Tag: Day 10

Day 10 -Part 2 – Arkansas to Mississippi

The trip between Arkansas and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi is about 7 hours of driving – which for us is about 9 hours of travel. We wanted to arrive late afternoon which is why we were trying to leave early.

The day was grey and we were expecting to drive through some rain at some point. We’ve been fortunate to have mostly gorgeous weather. Driving through Arkansas looked a lot like this……pretty green, some trees, lots of land.

At the second gas stop, we found Snowballs. Siah’s been wanting to try them. The package had 2, so each boy got one to try.

And then Siah got to eat both of them because they were NOT Judah’s fav.

We crossed into Mississippi just before noon and the rain started. We passed a sign for the Petrified Forrest and Jon shared a story about how he had petrified wood as a child and we made the decision to stop and check out the gift shop. We weren’t gonna do the trail because it was raining but we could stop and maybe find a souvenir.

We parked and ran through the rain to the gift shop. It was filled with Rocks and Gems and was such a fun place to check out. Jon got a piece of petrified wood which was a fun memory. It’s really cool looking.

The petrified wood is really cool and I can only imagine how interesting the trail must be.

I love the Color’s of the different rocks and gems. They are just so vibrant and beautiful.

As we travelled further down into Mississippi we passed through a rain storm and it was a downpour. Like big fat soaking wet rain drops that drench you.

About an hour from Bay St Louis the sky started clearing and it was stunning. We were pretty excited to be getting closer.

We pulled into Buccaneer Bay State Park around 6pm and found our RV pad. It was right across the street from the beach.

By 6:20pm the boys were in swim suits and down on the beach.

It’s been surprising how few of the sites that we’ve stayed at have had a fire pit. This one does and so we made a fire. Unfortunately, we forgot our marshmallow roasting sticks at Xani’s so the kids foraged for a dead branch to use.

Jude’s stick was ready to use but Siah brought back a dead small-ish tree and then spent an hour whittling the trunk down to a size that could hold a marshmallow. FYI, this park has no wifi and it was awful that I didn’t realize it when I booked it. I’m the worst mother for making them do things like having creative fun.

We eventually doused the fire and crawled into bed. Tomorrow is supposed to be gorgeous, sunny and 24 degrees. I can’t wait.

Day 10 – Part 1 – Leaving Arkansas

Today’s a 2 part-er because we had a whole adventure before we even left the property!

We woke up at 7am with the hope of leaving by 8am. Okay, let’s be real…I figured we’d probably pull out by 8:30am and we most likely would have, if not for that little issue with a tree.

When we pulled in and parked, we didn’t necessarily think 100% through the leaving situation and although it was a little bit awkward to park: it was downright exciting to try and get out.

Getting ready to leave wasn’t the issue. It was actually hooking up the trailer and navigating out of the driveway that took a little…….creativity!

Good thing we’re creative.

The driveway comes in from the road. The house is on the left side and at the end of the driveway is a garage. We parked parallel to the garage. There is a small center island that you can pull around and keep driving – now you’re on the right side of the driveway and then it connects back to the main driveway. On the right side of the loop, just passed the garage is a bit of a drop off AND to make things more fun…a tree from the center island area tilts slightly over into the road, so while a car or even a truck might get through – a trailer would not.

While Xani and I supervised the entire “situation”…Jon and Jimmy (Xani’s father in law) did the actual heavy lifting or driving or navigating.

Okay. First issue was actually hitching up the trailer to the truck. Remember the previous mentioned drop off – we found it. The space between the trailer and the edge of the driveway didn’t allow for a lot of navigating. Fortunately, we also have 4 wheel drive and were able safely get all 4 tires back on the driveway. We got the trailer hooked up and moved onto the second challenge of backing up the trailer enough so that we could exit on the left side.

The issue was…..well, let’s see, we had multiple trees to navigate around, a giant drainage hole to not fall in and the center island to avoid. All with a 25 foot trailer connected to a long truck. Epic. They managed to avoid the hole but a tree jumped out and grabbed the trailer. Rather than rip the drain spout off the trailer, they decided to move the tree. Ya! Move the tree. I was surprised they were just gonna cut a tree down but it’s even better than that.

In between the tree they moved and the tree they cinched to, you can see the edge of the driveway and the drop off on the right hand side. Not a lot of room to navigate. In the next short clip, you can see the “filled in” drainage hole they successfully avoided.

It took some effort to get the strapping unhooked from the trees.

Put your back into it, babe!

We said good bye to Mac and Xani and Jimmy (Dalton was already at work and missed this adventure) and hit the road by 9am. A little later than planned but with a great story.

We stopped to fill up the tank and headed out on the 7 hour drive to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.