Pictures of the trip back home

After Alabama we headed north on our way back home.  We stopped at two places, the first was Jimmy Davis State Park in Louisiana.  We had only one day here and it was a nice state park filled mostly with what appeared to be locals.  We swam of course everyone's favorite but out of the water it was too hot to do anything.  I was itching for a camp fire since we hadn't had one for a while.  Our campground's at Disney and Gulf State Park didn't have fire rings.  This one did but it was just too hot to sit outside by a fire so we skipped it at this stop as well.  It's funny when we pulled in the day before we saw campers with cattle fans setup outside. It seemed odd but now we got it, no way you could sit outside and just hang out without some air movement. We were pretty much confined to the camper when not swimming.  Well expect for Marcus who was scooting all around the campground and would pop in red faced every once in a while.  The other two scooted a bit and we did try it outside for a while but it was just crazy hot out.  So after supper without much else to do I announced I'd like to go to West Monroe that was 40 minutes away and see a movie.  Everyone liked that idea and we struck out to hit the 6:55 showtime of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. We made it in plenty of time and sat in the nice cool theater for about 40 minutes before the show started.  Marcus, Lucas, and I even finished a large popcorn and made it back for a second tub before the movie started, a first for us.  Not that we really wanted the second tub at that point but it was more the principle of the thing, or so I thought. Towards the end of the show Marcus said a pained "here dad take this away" and handed me the nearly empty tub.

The next and final stop on our SE adventure was Lake Ouachita State Park, Arkansas.  It was a short drive at four hours and we had heard about the Crater of Diamonds State Park from a guy at work which just happened to be on the way so we figured we'd stop off a couple hours to strike it rich mining for diamonds.  Mining for diamonds was fun but it was too hot out to stay very long.  We  rented a screen and washed rocks in the blazing sun for a while.  We found a lot of things we thought maybe could be diamonds but turned out to be just quartz.  Little tip be sure to go through and look at all the diamond exhibit stuff before you head to the field, probably would have helped us figure out what we were looking for.  Sounds like only 1 or 2 diamonds are found a day so pretty unlikely we would have happened across one but it was fun and if it wasn't so hot I could have stayed all day washing rocks.  After mining for diamonds it was a couple hours to Lake Ouachita.  We got setup and headed out to the beach.  It was a very clear water lake. We could see fish swimming around so spent a lot of time snorkeling around looking at them.  I even saw a really big bass which was cool.  We were there for two days the first just swimming and hanging around the campsite, it was still really hot but we had a couple of camp fires here anyway.  The second day we went to check out Hot Springs National Park. It was only 15 miles away and must be the strangest national park ever.  It's really in the town and is mostly a row of bath houses and a couple of trails.  I think I was expecting a big hot pool/lake of water or something but it's nothing like that.  We walked around and filled our water bottles up with some hot and cool spring water and drank some 4000 year old water.  There was a mountain tower overlook that we went to and then we drove around to the west mountain loop road.  Overall it was neat just not what any of us expected.  We went back and swam in the afternoon and the boys and I did a quick 1/2 mile hike on a trail by our campsite and got ready to head home the next day.

The ride home was brutal.  We figured on 14 hours from AK to SD but with stops and everything it took us 17 hours.  We left at 8am Friday morning and got home at 2am Saturday morning.  We didn't have any trouble with the ride and the kids did really well it was just a long day for everyone.  The kids decided to have a Disney movie marathon so could only pick Disney movies out of their collection for the entire trip.  Which caused some turmoil when Marcus tried to pick a none Disney Movie about 12 hours in.  His rebellion was quickly and mercilessly crushed, with full parent support (after all they had been talking about it all day and were this far in).  We got home blurry eyed and piled out and went to bed leaving the trailer hooked up and parked in the road instead of backing it into the drive way.

View from our Jimmie Davis site

A lot of camper movie time these last two stops

Lake Ouachita

Our site at the Lake Ouachita Campground. The campground was one of the nicer one's I've seen with everything up on retaining walls overlooking the lake and flat crushed rock or cement camping areas.  My preference if for something a little more natural but it was really nice.

More Lake Ouachita

Lucas and Marcus made a bowling alley out of some starter firewood and the bocci ball set

The lanes were open late

Hot Springs NP, hot water coming out of a fountain

Bathhouses

Trail behind the bath houses where you could see some hot water from the springs coming down the hill in a natural setting

Marcus photo bomb

Marcus' future career??

Just lovely, and there's a nice flower in the picture as well.

The Mountain Tower

Top of the tower

View from the top

Marcus and I took the stairs down

The top of the west mountain driving loop

I finally got some hiking in. Lucas, Marcus, and I on the dogwood trail by our campsite.  It's a short 1/2 mile hike.

