Due to flying in that incubator in the sky, I came back with a cold. Despite trying very hard not to, I passed it along to Denny. It's hard to keep germs away from one another when you are living in a large tin can!

Next up, Lake Lincoln State Park in Mississippi. We had another beautiful lakefront site, and we had the park mostly to ourselves until the weekend.

Isn't that a great site?

Again, I saw no alligators. May have been too cool. Highs were in the low 60s.

We obeyed MOST of the rules.😀

Paul Johnson State Park, also in MS was next. It was also nice and we were able to get in quite a few miles in spite of my cold and even a couple of geocaches.

Nice reflections!

The local wildlife, again, no alligators!

The entrance to the park was across the dam spillway so you had to drive through the water!

We stopped at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge on the way to our next stop. The species of crane that lives there looks very similar to the type we see in Michigan, but is a bit shorter and non-migratory. Alas, like the alligators, none were around.

When you want to see alligators and they aren't cooperating, you make it happen.

We chose Gulf Coast Gator Ranch for our next Harvest Host stay. I finally got to see gators, but in semi captivity.

This guy was enormous!

Keeping an eye on us

All those algae covered lumps are alligators. Don't fall in!

Make sure to watch your children while you are here!

Our nighttime view:

One night here was plenty, a train nearby kept waking us both. So, we were happy to move on to more serene camping at Davis Bayou in the Gulf National Seashore. It was our third time there, and we love it every time! Give us lots of places to hike, great wildlife and a couple of geocaches and we are happy campers!

My first alligator in the wild! He is a small one though. The closest turtle almost climbed on his buddy to get a little farther away!

This guy was about a foot long.

They were doing a prescribed burn along the road on one of the days we were there.We tried to stay out of the smoke on our hikes!

Mississippi parks are beautiful and well maintained. We had planned to next sample some of Alabama's parks but their reservation system is so bad that we decided to move on to the Florida panhandle. Alabama does not have online reservations at most parks, and when I called they didn't call back for two or three days and then left me a message and again didn't answer when I called back. Frustrating! I wonder if their parks are half empty!