Homeward Bound-Day 13

We were in no real hurry to leave this morning. So we sat on the balcony and enjoyed our breakfast and coffee. Our last view of Mobile Bay.

 This is our final mileage for the trip. 4,884 and seems Buddy may have gotten a little speed happy through Texas. 97 mph

 This is our route we took. If anyone else makes a trip westward and planning on visiting many National Parks, my advice is to purchase an "America the Beautiful" Pass. The pass is good for a year to any National Park. It is $80 for the purchaser and up to 3 other people can go in on the same card. Well worth it.

 It was a great trip and now to get back to reality.

New Orleans & Final night-Day12

Welllllllll, today was our last adventure day, and yes, I took us WAAAAYY off course. We left Port Arthur, TX and headed to...

 Along the way we saw this terrible accident, I hope the driver made it out ok.

 Part of the bayous of Louisiana.

 Just strange to see canals going down the interstate

 Was suppose to turn north but, why not go to New Orleans to eat lunch. We were here over 25 years ago and just wanted to see how it had changed. Oh, boy, was I in for a surprise. 

 Superdome

 This is where we ate lunch on Bourbon Street, right in the middle of the French Quarters. It was delicious. We had raw oysters, Buddy had shrimp creole and I had fish tacos.

 Not sure about some of the folks down here. We were glad to get out of there and glad we were not in this area at night time.

 I wouldn't even post some of the things that we saw. And this was at noon on a Sunday.

 By the way, neither of us got beads. :)

 First good view of Lake Pontchartrain. 

 Blew right through Louisiana into MI(crooked letter, crooked letter) I (crooked letter, crooked letter) I (hump back, hump back) I. If you didn't grow up when I did, you have no clue what that means. But, yes we are in Mississippi.

 We didn't know anything about this area, and I was just looking for somewhere to stay by the water. As you can see the beaches were deserted.

 Because this storm was coming on hard and strong.

 Saw a few lighthouses along the way

 Shrimp boat

 After finding no where to stay, and making it into Biloxi, with lots of casinos we were out of there.

 Finally, I pointed the GPS to home and next closest place was Mobile, Alabama.

 Going under part of the Bay Area

 Back at the top and we see U.S.S. Alabama

 Mobile Bay is actually part of the Gulf

 When traveling we try to stay with Choice Hotels to get points built up and get free nights, but coming across the bridge we spotted a Hamilton Inn, which we also get points on, but boy it was the best of everything. Not only did it have a great view of Mobile Bay and a balcony, but next door was this great restaurant.

 My Shrimp Creole was amazing

 Buddy had Bourbon soaked pork chop over grit cakes and greens. Also their salad had an amazing dressing I had never tasted before.

 View from where we were sitting.

Tomorrows journey is back to Mount Juliet, We have had an amazing time. I will post one more blog to show the route we took and how many miles we logged in 13 days. Right now over 4,000. 

Driving across Texas-Day 11

We left Sonora, TX this morning and drove straight through Texas. Went through San Antonio & Houston. We logged 452 miles today. Inching closer to home.

 Just glad we were driving through Houston on a Saturday. Can't imagine what it would be like during the week.

 We found us a place to stay in Port Arthur, TX but my first objective was to find water. 

 This is actually a lake before you got to the gulf.

 Pleasure Island is mostly made of oil refineries.

 Ship coming into port

 If you have ever wondered why there are not many beaches around this area is because of these everywhere.

 After about a 30 mile trek we finally found a very private beach. Just very few houses and some R.V. campgrounds.

 Oil Rig

 As we were headed back out toward our hotel we kept seeing what we thought looked a lot like a tornado cloud.

 As we got closer to it, we realized it was a fire. You could smell it and the sky was very hazy. Not sure and haven't heard anything on the news, so must have been a small oil fire, but sure caused a big stink.

I have two days to get home and now planning on where we are going tomorrow.