Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Well, we have finally left the Destin area. As beautiful as it was it is nice to be on the road again. We were there for over 2 weeks. From Destin we traveled 4 hours to Gulfport/Biloxi area. Many of you will remember that this was one of the places that got hit by Katrina. We only stayed one night but before we left in the morning a few of us drove down to see the damage (we are still with our BC friends). The first 4 blocks from the ocean are just concrete slabs. There was not one house left standing. About 4 blocks in there were houses with lots of damage, some fixed up, some just abandoned. While we were driving around we noticed a group of young people cleaning up. Turns out it was a youth group from Columbus, Ohio helping to clean up and staying at the local Presbyterian Church. We helped them a bit....we didn't have gloves and we handed out pop that Jim had in his truck. It shocked us to see so much desolation still over a year later. A local woman stopped by and told us a few stories from the storm, computers found in trees, couches floating by. All along Beach Drive is a beautiful beach which is still closed to the public and half of the boardwalk is still laying broken on the ground.

From Gulfport we drove another 2 hours to Baton Rouge in Louisiana. We are staying at a beautiful municipal campground with horses all around. The girls are enjoying that although they can't ride the horses because they have some disease going around called Strangle. We are right on the other side of the levee on the Mississippi river (which the girls can spell backward and forward...outloud.....continually).

This afternoon we went to a french colonial plantation home. This was not a spectacular as those homes with the columns because it would have been built about 100 years sooner. The plantation started by growing the plant that produces indigo but because of its carcinogenic properties the slaves generally lived only 5 years working with the stuff. This of course was not good because they had to keep buying new slaves. Next they grew cotton until a sugar crusher was invented and then everyone in this area switched to sugar cane. They were busy with the sugar cane all year long. This particular plantation home also had slave quarters and overseerers house to see. About 50 slaves at this plantation worked everyday for just this one family....unbelievable. Jenna of course would have been at marriagable age....as far as education went I think she liked that part where she wouldn't have to learn math and could just learn piano and painting. Boys as young as Matthew would be put to work as slaves, fanning the dinner table or roasting the coffee beans for 2 hours at a time in front of the fire in the kitchen.

I think we will be staying here for a few more days and see if we can find a black church on Sunday. As soon as I figure out the new camera I will post pictures.

Merry Christmas

To all our friends and family we wish you a Blessed Christmas and God's grace in the New Year. We are enjoying ourselves in Henderson Beach Park, walking on the beach, swimming etc. Christmas looks like it will be a little rainy and breezy but we are still comfortable sitting outside under the awning. Jim and Leslie and Dave and Cheryl are here and we are having lots of fun celebrating together.

Henderson Beach State Park

I think that we are in one of the most beautiful campgrounds of our trip. We are surrounded by a low scrub forest in amongst the dunes and we take a boardwalk to a pristine white sand beach and emerald water. Richard always wanted to see that beautiful turquoise water and now we see it everyday when we go for long walks. The kids have had fun building sand castles again and running in and out of the water. A few days had waves for boogie boarding but yesterday it was dead calm so we just lazed on the beach reading, digging, building and fishing.

It's not all beautiful though. If we look to the right or the left we see highrises but Walmart is right across the street so shopping is convienent. The nice thing with being here in December is the beach is deserted.

We are in Destin till Dec. 27th. We are currently waiting for our friends Jim and Leslie and Dave and Cheryl to meet us so we can all celebrate Christmas together.

Carrabelle Beach

Wow, I can't believe I last posted in November and now it is already Dec. 9. We are on what is called the Florida panhandle. It has been a little chilly the last couple of days, it even went below freezing last night. So, we are getting a little taste of winter.

We had a fun time in Tampa. We spent 3 days at Busch Gardens. This one has an Africa theme. It had 6 roller coasters! Boy, that was fun!! There were also animal exhibits and shows. We met up with Jim and Leslie and Yvonne again. We spent an afternoon with them at their campground and they spent an afternoon with us at ours. We also went to the beach and Busch gardens together.

From Tampa we headed up the western side of Florida to a park called Manatee Springs. It is one of many State Parks with beautiful natural springs bubbling up from underground. Richard and the girls went swimming and could feel the current from the spring pushing them. The water is crystal clear and a balmy 72F. Down from the spring, in the river we saw about 4 manatee feeding. The manatee come into the spring in the evening. We spent our evenings around the campfire singing Christmas Carols. It seems a little strange that Christmas is so close, we still feel like we are on summer holiday. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the springs. We had an accident with our camera in Tampa and we haven't found a camera store to see if we can fix it.

We are camped along a beautiful beach here in Carrabelle. We just haven't been able to use it because it is so cold. All the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico have sugar white sand beaches. It is just beautiful!! Wish you were here.