Day 74: Buc-ee’s Beaver and the Big Easy
Leaving Pensacola for New Orleans, we hit our first real traffic jam of the entire trip. The route was already 30 minutes longer due to the brand new Pensacola Bay Bridge getting damaged in hurricane Sally. There was a collision on our detour route, which added another 45 minutes. Fortunately, it looked like everyone was okay, and it served as a reminder of how lucky we’ve been with traffic so far on the trip.
It was another “first” kind of day. After spending nearly a month in Florida, we added three more states today: Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It was also our first time to a Buc-ee’s. The tie-dyed shirt you have seen Nicholas wearing in nearly every picture from the trip is from there, but he’d never been to one, so he was SO EXCITED to finally go. Though Buc-ee’s is based in Texas and most locations are there, this one was at the I-10 exit for Gulf Shores, Alabama, where we’ve been many times before. However, this Buc-ee’s was a new addition.
This place is to other convenience stores as Chick-fil-a is to fast food restaurants. They are very friendly and customer focused, the stores are super clean, and the food is fresh made. It all looked so good we opted to get our lunch here and eat it back in the RV during school calls. Rob had a chipped brisket sandwich, Cooper a burrito, Nicholas a hotdog, and I had a wrap. We shared their famous house made chips (reminded me of the ones made at the Microsoft cafes) and candied pecans.
We walked away with lunch, family t-shirts, a pint glass, coffee mugs for the boys, and Nicholas got a mask along with some gum and Skittles.
We cruised right through the rest of Alabama and Mississippi without stopping. Nicholas, my co-pilot for this portion, really liked this building in Mobile and going through our first tunnel, so he captured both in photos.
Next stop was Louisiana. We finally managed to get a picture of a state welcome sign, today, but not sure it was worth it given the bugs and the glare of the sunshine.
We had a few options for parking tonight, all within two blocks of one another. One was an actual RV park at $105/night, another was a parking lot across from the police station at $50/night. After driving through the parking lot option, we opted for the $0/night choice and parked on the street next to the paid lot.
There were trains, buses, and lots of other noises so we knew it wasn’t going to be the best night’s rest. Rob did an incredible job getting us leveled on this very sloped street so that we could get the best rest possible. He used all 10 of our leveling blocks and our 2×12 boards on the curb side.
What do you do when you arrive in the New Orleans French Quarter at night? Hit Bourbon Street of course. Despite so many businesses closed from COVID, there was still plenty for the kids to experience and see for the first time. We didn’t do a lot of explaining and just let them take it all in.
We picked up some dinner to go from the Acme Oyster House and some toilet paper from Walgreens on the walk home and called it a night.
