Mississippi we hardly knew ye

Friday, February 18th – Biloxi to Big Lagoon State Park, Florida

One night stays basically require us to start packing up as soon as we wake up. Pillows come off the bed and the comforter gets folded into the middle of the bed. The kids have to take their sleeping bags, pillows and stuffies and put them into their designated sacks. Aisling and Mary’s suitcases get stored under the table/Aisling’s bed. Breakfast is made and dishes are done. Water, electricity is unhooked. Sink and stove is gently lowered onto the floor from its position above a cupboard (there is a mechanism so you just grab a bar on one side and lower). Beds are pushed in and the material from the trailer walls is folded onto the beds. The roof is cranked down. We are getting faster but it still takes a little while.

Once we were finished, we pulled off our site and into the parking lot of Beauvoir. They have acres and acres of property so we took a walk around. They have a graveyard for confederate veterans that we walked through. It was a pretty nice day. Sunny but breezy and not quite shorts weather yet. The walk was a kilometre or so.

We went into the museum and presidential library on site to examine an array of old handguns and read about the life of Jefferson Davis. We’ve talked to the kids about the civil war and slavery (although civil war history is not our thing).

Our drive started in Biloxi and went along the coast. A series of casinos and seafood restaurants awaited us. We should have stopped and seen more but we just drove on by. To make up for it we tried to stop in Mobile, Alabama. We looked up a park which turned out not to be that great (by the time I parked the car and woke up John, everyone else was already heading back to the car). The downtown seemed nice as we drove through and it seems we just missed the Mardi Gras parade as people and places were decorated. A quick drive through and we were off.

We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the road.

We arrived at Big Lagoon State Park in Florida at night and set-up. The site looked beautiful and the kids enjoyed the play structure in the dark. A dinner of chickpea wraps was delicious. It was the first time I made the recipe and it went over well.

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