Do the American’s celebrate any differently than us Canadians? Not really, still tail gate parties, chili cook offs, potluck get togethers. What IS different, which we were all aware of, is the commercials. OMG, dare I say again OMG!!

First commercial was for Dunkin Donuts. Who is working the drive thru?? Ben Afleck, who comes through the drivethru? Jen of course wanting to know why he was still working and if he could bring a glazed home.

Then we have every other movie/rap/singing star on the planet in all sorts of commercials. Workday (HR company) had all the rock stars in their commercial. What does all this cost???? 6-7 million PER 30 seconds. I can guarantee you, these commercials were more than 30 seconds. What I can also guarantee is that they were only played ONCE. So you had to pay more attention to the commercials than the game itself. NO replays here folks!!

And the half time show, MIKE DROP, WE LOVED IT!! We were expecting something big with Apple and they sure didn’t disappoint us!

Didn’t you just love to spell this one out as a kid?? I sure did. Miss, iss, ippi

Not a huge sign, somewhat subtle I’d say compared to other welcome signs we have seen. We arrived at our RV destination after getting our stairs fixed at an approved Jayco dealer. YUP, third time the charm I guess. First fix, change the circuit board. Second fix, hook up the red wire better by bypassing the connector. Third fix, take another look at the red power wire and instead of doing what #2 did, which I think was splicing?, hard wire it outside the connector. The folks at B&R were wonderful, and the bill was sent directly to Jayco. We have learned to go through them first so we don’t have to pay out of pocket, only downside is you have to wait to get the OK before any work can start. Yesterday we had the time, we don’t always have that luxury. So once the repairs were complete, off we went straight to the gas station, and…………..stairs go out, and don’t go in. SO I call B&R back and tell them someone has to come and look at this (we were only just down the street). While we are there, I get the stairs back working by flipping a switch. Now I am embarrassed, but they are already on their way.

They arrive and start testing the stairs, and they are working perfectly. What was new to Barb & I was that when the stair switch is in the off position, the stairs work by the ignition. IE: Turn off RV, open door and stairs go out and stay out. Turn on RV, stairs go in. We didn’t know the RV had this feature and have been using the wall switch this whole time to get the stairs to either stay out, or go out and in when the door opens and closes. This probably doesn’t make much sense to our readers, but to us it was a revelation and new learnings 8 months in. I think we are good to go now!!

Weather in Mississippi is cool and RAINY! Not sure how much rain they have gotten of late, but there are huge puddles everywhere. Thank God for Winston’s rubber booties and my Vessies!!!

Day 1, being a shitty day, we decided to do our grocery shopping. Went to a local store called Rouses Market. It was like a Fortinos, or any other high end groc. Store. What we liked the most???? We could buy the already cooked ingredients for our own seafood boil. Which we did and then had it for lunch!

We spent the day in Ocean Springs, instead of Biloxi which is known for their casinos. Biloxi it seems is the Reno/Las Vegas of the south. There are 7 casinos here and 4 more being built. So as we are not gambling folk, we hung out in a quaint little city/town just outside our RV Park. Ocean Springs had lots of restaurants, bars and shops to see. We first went to a great BBQ place for lunch. We ordered smoked wings, Buffalo & sweet BBQ, as well as a rack of ribs with collard greens and potato salad. All of it was delish! We took a pic of the food as well as the smoker before we got kicked out of the cooking area……

There are also things down south that are specific to Mardis Gras:

King cakes are in the traditional Mardis Gras colours. They are all filled differently so you can choose what you like the most, apple, cream cheese, cherry etc. The moon pie is also a tradition and is most often seen being thrown off of Mardi Gras floats. I am going to try both as we are headed to New Orleans next!

Some shots of Ocean Springs and my new ride, I wish.

This is the name of our campground. And it really is living up to it’s name. It has a pool, dog washing bathtub outside, two gazebos, multiple and I mean multiple swings, anorondak chairs and a HUGE club house. The clubhouse has pickle ball, shuffleboard, corn hole and has a lounge area with leather couches and chairs around a large T.V. It has a bar area, lots of tables, and high tops for socializing. The place is pristine and incredibly secure. Would recommend to anyone travelling to park your unit here.

This is what greeted us when we got to our site.

Well Barb & I learned how to play pickle ball this morning. It is different than tennis but played on a court kind of like it. Paddles are large and the balls are plastic with holes and really don’t bounce well.

We “may” go into a tournament tonight, given we are now seasoned pro’s…….we’ll see.

I will try and take some pictures if we play again.

To be clear, we are undefeated a this point and time.

We had no idea that Mobile was the birthplace of America’s original Mardi Gras, which began in 1703. It was kind of interesting visiting the Mardis Gras museum as we had no idea that there were so many mystique societies. These societies are formed for enjoyment and the competition of the King and Queen of Mardi Gras. You have to have money to be chosen as dresses run into the 1000s of dollars and your family has to be able to afford them. We didn’t take the time to learn the minute details, but suffice it to say the King and Queen, who are chosen, open up Mardi Gras and host multiple events throughout the celebrations.

