Aussie Expats Update – The First Road Trip Report!

Hello from Florida everyone!

Well, we’re on Day 7 of our amazing trip, and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind so far. Despite a less-than auspicious beginning on Saturday—whe the alarm clock failed to wake us up at 0400—we managed to be on the road by 8 am with our borrowed tent in tow (as, despite ordering our new one 3 weeks prior, it still hadn’t arrived). But, we got out butts on the road, and drove through to Dallas for an Arby’s lunch-stop before kicking on to Grand Gulf Military Park (MS). The ranger had left the gate unlocked for us after we’d called ahead earlier in the day, so we set up ol’ tenty and perused the Port Gibson dinner options. The pervasiveness of fast food in the US never ceases to amaze me: Port Gibson is a small, rural, seemingly down-on-its-luck town, but still boasted a McDonalds, a Subway and a Sonic and, while there’s every possibility that I’m wrong, I just don’t think fast food is as common in rural Australian towns as it is over here, and it’s a state of affairs that I find quite interesting.

We met a Port Gibson man who offered to wash our car windows for some spare change and subsequently blessed us (and our children, and our children’s children) while we waited for our somewhat sub-par Chinese dinner from Best Wok, before heading back to Grand Gulf. Sadly, we found out when we returned that the gates were locked. We left our faithful steed parked near the gate, hightailed it up the rather steep hill to our campsite and chowed down on our Chinese (as well as getting in our daily ‘Captain’s Log!’, which we’re recording on James’s laptop every night). Fortunately, we took a stroll back down to reposition the car later and were stopped by Jim the Ranger, who offered to open the gates for us (and asked why we hadn’t come up to his RV to get the gates opened, despite the ‘Park Ranger’ sign being about the size of a postal envelope). Regardless, we sorted out the camp fees and were lucky enough to have our ears roundly chewed off with Jim’s advice for what to see and do the following day.

On Sunday, Day 2, we awoke after a fairly restless night—no air mattress or roll mat beneath our sleeping bag had left us (or at least me!) tossing and turning, while the external campground lights had me thinking it was morning about every hour and trying to wake up. After a shower and some packing up, we wandered around the military museum for a while before (on some last-minute advice from Jim) driving down to the banks of the Mississippi River, which was remarkably close by. It’s mind-boggling to think that the river has reached to the top of the sign in the photo below—a height of 57 feet (17 meters!)—and I couldn’t help but think of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn traversing its rushing waters on their raft, or Sethe of Toni Morrison’s Beloved being transported across it in the dead of night.

Jim had also recommended we visit the Windsor Plantation site, which is quite close to Grand Gulf and home to the ruins of a mammoth plantation which burned down in 1890. As usual, I’m incapable of seeing and interacting with such historic sites without thinking about the commensurate costs of such grandeur, and of the tragedy that seems to haunt these places, perhaps as a karmic payment plan. The ruins are, as you can see, absolutely ginormous and the house, built entirely by slave labour, was doubtless an architectural wonder during its brief 29 years of existence. Nearby there was an incredible oak tree (which inevitably called to mind my childhood in Brisbane spent climbing the massive, twisting Moreton Bay Figs at both New Farm park and UQ), and we capitalised on the chance to do some climbing of it’s conveniently placed fallen branches. One thing that I can’t, however, find it in myself to reconcile, is the insane amount of litter all over the place here. There’s nowhere we can drive through or walk around that isn’t well and truly sown with soft drink cans, plastic bags and plastic bottles. I mean… Just keep it on you until you reach a bin people, it’s not that bloody hard! It seems that kind of behaviour epitomises laziness and entitlement, but I somehow I doubt it’s something I’m going to see less of any time soon.

We then headed down to the The Old Country Store and Arthur Davis’s fried chicken buffet which had been enthusiastically lauded by Jim: despite eating our weight twice over, there were no regrets! To add to the ambience, Arthur gave James a bit of stick about me being too beautiful for him and then he also sang to me, so… All in all, I’m clearly the best. Anyway, we highly recommend stopping in if you’re in the area: the chicken was piping hot and delicious, and the blackberry and cherry cobblers were far too small for my tastes. We took away two other cobblers (a peach and an apple) for later snacking before hitting the road for Oak Alley Plantation on our way to New Orleans.

Oak Alley Plantation is, as the name suggests, a Louisiana Plantation which in its heyday was primarily associated with sugarcane and boasts an incredible array of 300-year old oak trees. Like the Windsor Plantation, I can’t help but see the tragedy in the overly-romanticised story of the Roman family. I’ll admit that I find it hard to reconcile the stunning opulence of the house and oak alley on one hand, with the degradation of human life and unimaginable subjugation and suffering of that family’s slaves on the other hand. I am unashamedly obsessed with trees, so this area held a special kind of fascination and beauty for me.

