I forgot to mention how beautiful the Louisiana visitor's center was. I was reminded when we drove across the state line to Mississippi and encountered their visitor's center. The Louisiana one had a graceful lake in the background, white pillars on the main building and even on the picnic-table cupolas. Mississippi's wasn't as plantational from outside, it looks like somebody's house:

But then walked inside: there were rooms of antiques, and ladies offering us free sodas, and Christmas music and large Real Christmas trees, and even a grand free-standing spiral staircase. I kept looking around going, "was this somebody's house once?" and I asked one of the ladies, who politely said no. As we left, we saw a little plaque that read, "Mississippi: Feels like coming home" and I thought, "oh I see" but my next thought was, "no, it's a lot nicer than coming home." Does everyone in Mississippi have ladies handing them Sprite in their homes? We should look into this...

So we pretty much drove right through Mississippi and Alabama, deciding to come back and see those states after Christmas. As soon as we hit the Gulf of Mexico, there were long places to pull over, so we stopped and put our feet in the water and Katie collected some sand:

The sand was very soft and fine, and the beaches nice and wide. We had arrived in Florida.

When we got toward Pensacola, we could see the destruction that hurricane Ivan left behind. One after another, there were highway signs lying on the ground, propped up against poles. Here is one:

Also ubiquitous are blue tarps on rooftops. Maybe they were given out by FEMA, because everyone had the same kind. Except this guy's: it was about the only one with a black tarp:

BP stations seemed particularly badly hit, and also the large warehousey businesses, like Orchards. In town, we saw big piles of rubble, where businesses used to be. There are long stretches of 150-foot pine trees here, and you can't drive twenty feet without seeing a pine tree exploded open and snapped in half. Then we saw a billboard that said something like, Ivan: you hit but you didn't take us down.

There is a really great museum here, and not Just for boys. And it's free: the naval air station's National Naval Aviation Museum. It has 101 planes, jets and helicopters inside its building, and lots of interesting displays. There is a Spacelab (3 men spent 171 days up in a room as cramped as our RV bathroom) and a continuously running video of astronauts joking about living aboard the space shuttle. Here are some pics:

From some vantage points, all you could see was a confusion of planes.

These old airport stairs lead you to the second floor.

The display said that these four jets actually fly this close together.


I loved this 1940s style kitchen, set up in a little "neighborhood" showing how folks lived during WW2. Somehow they piped in a baking- bread smell.

There were lots of places where she could fly planes.

There was a Vietnam War POW room, with a continuous loop of a 20/20 interview with John McCain talking about his experience, showing footage of him and others, and relics of what they used to help them survive.

Items some POWs created, like handmade needles, as well as mugs they used to listen to each other's raps on bars.

Shirts worn by four American POWs.

The last picture has a story too:

Those three men sailed in this very raft for 34 days in the Pacific Ocean after their plane went down at the start of WW2. They had no fresh water except when it rained. They had only a useless pistol and a useful pocketknife. They lived on the occasional fish and (believe it or not) coconut that came their way.

Finally, a lighthouse just outside the museum, from 1859 (almost 150 years old) that is still being used:

Our next destination is Tallahassee.

PS: lowest gas so far was in New Orleans: $1.57