Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 2

27 Feb 2013

We walked a lot today, taking a route from our site in Loop A west nearly to the end of Santa Rosa Island on the Florida National Scenic Trail. (The Florida National Scenic Trail runs from here clear to the Everglades.) At the west end of the island is Fort Pickens, one of some 40 forts built in the early 1800s mostly on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. A National Park Service ranger led an entertaining and informative tour of the fort. Built with slave labor, the fort was intended to defend against the aggression of other nations. Fort Pickens, however, was never the scene of battle except early in the Civil War, and it remained a stronghold of the Union in the Deep South.

In one of those quirky episodes of history, Fort Pickens also figured in the life of the famous warrior and medicine man Geronimo. Geronimo and other Apaches were being taken to St. Augustine for imprisonment after refusing to cooperate with the reservation system. When powers in Pensacola got word of this, they pulled strings and arranged to have the group instead imprisoned at Fort Pickens, where Geronimo became a money-making tourist attraction.

Touring the old Fort Pickens
Don't fire your cannon more often than once in fifteen minutes
or it may overheat and explode!

One of the casemates (cannon stations) at old Fort Pickens

In case you're ever tempted to
complain about your campsite....
this one in Loop E of Fort Pickens Campground  is drowning.
The stair from their camper heads directly into the water.
There was a big rain shortly before we arrived.
Everything is drier in Loop A where we are.

Note that their electric power cord goes down into the water!

Pensacola and Fort Pickens, Part 1

26 Feb 2013

Joe Patti’s in Pensacola came highly recommended, so promptly after getting our fridge door examined we stopped at this popular fish market before heading for our campground at Fort Pickens. At Joe Patti’s we bought our dinner to microwave in the camper, some fresh grouper from the Gulf of Mexico.  

    

We arrived at the entrance gate to the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Santa Rosa Island a bit before 5 p.m. Hanging on the gate was an ominous sign saying “Road Closed.” We had learned during our planning of the trip that this road could be closed due to flooding. And in the window of the entrance station was another sign “Closed.” Great Husband presumed we were out of luck, and would not be able to proceed to the campground. My immediate reaction, however, being Pollyanna, was that the signs were not to be taken seriously and it would all work out somehow. Sure enough, there was a National Park Service employee in the “closed” entrance station who confirmed our camping reservation and opened the gate so we could use the road. As we drove all alone down the “closed” road, skirting some rainwater that had nowhere to drain, we enjoyed an incredible pastel sunset and white quartz sand drifting and blowing across the road, looking exactly like snow back home.

We've been watching out for both armadillos
and these little guys on the road.

Local wildlife

Captain Joe's boat by his fish market

Safely past the closed gate, we enjoy the drive to Fort Pickens campground

Look Ma, No Leaks

26 Feb 2013

Just as I was posting the previous blog entry, the steady rain we’d been having most of the afternoon turned into a deluge and the winds became ferocious just as predicted on the beloved weather radio. We rode out the monsoon in stable security here inside the little Escape. It didn’t rock or roll in the least, and most pleasingly, it also didn’t leak. More on leaking later.

A few days ago, coming out of Little Rock, we encountered an awful highway which jolted us along for many miles before smoothing out. After that we noticed that the door to our refrigerator was sagging enough that it was difficult to close. And the microwave door had popped open during the drive, which made us thankful that we had remembered to stow the glass microwave plate in a cabinet where it couldn’t go crashing to the floor. It’s definitely a good idea to follow the admonition printed on the microwave door, “Remove plate before travelling.”

Because of banter on the Escape Forum on the topic of refrigerator doors coming loose and even falling off, we took our own sagging refrigerator door seriously and called ahead to an authorized Dometic service center in Pensacola on our way there. They treated us very well and determined that our problem was nothing more than loose screws on the hinges, which they promptly tightened. From now on, monitoring those door screws will be part of our routine.

Now, back to the subject of leaks…while we were at the camper dealership, one of the employees, perhaps a salesman, showed a lot of interest in our Escape. He was looking inside the open door and walking around the outside. As he tapped on the camper he said, “You shouldn’t have any trouble with this Fiberglas body.” Great Husband told him we were very pleased with the build quality and how we went through a monsoon the previous night in Vicksburg with zero leaks. The employee nodded and said, “When we have a monsoon here on the lot, you would be surprised at how many units require us to mop up water, and it’s not just the cheap ones. It includes the $200,000 motor homes.”

