Thurs. 11/13: TX to Alabama

600+ miles today, but with 3 hours of ground fog this morning through Louisiana and LOTS more traffic now that we're in the East. No pictures today; this was a power-drive.

Enjoyed hours of Cajun music on the iPod and planned sites to see on the way home, since Louisiana clearly was Julie's home in a past life--zydeco, sausage, and good beer. Ah. Planning to hit Opelousas on the way back. World HQ of Zydeco music. Home to the Blue Dog Cafe (that guy who paints his blue dog and is in galleries all over the place), and the Catahoula Cafe (our dog Ruby was 1/2 Catahoula hound). We had a little taste of home cooking when refilling our gas tank in LA today. Julie got a homemade meat pie (filled with spicy beef) and Lisa got some fried chicken--drumsticks. Yum.

Got lost for the first time in 10s of thousands of miles today. Heading into Mobile on I-10. Sign said "Tunnel ahead. No hazardous materials." Well, an RV is a rolling hazardous material (esp. the propane). So, we exited, thinking (as we have successfully done in many, many cities) that we'd follow the signs and our gut to get around the problem. Hoo boy, was that not possible. Lost for over an hour, but had quite an adventure, especially when Julie hopped out of the RV in probably not the best neighborhood (lots of bars on shop windows) and enlisted the entire staff and customers of the Dollar General store in helping her figure out where we WERE on the map (had no idea) so that we could get to where we WANTED to be. Suffice to say...these folks are very, very nice, but they refer to landmarks in their town by names you don't see on the road signs. And they have THICK accents. We made it by simply taking the long way (and seeing a gorgeous historical district, which we wouldn't have seen otherwise), which we could see on our often less than helpful National Geographic map, not their way, which we couldn't see.

Whew. Didn't make it into Florida, as we had hoped, but we are happily ensconced at the Hilltop RV Park outside Mobile, but a few miles from the Florida border. A fine supper of microwaved burrito (with a lovely Paso Robles chardonnay, which we happened to have on board) made our repast. Could not cook and do dishes tonight. Too long of a day.

But, in case any of you are wondering, we still love Rving. Nick does too. No $*&% motels for us! Onward to St. Augustine by mid-afternoon tomorrow....