Cross Country Trip 05

hello everyone~ I hope and pray everyone is staying safe and healthy this end of summer-beginning of fall season. If you didn't know-Laura and I have embarked upon a cross country trip. We left Charleston, SC on Monday Sept 19th. We have mapped out 6 weeks of travel-going to San Diego and back. We plan on staying overnight in Wal-mart parking lots. We are driving our Honda Element-we have an aero bed that fits in the back (with the back seats out). Their policy is to allow overnight camping-so we are trying to stay at 24 hr Wal-marts-you know for bathroom convenience and all. We are hitting a lot of our National parks -so we'll probably have to do campgrounds there. Every now and again we have a hotel reservation or will be staying with friends. (thank you Pam in Sante Fe and Jimbo & Cheryl in Kansas City!!) figured we'd give you a brief overall of our last 4 days. ---19th We arrived at destination Wal-mart Panama City Beach, Fl around 11:00 pm on Monday night. After a miserable nights attempted sleep (it was VERY HOT & humid and Laura wouldn't let me sleep with the door/window open)...ugh I was miserable. Anyhow-I finally fell asleep around 5:30 am and awoke to a police office knocking on our car window. "You're not allowed to sleep here"---I was like "What?? I thought Wal-mart allows overnight campers"...well they do--except in Panama City Beach, FL--they are on the front beach road and don't want to encourage that. anyhow--we got up and left to go to the beach. After a frustrating experience with the inverter that we had a mechanic rig in the car (so we would have 2 electrical outlets for use)--we had to give up on brewing our coffee. Luckily the beach pier had an outlet and we did our one cupper right there--nice!! We loved the beach---white white sand. Almost looked like snow. 20th--Drove to Pensacola FL after our morning in Panama City. Pensacola Beach -again had the nice white white sand but we couldn't believe how much damage we saw. Many, many building we being rebuilt. Only about 1/4 of the city was open for the public. Was told that the majority of the damage was from Hurricane Ivan (hit last year) and then Dennis this year did some more. Katrina didn't really do much damage. I was NOT about to spend another miserable night in the boil mobile-so we attempted to get a room. Well--if you didn't know--Mobile, AL is not too far from Pensacola and they still have a bunch of evacuees staying there. They only reason we found a room--this sweet "family member" took pity on me and gave us a "damaged room"--scored on the discount rate of $36.00) anyhow I did feel a little guilty when we were finalizing our room payment and this 70 yr old disabled woman was turned away--I did wish her "good luck" though. On check out the next day- We met this woman from Mobile that lost everything in her house and this was her 2nd trip to Pensacola just to buy furniture, washer-dryers etc. 21st-Leaving Pensacola-we heard that the road to Mobile and Biloxi is open. Our original itinerary was visiting those cities but we rerouted after Katrina. Anyhow, Laura decides that she really wants to see Mobile and Biloxi and maybe even New Orleans. We couldn't believe the damage in Mobile. We drove out to Dauphine Island and it really was 50-60 % devastated. The police had a roadblock and only allowed residents after a certain point-really where the big high dollar homes are-- right on the Gulf. Or I guess --"what's left of them are"---again such a sobering experience. Your heart really goes out to those folks affected by these storms. Well Biloxi was even worse than Mobile--even driving into Biloxi we were astounded by all the debris on the sides of the highway--mattresses-dryers, roofs -just everything and anything. We did a "no-no" and went beyond the sign that stated "residents and relief workers only" and did a quick tour. We filmed some damage--it was awful. The smell was pretty rank as well. We got nervous with all the police around-and us with our "Delaware" plates so we headed out. That was definitely the worst that we experienced and truthfully we didn't have the heart/stomach to go further to New Orleans. I guess you just can't imagine how devastaing ---well it's hard to me to put into words...it's just incredibly sad. We drove onto Vicksburg, MS and spent the night in the car (walmart). 22nd-We enjoyed our day in Vicksburg. toured the Military National Park. walked around downtown. Met some relief workers from California (4 very interesting fire fighters). After conversation and cocktails with them we hit the road for Texas. I did some calling and the Austin City Limits festival is still on--so we headed to Waco to spend the night. Lets just say that I'm glad that we were going against the evacuee traffic. HWY 45 was backed up --and I mean BACKED up--traffic was going both ways and luckily we only intersected it for a moment. Crazy ass drivers and folks lined up down the street at the gas station. The police officer in Waco sent us to a church parking lot to spend the night--said it's safer than the Wal-mart.....luckily it was a much cooler night. 23rd-woke up to Laura saying "we have a horse next to us" and sure enough the folks in the parking lot--right next to us had their horse trailer and they were walking their arabian horse-right behind our element. They were from Beaumont and said they don't expect to have a house after Rita hits. They had to leave their other horse there. Again--such sad stories. ok--Laura is telling me I have to get ready--we are actually heading out for that concert. sorry --didn't realize how long this was. love Lu