Five states!
October 31, 2009

How lucky we are that we pulled into Perdido Key two days ago and not today. There was rain last night, continuing this morning with temps hovering just under a breezy 60. It puts a whole new face on the area not to be able to loll around in the sunshine.

We’re driving north to get around Mobile Bay, thus avoiding the expensive ferry across it. This is our short time in Alabama’s little reach-down-to-have-a-gulfport region, then shortly over into Louisiana. We heard last night there were tornado watches in a number of Alabama counties north of us, so when the rain started last night, I was nervous about it, especially after our weather turned sour. Oh well, it wasn’t long before my anxiety turned to sleep.

This is good agricultural land - lots of cotton and truck farming: nice farm stands abound.

As we cross over a finger of Mobile Bay on I-10 (we have joined up with that interstate highway, now heading west) that looks miniscule on the map, we are bridge-bound for miles over water that appears to be shallow and muddy with many sandbars and reed-covered islands. The section has a huge shipyard with at least one battleship at anchor.

Alabama soon disappears behind us when we cross into Mississippi’s neighboring gulf grab. All this coastal area is primarily water: some of it in the multitude of tributary-swollen rivers regally approaching their emptying point, the remainder in swamps, marshes, lagoons, bayous and quiet lakes wandering around treed islands.

Traversing this area so alien to my native Arizona, I am reminded of lessons learned out hiking in these boondocks. Darren pointed out stinging nettles so that we would avoid touching that plant. Wish he’d done that about five years earlier before I walked that long lane to an abandoned graveyard in the Texas outback. Seems it abounded with nettles that caused me incredible pain for quite a while afterwards.

While indicating hazards to avoid, he indicated banana spiders: large (harmless, he said, but who would believe that claim) arachnids poised at frequent intervals to snatch a person up into its web for sure destruction. After having to examine my head for lurking spiders after I walked into a web, he handed me a stick and suggested I swing it around in front of me as I walked so as not to encounter a spider. That worked until I tired of it and devised a much better spider avoidance system - walk behind Darren - simple and surefire.

Continuing our westward dash, we come into Louisiana just about the time we drive out from under stormy clouds. Rowdy got excited just as we were crossing the Mississippi River and came up front to look the situation over as if he knew it was a signpost on the road home.

Crossing the intriguing and impressive Achafalaya Swamp reminds me how much I like this region. Last year, we spent some good Louisiana time, visiting Kelly cousins, watching the rice and sugar cane harvests, doing research, exploring the Bayou Teche area and just generally soaking it all up. The Achafalaya marks our movement into intermittent dry ground, much of it planted to sugar cane. I am sorry to miss time here, but mark the intention to visit again soon.

We have made good time today, so have come to a midafternoon decision to press on to a park in east Houston, thereby completing our first-ever five-state day. Being just about the slowest of slow travelers, this is an entirely new experience for us. I fail to see the joy for those who zoom from starting point to final destination, seeing little along the way but roadside; however, whatever gets me closer to home right now is jim-dandy.

Perhaps this is the time to note that I flubbed up in yesterday’s blog. I shall adopt that term, “flubbed up”, for the times I make mistakes; it was Dad’s term and I think defines those moments just right. Oh yes, back to the flub: it is not the Floribama (a namby-pamby wine bar name), but the Flora-Bama (a robust “stop here for beer and grub” title), an obviously distinctive distinction.