We ate some massive single scoops of ice cream (seriously, it was more like 2 scoops than one), then finished our travel down to New Orleans and checked into our cosy little Airbnb house. We bestirred ourselves to do some exploring and, a bus ride and some walking later, we were in the French Quarter where we strolled into Cafe Sbisa without a reservation—and really, somewhat under-dressed—to feast on turtle soup, crabcakes, duck confit and prawns. James was getting blisters from his thongs and I was pretty sore from all the walking, so we bought some beignets from Cafe du Monde and got a very friendly Uber home to the couch! Those beignets came with a lot of icing sugar: I kind of wish I’d brought a ziplock bag to keep the excess!

Monday, Day 3, saw us happily ensconced in our New Orleans pad and ready to do some not-too-rigourous exploring. We had an easy start to the morning before strolling down to the National WWII museum and spending a few solid hours wandering through there. We paid extra to experience the Beyond all Boundaries 4D film which I would strongly recommend to anyone who chances through NO and has any kind of interest in history. We also played parts of the crew in an SS Tang simulation, which boasts the only crew to ever escape a sunken submarine without any external assistance. We hadn’t gotten any photos along the river in New Orleans yet, so we walked out that way to take the below photo and then stopped off for lunch on the way back.

Cochon Butcher dished up some awesome sandwiches and some cake to go, as well as a new t-shirt for James, then we ducked into District: Donuts, Sliders, Brews for some doughnuts to go (what? Good food isn’t common in Lawton, OK!).

We were back on the road again for Day 4, hightailing it out of New Orleans with the Tuesday morning traffic, and whizzing through four states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and finally into Florida—on our way to our Fort Pickens camp site in Pensacola Beach. The drive was, quite simply, stunning. We wisely decided to take the US-90 scenic route along the water, and were left a bit breathless at the wondrous scenery we found there. The houses are incredible in this part of the world, palatial structures that are a visual feast for the eyes of curious travellers; certainly, I found them all to be gape-worthy. We stopped for a brief photo op in Biloxi (and bought some Cat Island cookies purely because they’re from Cat Island, though luckily they ended up being pretty damn good) and pulled into Pensacola in the afternoon without having had any lunch. We’d also realised that we probably really did need to buy some groceries, and an air mattress for camping—though it wasn’t until later, when preparing for the night, that we realised we’d failed to buy a pump for said air mattress. I’d woken up in the morning with the onset of James’s cold, so wasn’t feeling very keen for camping, but we decided to strike out from our campsite towards the beach… Only to be viciously attacked by bindis and then some brutal, foot-piercing cacti that had me declaring defeat and we headed back to camp, where James was fairly eaten alive by mosquitoes. All in all, not our best night!
 Stubbornly blowing up that air mattress with only the power of our paltry lungs actually did us a world of good overnight in the sleeping department, though on multiple occasions it seemed we might be blown away in the strong winds of a surprise storm. Just our luck to get some miserable weather while camping! It hung around on Wednesday, Day 5, and we spent much of the day relaxing, reading and napping. We did manage to get ourselves up and out when the sun briefly peeked out at us, but had only just started the walk out to Fort Pickens when the sun retreated. Despite it being far cooler than we’d bargained for, we went out and had a look around, which was pretty interesting.

We spent Day 6 of our epic trip yesterday motoring down from Pensacola to St Petersburg to stay overnight in the Ponce de Leon. The big news was that we had breakfast at Waffle House, thereby increasing the number of American fast food chains we’ve eaten at and ticking off another of the most
common. We didn’t get into St Pete’s until a most inconvenient time of day (yes, that difficult time where all of the inconsiderate people not on holiday were leaving work and making the roads busy), but soon got to the historic Ponce de Leon and checked in so that I could keep slogging away on my uni readings, and James could get a run in along the water. It’s so scenic there that we almost (almost) regret our decision not to do 2 nights in this part of Florida… But since we’re heading to the Keys today, there can be no regrets!

Lucky for us, our story and our stomachs, one of James’s friends, Chris, is currently spending time in his hometown of Tampa prior to posting to Germany, and took us out for dinner at the renowned Colombia’s for some wonderful cuban food—for once, James ate too much and I didn’t—and a truly impressive flamenco dance show. It was a stunning night, the food was wonderful and the company superlative, and though we didn’t get around to eating until after 9pm or to sleep until close to midnight (with a planned 5am start!) we’re already certain that it’s likely to remain one of the most memorable experiences of our trip.

We’re currently some hours into our way from St Pete’s all the way down to Key West! We stopped on our southwards wending for an airboat ride in the Everglades, a bit of wild fun that we both really enjoyed. James got some amazing photos, I discovered perhaps an idea for a travel writing piece about the Everglades, and we had a great time. Only another couple of hours until we’re in the Keys; I think I’m on the up and out of this silly cold, James’s hair is truly, truly insane right now and we are pumped to eat some Key Lime Pie like it’s going out of style (I’m hungry and we haven’t had lunch yet).

In summary, for those you exhausted by the mere prospect of reading this hefty tome:

D1: Home to Grand Gulf Military State Park

D2: Grand Gulf – NO

D3: NO

D4: NO – Pensacola

D5: Pensacola

D6: Pensacola – St Petersburg

See you all on Monday for another post, then next Friday to learn where our road trip has taken us next!

–Ana.