Ralphie Rough Road

The next two months of our journey on the road found us chasing and finally catching warm and sunny days. It involved about 2.5 weeks of so so weather in Louisiana and the Florida panhandle.

Fairview Riverside Park, LA

This became our home base for a few days to regroup and receive some much needed packages. As you may recall, our solar panels were a casualty of Texas. The starter on the Jeep joined that list at our last beach spot. Lucky for us, it is our toad (our towed vehicle). Ralphie, the RV safely transported broken down Eddie, the Jeep to Fairview Riverside Park. Where our solar panels and a shiny new starter awaited our arrival. Plus an unexpected surprise gift for me (more on that later).

Receiving packages on the road can be difficult. The ladies at Fairview were happy to accept packages for us. Thanks to them we now have shiny new solar panels and our Jeep is back in business.

Shane is smiling because the job took less than an hour, not because he likes working on cars.

During our stay we ventured into the Crescent City for a day of debauchery in the French Quarter. That is all I will say about that. The photos offer some clue into how we spent the day.

Fairview Riverside Park treated us well as a home base to New Orleans & getting shit done! However, the close proximity to other campers had us yearning for the wilderness again.

On our way we out, we passed this home. Unfortunately, this is an all too common scene in the southern region of the US.

Back to Wilderness Landing + Apalachicola National Forest

Wilderness Landing is a great landing spot (no pun intended) while traveling through the Florida Panhandle. Currently, this spot is still free. But after talking to some others it seems they have plans to make this a paid site, complete with electric and paved sites. It’s too bad really, as it is a great spot right on the Black Water River. This year we noticed they have blocked off large sections and reduced the area open to camping. Yet we managed to score our same spot from last year with plenty of room to spread out.

During our stay I put together two of my favorite meals. Greek night complete with Greek salad, fried cheese, spanakopita, gyros and wine. And one of Shane’s favorites, Gumbo night with beers from Louisiana!

Apalachicola National Forest on the other hand was a different experience this year as compared to last year. This year we hit it during hunting season. When we arrived, we noticed several campers already at the hunt camp. Last year it was us and 1 other guy for the two weeks. This time it was hunters, campers, and Beagles everywhere. You can’t tell it from this photo but behind the RV there are several campers lined up along the tree line.

After one night of listening to Beagles bark we moved a couple miles down the road to a nice secluded spot.

That was the right call as the weekend only brought more hunters to the camp. We had relative quiet except for the occasional group of hunting dogs running through our spot.

Shane had the chance to practice Qigong outside.

I had the chance to finally use my surprise gift. Remember I mentioned a surprise gift back at Fairview Riverside Park. Shane won the most thoughtful partner of the year award when he bought me this.

I have wanted to try painting for almost a year now. He actually listened to me and tracked this nice starter kit down. It included acrylic, watercolor, and oil paints, brushes, canvases, and an easel. I will admit to having a tear come to my eye when I realized what it was.

This was the first time I put brush and paint to paper. I have a ton to learn but I absolutely loved my first experience. Thanks Shane for such a sweet and thoughtful gift.

This year we explored the Leon Sinks area nearby. Pretty cool place with a nice loop trail to all of the sinkholes (some dry and some wet). Many of the sinkholes are linked by underwater caves.

With that our time in Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle came to a close. Time to get deeper in Florida to fully experience the sunshine state.

Up Next: 6 Weeks of Sunny Florida