We are home! We were gone 52 days, drove 5723 miles, visited 14 states, and walked 201 miles. Denny drove every single one of them since he is a bad passenger and a worse navigator and I excel at both! I just hope I remember how to drive now that we are home :)
It was 3 degrees when we got up this morning but it was nice to be home and the kitties missed us :) I can't believe how much our kitten grew! He is a very big boy now.
We leave on March 19th for Italy with my sister Fran and her husband Jack, and will return on April 1st. I hope spring has arrived by then! There won't be any Italy blogs because I don't want to lug a heavy laptop along but we will have an ipad.
The blog is done for now but will resume when we take our next RV trip to Mt Rushmore and the Badlands July 20th. Hope you can join us!

We ran into heavy rain and fog in Cincinnati and all the way to Columbus. We had a nice visit with the Grove City Briggeman's (at least a few of them). The winter storm warning last night only left an inch of snow, so we are on the road again this morning. There will be one last post from this trip when we get home safely, probably on Friday ....if the weather holds.

On Thursday we moved to Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens park, in Pensacola Florida. It is the opposite end of a group of barrier islands that go from Mississippi to Florida and make up the National Seashore Park. We stayed in the Mississippi park a week or so ago. Like all of the parks along this stretch of the coast, the sand looks like snow. This park has an old civil war fort that was mostly open to the public and very interesting. It was actually held by the north but surrounded by troops from the south!

Doesn't that look like snow drifts?

Testing the water in Pensacola, may have to have a few toes amputated from frostbite :)

It is surrounded by water, so Denny and I decided to walk to the point and back down the other side. Turned out to be 10.5 miles of beach walking in very windy conditions. The sun came out though and we were able to shed our outer layer.






 
On our walks we came across these guys, an armadillo and a dead starfish.

The sun sets on Pensacola and our vacation as we start a week long trek toward home. But first, we will make stops to visit some of our favorite people, our relatives!

Bastuba kitchen with Becky, Jay, Jacky and Andy

Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola

Yesterday was a total bust. It never got out of the low forties, we had wind, heavy rain and thunderstorms all day. So, for the second time on our trip we spent most of our day in the RV. On the bright side though, I did get a lot of quilting done! The next couple of days are supposed to be sunny. I'm not seeing any sun yet out the window but at least it's not raining! I don't expect much sympathy from those of you stuck up there in the snow but we will be joining you soon.
We are on the road again today to Pensacola, Florida, our last stop before turning northward.

Yesterday turned into a pleasant day after all, albeit a little chilly! So, we walked about 6 miles on the road and trails in the park.  It was too cold for swimming....but we were discouraged anyway :)  Click to read the sign.

No quilting got done but I did a little crocheting with "plarn". This morning we will move on to Alabama. I hope there is room at the inn!

Miles and miles of sugar sand beaches

Testing the water in every state!

We are now in Mississippi, along the gulf coast. I had no idea the sand was so soft and white here. It's beautiful! We are at a national park, Gulf Islands National Seashore. Yesterday it was 75 degrees so  we walked 4 miles of trails in the morning and were lucky enough to see an alligator in the bayou and some bottle nose dolphins in the bay. In the afternoon, we got out our bikes for a quick bike ride on a "loop" in the park. We followed the bike trail signs into the nearby town of Ocean Springs, where they disappeared! We asked, but nobody seemed to know how to get back to the path other than going down a major 4 lane highway, which we were not about to do. So, we knew which direction we needed to go and just made our own trail, eventually arriving back at the campground. It kind of felt like Gilligan's Island. Our short ride (his 3 hour tour) definitely turned into something MUCH longer!

Gator in the bayou

The bay with Ocean Springs, where we took our bike ride, in the distance.

Dolphin

The front came in overnight so it is expected to be 50, windy and rainy today.  I'm glad we got our walks in yesterday. Today may be a quilting day!

It was a beautiful day in the New Orleans French Quarter yesterday. We started out with coffee and beignets at Cafe Beignet  in Musical Legends Park, yummy. And, live music was played there all day.

 We walked, and walked and walked. We saw a lot of street musicians and performers, beautiful

old architecture, lots of bars and restaurants and of course, quite a few homeless. At least they weren't freezing! Since it was only a few days after Mardi Gras a lot of the decorations were still up.

 We drank our way through the French quarter, that was what everyone else was doing so we followed suit!

Bloody Mary

Beer on the balcony

Hurricane in the doorway table where we got to watch a jazz wedding stroll by!

We sampled some pralines and made a couple of new friends and then headed back to the RV park to rest.