Pennsylvania to New Orleans, by way of Mississippi

We are setting up our third campsite in Texas. The kids are delighting over the wild amounts of pecan trees around us. I love it when free campgrounds also come with free [healthy] snacks! We are hoping to get over to South Llano River Park to see some of the beautiful surroundings here (although we are just sort of steeped in them here at our site). I thought I would take this opportunity to catch you up to us here in Texas. 

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania will be real brief because, er, it was real brief! We arrived at our boondocking campsite in the middle of the night (that is the story of our lives! Travis is a pro at setting up our trailer in the dark!). It was about 1.6 miles into the national forest (that's further than usual) but the site was perfect. On our drive in we passed a number of cabins, some obviously hunting cabins, but this is not really unusual in Vermont so we didn't really think much of it. It was chilly and forecast to get much chillier, so we knew it would be a short stay. Being the lightest sleeper of my little crew, I was rudely awakened at the exact minute of sunrise by shots being fired in the distance. Also not unusual in Vermont. However, as the sun rose higher more and more shots started coming from every direction.  In Vermont we have never encountered hunters hunting in parts of the forest designated for camping. I read that hunters cannot shoot within 150 feet of a campsite. So, while that gave us a presumed safe zone, it was just so unsettling to be constantly turning in the direction of the latest shots. We decided to go out and return after dark. The next day was Sunday and currently hunters cannot hunt on Sunday's in Pennsylvania. So we expected a reprieve. That was silly. In the middle of the night our heater went down! It was cold! It was raining. We got out hot water bottles and our one pair each of winter socks and shivered until morning (more accurately actually - Travis and I shivered. The kids slept through it all!).  In the morning we left. 

Safety first, Campers! 

Minion. 
(I have nothing whatever to say about this. I have never seen these movies. I know a lot of parents like to dressed their kids like them. I really do not understand that but I'm not here to judge anyone (my kids rarely comb their hair, so if I've offended you then I hope I have given you some retribution. How's that eye for an eye justice for ya?).)

We did find this cool treehouse that looked out over some gorges! 

And we rode these cement turtles. 

 They could be tortoises. I never can tell. 

And had some playground fun. 

I believe we had made them comb their hair recently. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down, you know. 

Simeon still has that silky, smooth baby hair.

There was a large storm hitting the northeast and parts of the southeast as well. It was uncharacteristically cold, the rain was pretty heavy and we were all just a bit unnerved by our PA experience so we decided to drive. Just drive. South and west. To the sunshine. In Virginia we booked the most disgusting hotel I have ever stayed in (Hotwire - you are on my poop list). Like, disgusting, horrible no good hotel and I've stayed at some questionable places (in my younger and even less money having years) but this one took the moldy, stinky, rotten cake. (Which didn't stop Travis or the kids from snoring peacefully all night long but I wasn't having it.) The next night I booked a hotel directly (and have ever since). We have decided that we will not go through the trouble of setting up our camper for a single night. When the necessity comes up we book a hotel. It's a nice treat to have a comfortable shower and a toilet at a reasonable distance from your bed! But we've only booked two others since. The first in Chattanooga, TN and the second here in Junction, Texas (last night actually).  Finally, we made it to a warm and comfy campsite in Mississippi. 

Simeon asked us to take this picture. That's his pose.
Then the gate fell down and someone yelled at us. (Dive hotel, Virginia)
(There's no water in that pool. Don't be fooled.)

Mississippi 

We camped at Airey Lake. No one really wondered why it was called Airey Lake until we woke up in the morning (after setting up at night AGAIN) and SURPRISE! there's a lake RIGHT there and SURPRISE! it's covered in a beautiful blanket of fog. It was nice to wake up with the sun and see the Airey Lake. It was a nice quiet spot and gave us the opportunity to just relax, until the remnants of a tropical storm blew in on our last night! Always something! But no one blew away and the lake didn't flood. So we marked that down as a success! 

We read that De Soto National Forest has a few carnivorous plants. Our kids are more than slightly obsessed with carnivorous plants, so we HAD to find some. There were four resident ducks that Micaiah instantly took a likely to. By our third day he was carrying one around under his arm! As we were packing up a crane landed to feed on the lake. It also wasn't shy and allowed the kids to get pretty close, though they had to army crawl!  Travis was reluctant to leave. It was a sweet, easy place to be but New Orleans was about two hours away. We had been totally sugar, grain and processed food free since leaving Rhode Island and the beignets were calling all of our kids' names! 

            

This was our surprise morning view. We didn't even know there was a lake right there!
(Airey Lake, Perkinston, Mississippi)

It was really nice to wake up at dawn and see the fog covering the lake. 

Early morning walk around the lake. The kids got a kick out of these little bridges. 

That's how close we were to the lake. When we pulled in at night we didn't even know there was a lake there! I guess we were lucky that no one stepped into it!

One of Simeon's masterpieces. 

Another by Simeon. (We will share a bunch of his pictures soon.)

