We got an early start determined to get out of Florida finally. Unfortunately we quickly found ourselves in a Burger King parking lot using the wifi to deal with some problems with Francis’s server and the websites he hosts. I was starting to think we were never leaving Florida! Finally we reached Alabama and then entered Mississippi. The route we took had us go through a beautiful section of Mississippi along the Gulf coast. There were miles of lovely public beach on our left and gorgeous homes on the right. It got to be that time again and we started looking for a place to sleep. We went to our favorite website, freecampsites.net, and found a possibility.  It was a free place nearby in the De Soto National Forest, Airey Camp. It was nothing fancy but it did have an outhouse with a sink. We have the setup routine down pat by now so we were ready for bed in a few minutes.
Early morning found us on the road again headed for Austin, Texas. We planned to stop there to visit REI to purchase a canopy. After our long rainy days in Florida we had decided we needed it for the rest of the trip. It was a very foggy day all the way through the rest of Mississippi and into Louisiana. We drove through New Orleans but with the weather it was hard to see anything.  We stayed on Highway 10 through Louisiana and into Houston, Texas. From there we headed up to Austin. To help pass the time we listened to an audio book called The Life We Bury. It is a murder mystery with lots of twists and turns. Very entertaining. We made it to REI in the early evening and got a canopy and small table. We somehow managed to squeeze them into the truck.

We got back in the truck and started driving west. We pulled over at a suggested site somewhere around Fredericksburg to sleep but we didn’t like the location so we headed to the nearby Walmart. We were told Walmart and Home Depot are fine with travelers sleeping in their parking lots. This was our first time trying it and we saw a lot of RVs and campers there.

Mississippi

Airey Camp

Louisiana

Houston, Texas