Monday - April 9 - Today we left Abbeville for Gulf Shores, Alabama. Interstate 10 is a terrible highway in places through Louisiana, we were doing lots of bouncing!! Fortunately it was better through Mississippi and Alabama. Going through Mississippi we couldn’t see the coast at all, but Bucaneer State Park, where we stayed a number of years ago, is still closed from the hurricane as well as bridges along the coast. I guess it will take many years to get everything repaired.

We crossed the Atchafalaya Basin which is located in mid Louisiana and is about 20 miles in width from east to west and 150 miles in length. It consists of about 595,000 acres and is the nation’s largest swamp wilderness containing bottomland hardwoods, cypress stands, swamplands, bayous and back water lakes. There is abundant wildlife in the basin - alligators, snakes, bears, cougars, many species of fish, etc. etc. Interstate 10 crosses the basin on elevated pillars and is a continuous bridge for over 18 miles. We spent about a week in this area a few years ago and found it very fascinating. I didn’t get any pictures yesterday but will post a couple that we took a few years ago.

We are at Gulf Breezes RV Park in Gulf Shores for a week. The people next to us arrived yesterday as well and are from Barrie and it turns out they go to the same park as we are going to next winter in Yuma, in fact they will be about 5 or 6 sites down from us. They have been going there since it opened about 5 years ago and love it, so it was nice to talk to someone who stays there.