April 1-15, 2024. Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi

Bastrop State Park is one of my favorite State Parks in Texas so we decided to spend 2 nights there plus they have really good hot showers which we were both in need of. They have lots of trails and beautiful views plus it’s 5 minutes from a Buc-ees and 5 minutes from our friends Scott and Christine. 

After Bastrop we headed over to Waco Texas where Chip and Joanna Gaines (HGTV) have their Magnolia Market place which was totally awesome. Such a fun place to visit and really thought out. They have an area with a food truck park which of course we love. We decided on a couple of rice and cabbage bowls which were amazing and Greg got an Alabama Sweet Tea that came in this nice glass canning type glass. 

There were many shops to browse around in. We did a lot of fake shopping and even purchased a new snack bag for the van. Our old snack bag was getting super beat up and this one was the perfect size to replace it.

From there we walked over to the Dr. Pepper Museum. It was $10 to get in and you got a free Dr Pepper made fresh from a couple of “soda jerks.” We upgraded our order with some Bluebell vanilla icecream and enjoyed our Floats.

We spent that night at the Cracker Barrel and then headed a bit west the next day to The Reynolds Creek State Park. 

We are basically staying put in this general area until April 8th which is the solar eclipse. We check the weather every day and it doesn’t look good. You can tell from the pictures that the skies have been nothing but blue and clear all week but on Monday, the clouds roll in. It is what it is, I guess it will still be fun to watch everything get dark without actually seeing the moon covering the sun. 

Unfortunately we couldn’t get a camping spot anywhere for Sunday night into Monday. Every campsite in every campground was booked so we headed back to the Cracker Barrel. Woke up on Monday to thick clouds rolling in.

Woke up to spurts of blue skies which was hopeful for the eclipse. We headed to a local park around 11. We got a great spot. There were lots of people starting to come in, setting up their chairs and tripods. The first snippet of the eclipse was going to start at 12:28. I decided to take a walk beforehand. They had this nice walking path at the park. It was a great walk and during the walk, the clouds begun to dissipate. The sun was definitely peaking through. 

We watched the entire thing and were amazed each step of the way. But nothing compared to that moment of totality when the moon completely covered the sun and we could see the Corona. Everyone in the park began to cheer. It simply was amazing. We were so lucky to have gotten to witness that and happy that God pushed the clouds aside for us. 

From there we traveled to a different Cracker Barrel on the north side of Waco. I had gotten an email that they were giving away “Eclipse Pancakes.” So we went for dinner and pancakes and spent the night.

There’s this cool store out here in Texas that’s sort of like Tractor Supply but better. We strolled around there to kill some time.

Next day the storms came. Brutal storms. We sat in the van and waited and waited and waited for them to let up but they really never did. So we decided to drive through them south to a place where there would be no storms. If we stayed put then the storms would continue for three days. The drive was pretty frightening. Roads were flooded and views were limited. An hour of white knuckle driving but finally made it through to the other side. Wound up in a town called Bryan and had some lunch in a picnic area and then visited the local museum.

We stayed at another Cracker Barrel and also visited the local hospital which didn’t really have a decent cafeteria. It was more like a small snack bar but we did sit in the lobby for a while and use their extremely fast WiFi to download some episodes of “Constellation” on Apple Tv. It’s gonna rain off and on for the next three days so we’ll watch that each night. We have about an 8 hour drive to get to the Island View Casino in Gulfport Mississippi where they gave us THREE FREE nights in their hotel starting on April 14th. Since we usually don’t drive more than 2 hours a day this will take 4 days to get there which is perfect timing for us to get there on the 14th. Then I can use their WiFi and set up my laptop to finally do my taxes. I’ve been procrastinating doing them. 

So the next day we drove 2 hours to a casino. This place was PACKED OUT!! I have never seen a casino so crowded on a Wednesday night. It was hard for us to get seats next to another at the slots and that’s usually how we gamble. Makes it more fun. We joined their players club and got 20 in free play money. Plus a $12 rib eye steak at the Grill. The Steak was amazing and Greg won on pretty much every machine he touched. I lost about $20 which is a win. Our plan was to stay on their lot overnight but it was pretty slanted so we moved on to the nearest Walmart and stayed there with 2 other RV’s. 

Next day we headed another two hours to White Oak Park in Louisiana. This is a Parish park. Basically it’s a county park. They call their counties Parishes here. The  dry camping spots are only $4 for the night and that includes showers. Greg took a shower first and reported back that the water was Luke Warm. When I went to the shower, there was nothing Luke Warm about it and I couldn’t bring myself to get under that water. I just couldn’t do it!! The campground host came over later on and asked us if we needed anything and I said, maybe a hot shower if you have that ability. He said, it’s not gonna happen because the park lost their electricity a couple of days ago in those bad storms that passed over. So they have been without electricity for three days now. There’s a couple of crews working on it so maybe tomorrow will be my lucky day to get a nice hot shower. 

And yes!!! They fixed the electric and I had a nice hot shower!! We then headed further east to Louisiana where it was and is Crawfish season. I researched a bunch of different crawfish restaurants. They are basically on every block. I finally settled in a place called Crazy bout Crawfish and boy was it GOOD!! 

That night we stayed at a Pilot Truckstop. Not exactly the comfort or sanity of a Cracker Barrel Parking Lot but we did survive the night. 

The next day we found a campground that was a bicycle ride distance away from the LSU Campus. 

The bike ride was on the Levee trail which was pretty cool and ran parallel to the Mississippi River. After we got settled and paid our 10 dollars, we got the bikes out and off we went. LSU which is Louisiana State University. Holy Cow! What a huge and amazing campus. There were so many athletic games going on and college kids and family dressed in LSU gear everywhere. This school is a division 1 school so the best of the best when it comes to athletics. We didn’t get to go to any of the games but we really enjoyed mingling around with everyone and having lunch on campus. We also visited their school Mascot. Mike, the tiger. It was a really fun day.

We headed to Mississippi to spend three nights in Gulfport at the Island  View casino. Three free nights in their hotel overlooking the beach. Can’t pass that up and on top of that they gave us each 80 bucks to gamble with plus a bunch of other food coupons. So the first thing we did upon arriving was to go to the Sunday Brunch Buffet. It was really great!

I just got done doing my taxes on my laptop in my air conditioned hotel room. This is the first time in 12 years that I didn’t use Turbo Tax. They wanted to charge me close to 300 to file!!! I don’t even itemize since moving off of Long Island. That’s just absurd so I went to FreeTaxUSA.com and filed there for free. And the program I used was basically exactly like Turbo Tax. I highly recommend it if you haven’t filed yet. You have till midnight tonight.

Two more nights here at the casino then we continue heading East to Florida and then back up the East Coast to NY, 2 hours at a time.