Another busy day.

We departed our fine Boondockers location bright and early on our way to Shephard’s State Park in Gautier, MS.

Along the way we passed the Gulf version of the “Whaling Wall” in Destin, FL, which have since we found out was just one of many Whaling Walls.

Both Scott and Tom needed to do calls with different VideoRay people around the same time.  So we stopped at Henderson Beach State Park in Destin, FL in the morning to get ready.  They had good 5G UC cellular signal, and for our $6 entry fee they gave us instructions to “move the cones and park in the RV area – no generator, no slideouts.”  We started out dutifully following directions, but the only other RV in the almost-deserted park was running their generator without bothering anyone.

We were surprised that Khan’s solar panels were pumping out 70-80 Watts in the bright sunlight – enough to power our laptops for our Teams calls.  When we completed our our calls, it wasn’t quite lunchtime, so Scott suggested we get our bikes out and go for a ride.  The theme of Henderson Beach was kinda “no fun of any kind – no pets, no fireworks, no alcohol, no glass, no riding your bike on the beach”  We managed to ride the entire 1.2 miles around the fairly large parking lot and use our bikes for the first time this trip, but kinda a bummer they didn’t have a trail to ride.

We then decided to flaunt Johnny Law and open our slideout to eat lunch.   After lunch we were emboldened by our getting away with our mischievousness that we proceeded to make an illegal left turn from the straight lane in order to get to what seemed to be cheap diesel and the Murphy Oil across the street, then disregarded a directional arrow when leaving the pumps.  Exhilarating!

As we went through Pensacola, Tom saw a sign for the Naval Aviation Museum and we quickly established that they were open, though they closed at 4 and we wouldn’t get there until 2:30PM.  When we parked (dutifully, having exhausted our lawlessness quota for the day) in the completely empty bus lot, Scott had another ½ hour call while Tom proceeded to go ahead through this incredible museum.  When Scott eventually made it there, he was amazed at the many US Navy (and Marines, Army, and Japanese Navy) planes, including a huge PBY flying boat.

The Naval Air Station is home of the Blue Angels and Top Gun

As we went through Mobile, AL we saw what appeared to be the entire Mobile police department deployed along a parallel side road and wondered what that was all about. It didn’t take long to find out as we soon saw a procession of Mardi Gras floats assembling for a parade – just one of the many parades scheduled.  It would have been a good time to break some more laws…

We would soon discover from Brad Clause (see tomorrow’s post) that Mardi Gras started in Mobile.

As we approached Shephard State Park it was getting dark, but we saw a nice sunset and Tom took pictures of a Jackup Rig in the sunset while driving. Ironically, there was a huge “Safety First” sign that Tom wanted to get in the picture, but he wasn’t able to before it was too far behind us.

We arrived at Shephard after the office was closed, but our emailed reservation confirmation for our incredibly-cheap $17 campsite (senior discount $5) gave us the gate code and bathhouse code and such.  Luckily we have decent cellular coverage since with the trees we wouldn’t have been able to use the Starlink easily.

Dinner was leftovers – we’ll surely sleep well tonight.