Our little animal whisperer, Micaiah, was all about the wildlife! 

Feeding them all of our oatmeal! 

And, just like that, they love him! 

 We spent our 4 nights here just taking it easy.

There he goes again! (This kid is always telling me he's a city person and will be moving promptly to a city when he is 18. I just don't believe him.)

This is an Eastern Fence Lizard (we discovered). 

Don't worry ducks, I still love you. 

Taking pictures of the carnivorous plant, The Pitcher Plant.
(We could hear hunters at a comfortable distance but you can never be too careful.) (I don't know why I thought I could push the stroller through the woods! But I did it and it worked! Haha!) 

A crane came to visit as we were packing up! They army crawled and stalked it for about 40 minutes and were able to get pretty close! 

This is one of the pictures they took. 

New Orleans 

In NOLA we camped at a state park with full amenities, in order to be close to the city. Southern camp sites with full amenities cost the same or less than northern sites with no amenities at all, so we are feeling pretty spoiled down here. We arrived at our NOLA site during the day! And the playground was right in our backyard = kid heaven! We spent our first evening restocking our supplies. Super Walmart's are heaven sent - oh how the tables turn. The truth is we have been struggling to find organic produce on the road and, much to our surprise, Walmart has a decent selection. I was happily surprised to fine turnip greens! I LOVE turnip greens but their season is painfully short in Vermont. Anyhoo, back to NOLA. So we restocked and went home around dusk to cook a tasty meal. 

As you will know, our indoor kitchen is want for space so usually we set up a nice outdoor kitchen and that is where our meal magic happens. So I'm cooking happily in our outdoor kitchen, excited at having power and a nearby water source for a while, and suddenly I am literally surrounded by mosquitoes! What I mean is swarms of them were covering me. People had warned us that this campsite is mosquito madness but I guess we just kind of brushed them off?? They took us completely unaware. Travis had noticed them at this point too and was shooing the kids inside. I was determined to finish the cooking and I did but not without losing some small amount of my sanity. They seemed to follow me inside and we proceeded to have a full on bloody massacre in our tiny Lightning Bug. There were mosquito corpses everywhere (it was a few days before Halloween, so that's timely). Our ceiling looked polka dotted, if you took of your glasses and disregarded the blood. Travis was convinced that they were coming in from somewhere. I just thought they had gotten in with me. Seriously, they were swarming me. I'd say that I'd never experienced that many mosquitoes in my life, and that was true then but I didn't know what I know now then (that means it happens again in the future (which is now my past. See?)...Anyway, it was seriously traumatizing. We took off again that night to Super Walmart to get a bug zapper. That's how serious we were. We ended up with one of those tennis racket things that kills (or stuns) the bug on contact. Now we are all tennis pros and want to change Serena Williams to a match! Jeez. I'm going to make this it's own paragraph cause I clearly have a lot to say about our mosquito experience in NOLA.  The last night we were there they went around spraying for mosquitoes. I'm not really about that and I still don't know how I feel about it. But we did finally get a night of peace (the other nights weren't as bad). I have a life hack for you now - none of us really got bitten! What?! Yea, that's what I said. Why is this? It's actually happened twice now (remember how I said I didn't know what I know now then? Yea, we had an even worse mosquito experience in Texas and we didn't really get bitten there either). I mean, maybe one or two bites from 2 vigintillion (that's a real number) mosquitoes. The secret? We've been eating jar upon jar of garlic stuffed olives. They don't like garlic! Boom! Mosquitoes! (When I'm typing mosquitoes I say it like it's spelled - moss-skwee-toes - fun fact about me.)

Ok. So other than mosquitoes what did we do in NOLA? The first morning there we headed over to Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter to break our sugar/processed foods/grains fast on beignets. (Beignets are sort of like a cross between a donut and a doughboy (fried dough with confectioners sugar on it). Although, they are a bit more doughy and substantial than a doughboy/fried dough and they have tons of confectioners/powdered sugar on them.) The kids were sold! Micaiah loves coffee and will even drink mine without any added sugar, he really enjoyed the coffee/chicory combination. Ezaias is not such a coffee lover but Cafe Du Monde's coffee got a thumbs up from him anyway. 

After our super sugary, grainy, processed breakfast we spent much of the day wandering around the French Quarter, watching street performers, watching ships go to and fro on the Mississippi River, learning some facts about the city, seeing horses, art, jazz and shopping for a few souvenirs. Then we meandered our way through the Garden District and up to Uptown to go to one of my favourite Whole Foods in the country (I was a New Orleans bum for sometime and I'm a former vegan so I traveled from food source to food source. Now I'm just a snooty food purest, most of the time). Day 1 = ✓

NOLA, Day 2 - Swamp Tour Day!! 