It is also interesting that there are still balls where the “ladies” come out into society (didn’t think that went on anymore, and if so would be in S Carolina or Georgia). This is a BIG deal and again the dresses are expensive and the fathers present their daughters. Very Downton Abby/The Gilded Age.

Here are some pics from the Museum

We then went to lunch in downtown Mobile. The street was New Orleans “like”, just not as fancy I’m thinking. Lunch was good. We each had a bowl of seafood gumbo and shared a Debris Po Boy, with a bag of voodoo chips from a New Orleans Company. All excellent. Of course we had to have another bag of chips to try another flavour. Crawtators, not as good as voodoo, which tasted like a sweet BBQ

We leave tomorrow for Biloxi !

Personally I LOVE food trucks. All kinds, I think they are brilliant and a great way to taste your way through the culinary world. They aren’t cheap but usually have some great food.

Yesterday we have a wing food truck here at the resort. 1. I LOVE WINGS 2. I already said how much I love a food truck.

Our neighbours J/K from Maryland actually told us about the food truck coming in. I didn’t know what kind of food, but they had me at food truck. Shortly after 5pm (when the truck arrived) we headed out! We had at that time found out from J/K that it was a wing truck as they had already placed their order of Buffalo and Salt & Vinegar wings with fries. S &V ?!?! Another favourite obsession of mine, in the form of potato chips. So off we went and ordered 10 each of S&V, dry jerk, and lemon pepper with a order of fries. Now that sounds like a lot, and it is, but wings are great cold and also great for a snack! So one can never have too many.

The food truck owner was a little frazzled it seemed, and to be fair there was a heck of a line up behind us. Seems I am not the only one with a wing obsession. Wanting a insulated grocery bag to bring the food back to the R.V, I left to go get it, as my order was going to take around 15 min.

15 min later I marched my way back to the food truck, only to find out that people were seriously miffed as he had run out of wings, one order behind me apparently. Everyone was upset and talking about how people were ordering lots of wings which wiped him out 30 minutes into his shift. The only thing he had left was a chicken sandwich and fries. So here I am, holding a huge insulated bag, knowing that I had ordered 30 wings and a order of fries…..when everyone standing around would have been happy to have just 10. I was a tad uncomfortable to say the least and when my order came up and I was stuffing my bag with food, I turned around and stated, “don’t shoot me”. I felt certain that I was OK to state that as Florida is not a gun carrying state, unless you have a special permit, but none the less it wasn’t my brightest moment.

Now while I felt maybe a little guilty as Barb and I only had 5 wings each for dinner (they were huge), it is NOT our fault a food truck serving wings with approximately 20 different flavours, ran out! Seriously poor planning!

We did bump into a few of the folks this morning who didn’t get wings, they are still smiling and talking to us, so all is well and we have wings for the next two days!

I feel this is an age old question. When SB and I were in Croatia we saw huge sail boats. We questioned whether the size of the mast mattered on a sail boat, and were quickly told yes by an old sailor sitting on a bench. Of course this is obvious given the bigger the mast, the bigger the sail, the bigger the sail, the more wind it can capture.

When you look at RVs/Camper trailers/5th wheels/toy haulers, I think we can all agree size does indeed matter. How many slides do you have, how much storage do you have, how big is your shower (that’s a game changer), what is your floor footprint (another game changer). But what about what you tow behind your trailer/Class A/B/C. We have seen motorcycles on the front of a truck. We have seen, couldn’t believe it but we did, a golf cart on the front of a truck. We have seen a lot of storage units that house cars/motorcycles/golf carts, even one long enough for a race car and all the tools/tires in it. But never have we seen a double decker storage unit behind a huge Class A. It houses a car/golf cart/bikes/motorcycle/canoes and a full mechanical section. We had to take a pic, because it is the talk of the resort.

Given all the chatter amongst the men, size does indeed matter. In fact it also includes a lot of head shaking and awe apparently.

Barb & I were very excited to go to a restaurant that came highly recommended, Columbia. This is a Spanish restaurant so we were excited to have some Paella. Now the BEST part of a Paella is the crispy rice, is it not? Getting the crunchy bits in a mouthful of rice and seafood, I mean really, what is better?!

Well here we go with our experience. The restaurant is huge with 3 levels and nicely decorated. Lot’s of wait staff and they were all very friendly.

We started with cocktails for a change. We always have wine, so why not have something a little different. I had a martini with tequila and Barb had tequila with grapefruit fever tree. I didn’t catch a pic of Barb’s but here is the martini. We also had a 1/2 loaf of bread and butter to start the meal. Bread was right out of the oven, better than the Keg!

Next we decided on the Blue Crab cakes and the table side salad called the “1905”. Below are the pics along with a little bit of trivia on the name iceberg lettuce.

Entrees were grilled Grouper, which I love, and the Paella which was ordered right away as it was going to take an hour. Of course it does, that is how you get the crispy bits!

I have to say, the grouper was a little dry. The paella did not have any crispy bits and in fact was more like risotto that paella. The chicken in the paella was dry, the seafood however was good. Not sure what they were doing for an hour…..

