Saturday 4 April 2009

A Beautiful Day

Morning-48F (9C)
Afternoon-75F (24C)

I had a lovely walk this morning even though it was a bit chilly. After breakfast I sat outside and read for a while but it was a bit too windy.

Looking down on our site on my morning walk

More campground sites - ours is the middle one

More sites

My morning walking companion

View from my lawnchair

After lunch, I was chatting with Dee on Yahoo Messenger and had just thought about having a nap when Gordon said he wanted to go for a drive and find the swamp that we had seen the other day. We drove some back roads but didn't find it.

Pastoral scene

We then hiked a trail at the Haserway Wetland Trail. It was a pretty trail and the wind had died down making it a beautiful day for a walk.

Along the trail

The trail
I then suggested that we drive in to Grenada and take the same route that we had taken the day before yesterday and there it was - the swamp! So, Gordon got his photos and was happy!

This is the red flower that we saw along I-55 on our way here from Louisiana this week. It looks like an Indian paintbrush to me however one of my readers tells me it looks like Crimson Clover. Not being from this area, I would go with her identification.

Back home I finally got my nap, a shower and started getting dinner ready.

This is such a gorgeous place! Due to weather heading north to Illinois and then east to Ohio, I think we'll be staying here an extra day and traveling on Tuesday.

Friday 3 April 2009

A Short Move & A Trip Around the Lake

Today we moved from Frog's Hollow RV Park to the Corps of Engineers Park on Grenada Lake, a distance of about 6 miles or so. You pick up an envelope at the self-register booth then go into the campground and pick your site, fill out the envelope, put your money inside, tear off the stub and put it on the post of your site and take the envelope and money back to the self-register booth.

We got backed in to the first site we tried, got out our 25 ft electric cord - it wasn't long enough. We moved to the next site and that was ok and we even have internet and TV satellite from here as well as a beautiful view of Grenada Lake from both our back and side windows. We're in a really good spot for sunrises.

Our site

Another view of our site


View from dining room window


View from living room window


View from rear window



This site is reserved from April 9th so we've signed up till Monday and will probably leave then to head north again (depending on the weather, of course).

After lunch we took off to do some sightseeing. We stopped at some places near us including a short hike and then continued on to Gore Springs then across Grenada Lake. We tried to find Carver Point in the Hugh White State Park but never did find it. We sure found some bad roads though. Our drive took us around the lake and we found that our immediate area here at the Corps of Engineers Park is the prettiest. I'm glad we decided to spend a few days here. It's definitely a 'come back to' place!

A pretty drive



Our path for today

The beach

The sign speaks for itself and refers to the photo below it

Hmmmm....ya think?


This butterly posed for us


Beautiful dogwood

Here's the lake



After breakfast for dinner, it's another TV night!

Thursday 2 April 2009

A Restful Day and Grenada Lake and Campground

I woke up with a headache and feeling like I was trying to move around inside a room of cotton batten. I managed to go outside for my walk but was only out about 20 minutes. The roads in the campground have large rocks, not good for running and the road outside the campground was too busy. It was about 60F (16C), cloudy and dreary.

Overview of Frog Hollow RV Park

Most of the morning was spent napping, reading and watching the satellite weather. We were under a tornado watch. I watched the rain come in on the internet on satellite and it arrived around 12:20 p.m. but it didn't rain that much and it was on and off.

We decided to go ahead and go to Grenada Lake. It's a Corps of Engineers area and the State Park is within it. The campground is beautiful and very scenic. We drove around a bit and went to the Visitor Center. Corps of Engineers parks are half price for those with the America the Beautiful pass. We're thinking about moving over there and staying a few days.......

RV sites at Grenada Lake - Corps of Engineers Park

Grenada Lake

More RV sites

The dam at Grenada Lake

We also did a tour of the downtown area. It has a nice square but the downtown looks kind of run down and lots of shops were vacant.


According to the satellite there's another storm heading for us with a strong wind advisory and severe thunderstorm watch but the tornado watch has been lifted.

Our high today only reached about 63F (17C) but it was nice when the sun came out!

Wednesday 1 April 2009

From Poche's Fish N Camp to Frog Hollow Campground/RV Park

Morning-54F (12C)
Afternoon-77F (25C)

I was awake at 6 a.m. but didn't get up till 6:30. Gordon was still asleep which is amazing for him! I missed my walk this morning using that time to make our lunches for the road. We were packed up and out of Poche's Fish N Camp at 9:10 a.m. It was 57F (14C) and partly sunny.

As we left Poche's I took another photo of our 'gator'. I was right, it's a log!