Micaiah's NOLA dream was the see alligators. Alligators are cold blooded which mean their body temperature is determined by their environment. The source of the Mississippi is in Minnesota, which gets pretty serious winters. That water flows downstream, through all sorts of winter conditions (if it's winter) and cools down the waters in the delta (that's in Mississippi) where we were hoping to view some alligators. So even though it was a comfortable 75 degrees (that's about 24 celsius), the water was experiencing chillier, late Autumn conditions. Once alligators have cooled to the surrounding waters their metabolism shuts down and they can no longer eat. The busiest time to see an alligator is when it is prowling for food. Furthermore, a boat load of hunting has happened recently in the tour areas (we were on an ecotour, which is dedicated to improving the surrounding habitat and protecting the alligators which were once hunted near to oblivion). Their prize star was a 60 year old alligator that they did all sorts of things to protect. However, this past spring it was lured (with some questionable techniques), killed and sold for the grand prize total of $160! Can you imagine a 60 year old alligator?! I believe it was 9 feet long (though I could be wrong) and these local tour companies had built their businesses around it for decades. All this is to say that any alligator sightings would be a rare treat and we were lucky enough to two! 

Our tour guide was super informed and we learned lots about plants and animals that live in the swamps and bayous. 

Check out some of our NOLA pictures below. 

The road home.

This was our backyard in New Orleans! 

First things first! Beignets! 

The line was long though. Waiting for Beignets!

Ugh, Kai! 

That's better! 

I love it when our locations coincide with what we are learning. 

A little math lesson - how old will you be? 

The locals were kind of stiff. (Haha!)

We caught a ton of incredible local art. (The kids thought this one looked like a man-baby though. Hmm. Can't please everyone!)

Bulbancha - original indigenous culture in the NOLA area

Looks like my kind of plant shop!

I don't know what it says but I like it!

This was probably my favourite though.
(It says, "Your joy inscribed itself on the sidewalk and it has never been washed away.)

I'm sitting here right now in neon green glasses and a blaze orange beanie (dut - a type of hat), so you probably won't be surprised when I tell you I LOVE all the colours. 

Canal Street! 

Believe me now?

People watching. 

More art. 

The dancer.

The thinker.

The climber.  

The dancer, at the Mississippi River. 

Steamboat!! (We just studied the Industrial Revolution, so they were excited!)

PALM TREES!

BANANA TREES!

I think this was a major highlight of his life! 

Required NOLA photography (with our own little aloof sort of spin). (In all honesty, it is impossible to get them to pose for pictures. So we're just going to pretend it's all intentional. Ok?)

The horse was a bonus (and that guy in the background). 

Brothers in NOLA. 

That's a building. It's in New Orleans. It has palm trees at the bottom.
(I'm trying to describe things the way my kids do in order to more thoroughly connect with them.)
:P

Swamp tour!
(Micaiah, for two whole days beforehand: I hope we see alligators, I hope we see alligators!)

Simeon: Got ma ba-pack. Got a b'nana init.

On the boat, feeling a little anxious and excited!

First alligator sighting! (My apologies for the pole and the other photo taker. We were going fast!)

I tried again but things just swapped sides! 

Spanish Moss is neither Spanish nor a moss. It is called such because the indigenous people in the area would use it to imitate facial hair, like the Spanish colonists. Boom! Just like that you learned something new!! (I assume.) (It's that stuff hanging from the trees.)

Spanish Moss is everywhere on the bayou and I love it!

Alligator number 2!

I got this one pretty good! 

While waiting, and hoping, to see some wild boars we were treated to a show by the resident raccoons. 

I'm no animal scientist but, I think resistance and persistence may be genetic traits of this species.

I'm so captivated by the beauty of the bayou that I actually thought about moving down here for a while. 

Pictures, at least my pictures, may not do it justice. 

This was part of a little village whose residents squat on the land (they don't own it but people turn a blind eye). During Katrina the flood waters were two feet higher than the tallest house! There were probably about 30 houses and the only way in and out is by boat. The water was pretty high while we were there. The sign on this one says, "it's not krooked u r drunk." Are ya?

They make a living mostly by catching fish, crabs and crawdads. But some of them had a bunch of harvested cypress logs aging in the water. 

Thinking on the bayou.

And that's about all we got up to in these few weeks. We had lots of relaxing times at the camp. No matter where we are parked the kids refer to it as home. They tell people they live by a lake or they have a playground in their backyard! Travis and I think it's so cute. We were all talking yesterday about how our home is really just with each other. They've met a ton of people, young and old and their lessons have such a taken on such a three demensional dynamism (Kai is collecting a journal of native species of plants and animals and recording the features of their habitat for his natural sciences unit, for example). We are all so lucky to be on this sort of adventure! 

Until the next time! 

~The Wanderlings

Side note and suggestion: this was proof read and re-proof read (about 6 times) by me, Maria. Following brain surgery almost two years ago (on Nov. 10, 2019) I have aphasia and can no longer read, write or speak accurately. Please accept my apologies for any mistakes but also please be aware that aphasia exists so maybe you should cease your habit of being the grammar police and just accept people for who they are.