Run that I took the kids to a couple of times.  All these green trees and grass were throughout the park, except where the RV’s parked, which was mainly gravel.  Combined with the two large ponds and other smaller ponds, it really was a gem of a park at $13 per night with Passport America.

As soon as you pass under the tunnel in Mobile, Alabama, you can see the Battleship USS Alabama off to the right.  Took a tour of it once, it is a magnificent piece of equipment. 

Then we pass over the bridge of Mobile Bay, that is the gulf out there to the south.

Not much for showing state signs, but we are in our home state now, so there it is.

As we got in between Pensacola and Tallahassee we came upon a fire off in the woods…for a minute I felt like we were back in California or something.

    

After a night in the rest area past Tallahassee, we made our way down to highway 19, and in Chiefland we stopped at a Murphy Express for our last gas fill-up for $3.75 per gallon.  Our cheapest gas on the trip was $3.35 in Mississippi, and except for a $20 in the HHR near Yosemite, we did not spend over $5 per gallon on the entire trip.  Did not keep track of our overall expenses, but my best guess is that the new to us Motorhome was typically getting 8.5 to 9.0 gallons per mile.  Hit low 7’s once or twice in mountains, but also hit high 9’s once or twice too.  Here Skruffy is watching me to be sure I did everything correctly, and Bubba is looking at Skruffy thinking, “Hey ‘girl’, what are you doing in my spot!  Everyone knows that when dad leaves his seat it automatically turn into a Bubba chair.”

Now it comes down to doing work around the Condo, or doing work at the Motorhome…. frankly it is going to be a lot of work for a number of weeks.  But you know, even work can be fun!