Pandhandle of Fl to Biloxi, MS

Monday, April 13 – 6:38am. There have been earlier mornings, but this felt like it took the cake. I did not sleep well at all. I eventually went to the van where it was a little quieter. I need a good nights sleep.

Tyne and I broke camp without much trouble and hit the road by about 8am. Aiming for Alabama by noon, we starting across the long panhandle. The forests slowly changed and the tropical look was being lost. There were still a palmetto here or there, but you could tell the climate was changing.

"Pensacola is getting spanked right now," the morning disc jockey said on the radio. The clear sunny skies had been darkening all day, and 60 miles from Pensacola all hell broke lose. I haven't seen rain that hard and for so long ever. For over an hour, I could only see about 100 feet in front of me. Finally, as we pulled into our last big city in Florida, the rain stopped again.

Just over the Alabama border in Theodore, we stopped at Muddy creek to take a hike and find a geocache. A nice boardwalk took us through a wooded wetland and to a beaver dam. (Here is to you beaver!) On the way out Dazey splashed into the creek and emerged from the brush soaked to her skinny little bones. After a dry off, we were off again.

The Biloxi/Gulfport area was hit pretty badly by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. There isn't much business left along the man made beach. Only the Waffle House came back and is open again for business. There are blocks and blocks of broken down and almost forgotten houses. My friend Amanda lives there now just between the two cities. I had met her in Yellowstone three years ago, and she has just bought a new house in town.

She hadn't moved in yet, and she asked if we could help her with some painting around the house. She showed us around and we noted what we had to paint, and then she left us to stay the night on the plus carpet and christen her new home.

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