We had an uneventful journey and made it to our first stop of our northern trek shortly after 3 p.m., a distance of 340 miles. We are at Frog Hollow Campground/RV Park at Grenada, MS and will stay for two days. There's some weather coming in tomorrow so we'll wait it out here. The campground has free wifi and it appears to be pretty good. We had planned to use the aerial for TV but the only station we got was a snowy NBC so Gordon set up the TV satellite.

I took photos of Henderson Swamp as we were traveling on I-10. There's no real way to get to it by road other than the interstate.

We made it to Mississippi!


Beautiful red tea roses at the Mississippi Welcome Center

Lots of greens with a pretty sky

Many clumps of these red wildflowers along the road

Dogwood in bloom


The trip today was quite beautiful, from the marshes of Louisiana to the varying greens of the trees in Mississippi. The dogwood is also in bloom.

Our site at Frog Hollow

In reply to Diane's comment on yesterday's blog - the wood ducks were further along the road from the rookery but quite close. Lots of luck, hope you enjoy being there! The area is indeed a little gem. If you're taking your RV, Catfish Heaven campground is closest but we like Poche's Fish N Camp.

And to Donna who also commented, sorry haven't had a chance to check out the wildflower info that you gave me.

Tuesday 31 March 2009

Getting Things Done

Morning-64F (18C)
Afternoon-76F (24C)

It was cloudy and somewhat humid at 7:30 a.m. The humidity got worse during the day and we turned on the air conditioner this afternoon. We didn't have rain this morning but it was cloudy. I went and had another look at the alligator/log this morning. The more I look at it the more I think it's a log but I'm not about to get any closer to find out.

This is our very own campground egret (or one of them), they're such a beautiful, graceful bird.


I was on the internet this morning and Karon of Discovery Travelers popped up on Yahoo chat. It was great to talk to her. I finally met her this winter when she came to see Ellie and Jim when we were at Powderhorn Lake RV Park & Marina. Unfortunately I had to cut this morning's chat short as I wanted to get laundry done this morning. I like to have these things tidied up to be ready for travel. I was back with the laundry about 12:30 p.m.

We had a quiet afternoon and even had a nap! Gordon got the tanks dumped and then we went to the rookery for one last trip before pulling out tomorrow. While there we had dinner at Taco Bell, picked up some groceries at Walmart and fueled up.

The rookery

Wood ducks in the swamp - aren't they pretty?


So, tomorrow we start our trek north!

Monday 30 March 2009

Just Hangin' Out

Morning-52F (11C)
Afternoon-75F (24C)

It was pretty cloudy when I started out this morning on my walk but got a few rays shortly after. Gordon said he got some nice sunrise photos at Lake Martin.

What do you think - log or alligator? It was in the front pond here at the RV park this afternoon. I've never noticed a log in this spot.....

I did a few blog changes this afternoon and spent a long time talking to my friend, Judy from the Toronto area on Facebook. Other than that I did some reading, read blogs and took a walk around the RV park.

I have no idea what this flower is, but it's pretty


They grade the roads here regularly and also the sites after people leave. The ground is very soft so often there are deep ruts in the sites - there will be in ours when we leave!

This little dog belongs to one of the fishermen that was here today. He was running to greet me after I had petted him at the rec hall earlier.

More of the pretty wildflowers that I call poppies.

Violets?


Looks like we have some weather coming in tonight and tomorrow so we've signed up for another day.

Sunday 29 March 2009

Not Much of Anything

Morning-46F (8C)
Afternoon-67F (19C)

Thank goodness for the electric blanket! We're back to using it again.

I was up a bit earlier this morning. Just couldn't sleep. I think getting up that 1/2 hour earlier gives me more energy for walking. Hmmmm. Anyway, I had a nice walk in the cold, bright sunshine.

After breakfast I took advantage of Gordon being out and about and got the vacuuming done.

Since I didn't have an bars on my cell phone inside I walked up to the office area and sat on the swing and called my older sister who is at Siesta Key in Florida. They're flying back to Toronto on Tuesday after spending two months there. They like it very much and plan to return next year if possible. The year before they were at a condo in Fort Myers but didn't like it so much there. That was the year we went over and spent the month of March in Fort Myers so we could see them and decided there were way too many people and too much traffic there for our liking. We like Port Lavaca much better!

Gordon didn't get back from his outing until after lunchtime but he had a good time and said he walked at least 50 miles. So I'm sure there will be photos at www.pbase.com/merriwolf.

I talked with Dee from the rv-dreams chatroom on Yahoo Messenger this afternoon for a while, otherwise read, had a shower and just hung around.

I went out to take a photo as I didn't have anything for the blog and these guys on horses were riding around the park.

I caught this guy as he had just passed our RV

Horses across the fishing pond

It turned out to be a really nice afternoon!