Livingston, Texas - Topsail, Florida (11/27/2005)

We started the week in Livingston, Texas at the Escapees Park. We were originally going to Houston but Richard changed our minds. Escapees is the organization that provides our EMAIL and Mail Forwarding Services so we decided to visit them. Luckily for me Livingston has a Quilt store unlike San Antonio which had quilt stores but they were waayyy out of town. Livingston’s quilt shop was real nice. Lots of locally designed and created bright baby quilts.
Livingston is a nice small town in rural east Texas, some nice houses, some dumps. Texas was not what I expected: lots more cars (instead of trucks), lots of trees (instead of cattle ranches), and nice rivers. Not that we didn’t see cattle, we saw cattle among trees and cattle in fields surrounded by trees.
As we left Texas and crossed a river into Louisiana, we suddenly saw swamp in the distance. Looks like Louisiana better matches my preconceptions. Of course we came into Louisiana near the gulf coast and only went through a small section of Texas. Perhaps this narrow view of Texas was too small to match my equally narrow view of the state. Also in Louisiana we have seen evidence of the hurricanes, lots of downed trees and piles of debris. We traveled on a freeway which, although paved, was every bit as bad as the worst hiway in Alaska. In Louisiana we stayed in another Indian Casino RV Park: Coushatta, very nice, but not anywhere near a quilt shop so I guess I will have to return to Louisiana to find fabric.
We spent a lazy Thanksgiving. Rich went to the Casino and did a little gambling while I watched the Dog Show. It was interesting to see what the standard Bichon haircut looked like. I do not like the round face, or the long hair, but I need to work on Max’s overall look. In the evening we had dinner at the Casino. Turkey loving Richard decided not to have turkey. “I thought - which would I rather have steak or turkey, and decided to have steak.” I, on the other hand, had traditional turkey with all the trimmings. It was good, and nice not to have the mess, but not nice not to have the soup.
Rich bought a new GPS system some time ago. He has been using it with some success. He does not always agree with its directions but we were able to get it to re-calculate. This time that did not work. He wanted to avoid New Orleans on the road from Louisiana to Mississippi so he told the system to avoid freeways. Unfortunately, although he wanted to avoid Interstate 10 he wanted to travel on Interstate 12. The system kept telling him to take the off ramp. Then we got into a heated discussion (argument) as he wanted me to take over programming the system. I think he wants to be able to be mad at something when the system does not work the way he wants and its easier to be mad at me than a machine. Somehow we have to be able to override the system when Rich has a way he wants to go. The roadside was full of downed trees and blue (tarp) roofs. Many of the trees were splintered. Some roadside lights down the center of the road were also down, as well as billboards along the side.
In Mississippi we stayed at a RV Park in Mazalea, Mississippi. This park is home to hurricane refuges. That evening the Red Cross was here with Disaster Relief meals for anyone living in the park. No, we did take any. It would be taking food from people who need it. It is hard to imagine that people are living here instead of homes not by choice but by happenstance.
Saturday we arrived in Florida. Florida had an open Visitor Center. Both Louisiana's and Mississippi's Visitor Centers on Interstate 10 were closed from the hurricanes. We are staying at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park for the next 6 days. It is an awesome park, 4 Lakes, lots of privacy, a pool, Tennis Courts, Club House, Office and Store, as well as access to great beaches. This area has great white sand. It is so white it looks like snow. At one point I looked out the window at a woman standing in the wind next to the water and was transported back to winter in Alaska.
Diesel was as low as $2.39 in Texas, as high as $2.59 in Louisiana.
I gave Max another haircut. I am still not as good at it as I want to be so he is a little ragged. I think I am getting better but it is taking lots of practice. He reminds me of the old saying “The difference between a bad haircut and a good one is 2 weeks.” Hopefully this 2 week period will pass quickly.
For a long time we were receiving Los Angeles channels as our local networks from Dish Network. Since we are traveling, we needed a ‘national’ local station set (Dish wording) and chose the LA set since we were on the west coast. Unfortunately, that meant that during the election season we were bombarded with ’Arnie’ ads (pro and con). Very annoying! As we moved east the TV programs we watch got later and later so this week we changed to the New York national ‘local’ stations. Now we are getting ads for Pocono Resorts and cold weather predictions.