To the Edge of America

Back in early summer, when our road trip was the Best Thing Ever, M and I started looking at places in Florida to visit over the winter. We love being home for the holidays but winter always gets a little old by February. You have to book campsites far in advance, but we were ready to commit to more time on the road. Things got turned upside down a few weeks later and we spent the next six months recovering from the medical, mental and financial upheaval. But then, things kind of just went...back to normal? And since we have the homeschooling, remote work and camper all lined up, it seems silly to not take advantage. Florida was booked up, so we headed to Mississippi. It's warm and there are miles of white sand beaches, great birding, delicious seafood, carnival parades and really cheap camping. It's called the Secret Coast here because this is where the pirates hid all the treasure. Hurricanes have flattened a good number of towns on the Gulf Coast, and the sea is creeping ever higher. The town has optimistically rebuilt their park and put in a massive wave pool to attract visitors, but the road that runs along the coast is falling down in places. Many, many empty concrete pads hold spaces in between shiny new houses raised on 10 foot pilings. Rising sea levels are acutely felt here. Tomorrow's forecast includes a warning about coastal flooding. The tide will be a foot higher than usual and some roads will be underwater. The weatherman from the New Orleans station didn't bother to say which ones, he just laughed and said if you are in Waveland or Biloxi you'll know which ones to avoid. I'm not sure this park will be here in twenty years.

But for now, it's just high enough for us. We drove 1,100 miles in 2 1/2 days. It was really cold when we left so we didn't even dewinterize the camper until we got here.

Now we are playing outside happily for many hours, reading a Dart book, looking for pirate treasure, bird watching, drawing times tables in the sand, holding poetry teatime and learning about carnival season on the Gulf Coast.