Overall, we were disappointed. We took home leftovers and will crisp up our own paella for tonight’s dinner. The bread and salad were the highlight frankly, with the crab cakes coming in third. I won’t talk about the rest again, as you get the point.

What is potentially next on the docket?? Pizza Time, yes you heard this right. In Canada I think we have Pizza Time and it is not great. Apparently here, the Pizza Time is #2 in the U.S.A for best pizza. It is cash only, and has pizza’s like lasagne and ravioli to name a couple. We went in and looked at the slices on display, they all looked incredible. We have 2 more days here, so we’ll see.

Well all was fine and dandy, roads relatively smooth and 3 lanes so easy driving. Gas prices have increased however still cheaper than Canada. $3.39 a gallon! We stopped at a Flying J, HUGE truck stop. We filled up and were happy to get back on the road…………and our electric stairs won’t go in.

Call the mechanic who was meeting us in St Augustine (Furnace issues still) and he said drive with them out, just don’t hit anything. AHHH OK…….

Barb called Jayco, then the stair company. We were told to remove the pin and tie up the stairs until we could get them fixed. Easier said than done. SOOO, off to look for a trucker to help us (there are advantages to stopping at truck stops). Found one without a load, so not on the clock, and he was kind enough to pull the pin and tie up the stairs nice and tight. So off we went 1 1/2 hours later. It was extremely hot out, we were not dressed for the heat, not a great stop.

Landed in St Augustine and hit the pool! YAY

Next day we went into town and did the Hop on Hop off tour. Nice little town, historic, architecture really cool.

Here are some photos of the area, including the ocean front.

There were some beautiful churches as well. We have not gone in yet, but hear they are really nice inside.

Henry Flagler was the founder of the most expensive hotel in the U.S, which is now Flagler College. The hotel had restaurants, a casino, bowling alley, and the first indoor pool. He also brought the railroad down from New York so the rich could come and stay at his hotel, for a measly $10,000. We are unclear if the $10,000 was for a month? Or a week? Regardless, that amount back in 1888 was A LOT. At the time Flagler was the second richest man in the U.S. Not sure who was #1. The hotel/college is huge and apparently quite spectacular. The hotel had lighting before the Whitehouse. There are three Tiffany Bay Windows which apparently are priceless at the front which is the dining room. Each classroom now has a huge fireplace, which of course used to be hotel rooms. We are going to see if we can get a tour, but there is a lot of construction going on at the moment.

Lastly we had lunch at the Fish Camp. Menu was confusing, or maybe it was our waitress who disclosed to us that she had been put on warning due to her lack of attention to guests…….. I forgot to take a picture of our main course, which was blackened Mahi Mahi, shrimp and scallops with potatoes and zucchini. The starters I did take pictures of as you can see below.

It was a hot day so ended back at the pool!! Friday night we are off to Columbia Restaurant which serves Spanish cuisine ! Can’t wait!

CS & GS came over to spend the day with us. This time popping into Savannah we had two goals. 1. See the inside of the JW Marriott and 2. Go to a hot spot for lunch.

The JW Marriott Savannah Plant Riverside District is located in the heart of historic Savannah on the riverfront. The original power plant has been repurposed as a contemporary riverside retreat while still looking like a power plant. The lobby is HUGE, housing a chrome-dipped dinosaur, and many gem gourds on display which were amazing. Here are some pics:

There was also a cool bar in the lobby:

Back out onto the street, the buildings were just as cool as the last time. The stairs getting from the river walk to the upper street were steep but manageable.

Next stop lunch at The Crystal Beer Parlor. In the early 1900’s, what was to become the Crystal Beer Parlor opened as the Gerken Family Grocery Store. Sold in the early 30’s to William “Blocko” and Connie Manning, The Crystal was one of the first American eating establishments to serve alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition. (Probably because the booze was already on the premises) It’s rumoured that Blocko ran illegal hooch and operated a speakeasy during Prohibition.

Native Savannahians still talk about The Crystal. Some got engaged there, had their first date, or first beer there. Many of the pictures on the walls depict scenes from Savannah’s past and some of her more famous and infamous citizens. There is also a photo album in the Monroe room, which is lovingly named after Monroe Whitlock, who, along with A.G “Smitty” Smith, were servers here for almost 45 years. During COVID the restaurant almost closed. When the citizens heard this, they set up a Go Fund Me page to keep it open. HOW COOL IS THAT!! You have to love a place to make that happen. The meal was great and our server Emily was excellent. The word “no” was not in her vocabulary. We had extra crab dip and instead of more chips, we wanted toasted pita instead. Not only did Emily deliver, she brought two plates of pita “just in case”. We started with fried green tomatoes, crab dip with homemade chips and onion rings. GS had a BLT, CS had a smash burger. Barb a Greek salad with blackened chicken, and I had a N.O.G.S burger. Here are a few pics of the place. No pics of the food (I forgot)

Glad we went and so happy to get together with friends a final time. Tomorrow we are off to St Augustine Florida. We are packed up (as packed up as one can get) and ready to head out in the morning!!

ON THE ROAD AGAIN !!