Just in Time!

We are here in Malabar, Florida, at Enchanted Lakes, our home for the next month. We met our son last night. He brought 3 of his friends and we had a cookout. We had a lot of fun before they took off for some nightlife. Ours consisted of an early bedtime after having been on the road for 4 days.

We arrived and got settled in just before the storm we were supposed to have. Fortunately, we didn't have much down here. It is quite breezy out there, but having been in Texas for 5 weeks, we are conditioned to that. It is wet out there as well today, but not raining hard. There was a warm front colliding with a cool front last night that was supposed to give us some nasty weather followed by a cool down, but it is still "shorts" weather outside. Hopefully that will continue.

I guess we were ahead of the weather front as we made our way down here yesterday as there was some tornadic activity around the panhandle after we came through. Glad we were in front of it. It would catch up with us at night as we came across Texas, but we got ahead of it once we started heading east on I-10.

Fortunately the drive was uneventful. I was driving on Friday when an 18-wheeler was passing me. His nose was almost even with mine when I heard what sounded like a gunshot. I am always wary about running along side of trucks due to blowouts. I had just started to glance in my side-view mirror when I heard the pop and looked at the precise time the tire on the rear of his trailer exploded. Fortunately the rear of his trailer was just behind the SportTrac, so when the tire blew, it actually flew out behind the little truck. Whew. I pulled over as far as I dared in my lane and picked up my speed as the trucker was instantly aware of what happened and eventually reduced his speed and pulled over when I was clear. Fortunately he only slightly wobbled with the trailer, so all was well. That is how I hoped it would all happen. A front tire would have been another story.

We had some interesting experiences with campgrounds. In Biloxi, Mississippi, there is still very little left of what was once a great visual experience. Most of the old stately homes along the coast are gone, some rebuilding is being done, but a lot of ocean front land is for sale, the owners not planning on rebuilding. That is really sad. There are very few campgrounds, but we found one . . . Fox RV "resort." Hah. That's a laugh. It's a FEMA village. Over 100 sites, but most are still taken up with FEMA trailers. Sites were too short to park our 40'er plus our truck. But we couldn't use the receptacle on our site because it was hanging out of the box, so we plugged into the one that was directly behind ours and parked our truck behind us. So we took up two sites, but they couldn't use one anyway. The pool was no longer used, the liner hanging off the sides down into the pool. The park was not trashy, but some of the units in there for the long term were. I think once people surrendered their FEMA trailers, they went out and purchased old run-down travel trailers and parked them in there.

We did a driving tour of Biloxi. We had been there 20 or so years ago with the kids, and very little is recognizable. They have done a tremendous amount of cleanup. Having seen other hurricane devastated areas, it was clear that in the two years since the hurricanes hit, they have cleared a good part of the rubble away. The beaches are gorgeous, but there was no one on them. Not many people/tourists. Several casinos are built. I suppose those draw more tourists and money than most businesses. We couldn't find any remains of the campground where we had stayed years ago. It may have been gone long before the hurricanes, however. We passed by Bouvier, Jefferson Davis' home. In fact, our campground was directly behind it. What a state that was in. It was ravaged by the hurricanes, but is being lovingly restored. I think the library was totally lost, but the main house is there and they were working on it. We toured that when we were here before.

Friday night we pulled into the Madison Campground. Don't bother ever stopping here. It is a former KOA and at one time would have been a beautiful campground. The pool was overgrown as was the tennis court, the miniature golf, the campground itself, etc. The building was in disarray from years of neglect, eaves falling down, etc. We were the only overnighters, but there were permanent sites rented. Some of the electrical boxes had been knocked over, there was no maintenance. The campground was adjacent to the Deerwood Motel which looked to be in very good shape. It is a combination motel/campground. It is sad to see what used to be a really nice campground being so totally neglected. However, our electric did work and we got a good night's sleep.

Not sure what we are doing today. Brandon wanted to bring his motorcycle over and work on some lighting, but it is raining and windy, so that will have to wait. I'm sure, however, that adventure awaits!

Till next time. . .

Dale