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Great Husband is really into weather. He brings along his weather radio on our travels, which means he is good at choosing which day is better for a hike and which day is better for a museum, but which also means he can be victimized by unnecessary weather worries. Late this afternoon, after we had finished our day of touring here in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had returned to the camper, the weather radio announced that large hail and ferocious winds were fast approaching. But in his listening haste, Great Husband didn’t quite catch the details. Although the radio listed the affected counties we hadn’t a clue which county Vicksburg is in, so did the dire prediction really apply to us? Regardless, we jumped into the car and dashed for security at the car wash. Car wash? Yes, where better than one of those covered bays to shelter the car from hail and sit out the storm? Well, wherever that dastardly hail actually went, it didn’t get to us!

I really didn’t mind; I know it is better to humor Great Husband’s weather phobia than buck that personality trait. I used the time in the car wash to start reading a book written by a soldier about his experiences in the Civil War, a book serendipitously appropriate to our visit earlier today to the Vicksburg National Military Park. Within the first few lines of the book, I learned that this very soldier had been involved on the Union side in the siege of Vicksburg!

The Military Park here has a nice museum with artifacts of the battle, but it’s best to start with the very good 20-minute film which sets the scene and gives an explanation of the siege. We also liked the large narrated wall map, lit with red and blue LEDs to show the Union and Confederate troop movements. Battles between the forces are represented by a frenzy of flashing yellow lights plus sound effects.

We took the 16-mile scenic driving tour of the battleground and siege positions, which includes hundreds of monuments and statues and plaques. It is wonderful that this has been preserved and honor given this way to those who fought and died, but it is easy to come down with monument overload. More interesting to both Great Husband and me was the Union iron-clad gunboat Cairo, part of the “Brown Water Navy” established to fight on the Mississippi and its tributaries during the Civil War. In the 1960s the Cairo was lifted from the muddy depths where it sank in 1862, the first ship ever brought down by a mine. It is now preserved in a magnificent outdoor display. 

Vicksburg National Military Park

One of many monuments at Vicksburg NMP

Gunboat Cairo

Little Rock, Arkansas

Because of the lost snow day at the beginning of this trip, we dropped the first day’s touring plans and instead were able to meet up with Tall Son for a Panera breakfast in Overland Park, KS. We then pressed on, driving all day to reach Little Rock, Arkansas.

We stayed at the Downtown Riverside RV Park, nicely run by the city of North Little Rock, where a reservation and a Passport America membership get you a full-utility site for just about $11.50. The campground sits right on the Arkansas River. The office, the restrooms, and the laundry all seemed rather temporary, and we speculated that this is because this area is probably a flood plain and the wall at the back of our site (called the "sea wall") is there to protect the city from high water someday. 

A brisk morning walk across a former railroad bridge brought us to the other side of the river to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center. Even Bill’s mom and Hillary’s got some recognition – intersecting streets on the north end of the bridge are named after Mrs. Kelley and Mrs. Rodham. This somehow appealed to the Clinton cynic in me.

I did get an overall favorable impression of this city, and especially liked their number one attraction--their whimsical Old Mill and park. This place never really was an operating mill, but it appears in the opening credits of “Gone With the Wind” and is worth a visit.

Downtown Riverside RV Park

The Old Mill

A Winter Trip is a Different Animal

It’s no surprise that snow and ice are possibilities if you plan a winter camping trip that starts in Nebraska. And yes, a winter storm did delay the start of our trip, but just by one day. What we hadn’t anticipated, however, was how cold weather affected our ability to load the camper in advance—who knew what might be damaged by below-freezing temps? The TV? Liquids such as laundry detergent and body wash? Soups and spaghetti sauce? 

And what about all the foods intended for the refrigerator? Due to the outdoor temperatures, which were as low as -5 degrees F (-20 C) the morning we left home, the refrigerator in the Escape was also well below freezing, so the trick became how to keep the cold foods warm enough! All the foods which would normally go into the refrigerator instead had to start in coolers in the car just to keep them from being frozen. At one point the temperature inside the refrigerator was just 13 degrees F (-10 C). And the back of the car was stuffed with items that would normally have been travelling in the camper.

Because it was so cold at home, we were also unable to do the normal sanitizing of the potable water system for the first trip of the year. That had to wait until we reached the relative warmth of the first two campgrounds.

Another surprise was how bad our mileage was in the bitter cold weather, 11-point-something miles per gallon at the beginning of the trip. I guess the poor Flex and the camper were both feeling as stiff and miserable as I do when it is so cold outside.