We are done, another trip in the books.  Our SE Adventure had some ups and downs but overall was another epic trip.  I'm writing this over a week after being home, it's funny how after just a few days the struggles and hardships that were there in the moment and even took center stage on this one a little more than our other two trips are fading away and leaving fond memories.  There's places I'd go back to in a second and some I'd skip but there's wonder and adventure everywhere in this great country, I can't wait to hit the road again and explore some more.

And Finally the Family Truckster update
Miles Driven: 4956

Gallons of Gas: 487

Time in car: 127 hours

We had the longest drive ever this year with the last drive back home, 802 miles which took over 17 hours. 

DAY NINETEEN - DAY TWENTY-TWO The Gulf of Mexico in Alabama.

DAY NINETEEN - DAY TWENTY-TWO The Gulf of Mexico in Alabama.

I feel like I could sum this up really quite quickly by just saying "this was where we were meant to be."

To be sure the drive to get to Alabama took a full day, and setting up in the dark, five feet from an alligator-infested canal was scary (I was told), but man was it worth it.

It still rained quite a bit, but when it wasn't, we were in the water snorkeling and swimming. It sort of made the beach umbrellas we thought we needed obsolete, but they did come in handy for snack breaks.

The sand at this beach was unreal. It was like light caramel colored powdered sugar. It actually squeaked when we walked through it; it was so fine. While it did bring me a slight flashback to April Fools Day when the kids literally covered my floors in powdered sugar, I was quick to recover. It was too perfect not to.  

The first day there we made friends with a little girl who had strawberry blonde hair, freckles, and a thick southern accent. She was totally adorable and loved a good chat. Near the end of the day, I happened to look down in the surf and plucked out a perfect black shark tooth. I showed all the boys and Jason was quite jazzed. When our southern friend came to look at it she turned her enormous blue eyes up at me and said, "Can I have that shark tooth?" I explained that I really wanted to keep for the boys and then she said, "But I never had a real shark tooth." Well, I couldn't argue with that, especially when we had a whole jar of shark teeth at home from a previous trip. I looked in the surf and sand the following two days for another tooth and never did find one.

On our last day at the beach, I told Jason I was going to see how far I could walk out before I couldn't touch and told him he was coming with. This was not his idea of a good time as earlier we had seen fins in the water that we half-heartedly identified as dolphins, but he came with anyway. Just as I was up to my shoulders in water, a school of Mullets dove out of the water right behind Jason and scared him half to death. We quickly laughed our way back to more shallow water, and I reminded him that they jump not only when they're being chased (by sharks), but sometimes just for fun. It was probably just for fun, right?

Later that evening, we walked the endless pier from which we spotted a shark. We ended the evening by going to a delicious seafood restaurant, where we all sampled gator and ate way too much.

This was everybody's favorite stop.

  

Gulf Shores Alabama Pictures

After Disney we drove across Florida to Gulf State Park by Gulf Shores Alabama, it's just west of Orange Beach.  The drive was long as usual, we got a late start as I fiddled with the underbelly of the camper which had pulled free and was dragging on the ground.  That took a couple hours to fix up and we headed out about noon.  It was a10 hour drive day and with the late start meant we got in after dark.  Our site was along a canal and it was right there, all I could think of was alligators as I hurried to get the camper setup.  No one would dare to get out to help so I was all alone out there with just the light from my headlamp. I didn't blame them it was freaky and I don't think I ever setup the camper as fast as I did that night. But of course all was fine and once setup we headed right to bed.  The next day we got up and hit the beach mid-morning the sun was shinning and we were excited to get to the water.  The state park beach access was just across the road so only a couple of minutes drive and we were there.  Everyone was having fun then the clouds behind us over land started getting dark and thunder started rolling, no one seemed alarmed but from where we're from (and I thought everywhere else) when you see lightning you get out of the water.  We stuck it out for a few more minutes talking about it but then Becky and I saw a couple of bolts so we yelled at the kids and packed it up.  We figured we needed to get some sun umbrella's anyway if we were going to survive at the beach for any amount of time so went to the campground store and then back to the camper to have lunch.  Later that afternoon the sun came out again and we stayed at the beach until dusk.  Next days were more of the same we spent most of our time at the beach or back at the camper resting from the beach. Our second day there I took the truckster into town to get the oil changed while everyone had an afternoon nap.  The last day we said good bye to the beach late that afternoon and got ready to explore the pier and head into town to have some seafood.  The pier is reportedly the longest into the Gulf and it was pretty impressive.  I saw the shadows of a few sharks swimming around but in the evening light it was hard to see into the water.  All and all this was a great stop the beach and water were amazing, they had powder fine sand that squeaked when you walked on it.  The Munsch's love Gulf Shores Alabama.

Shot of the campsite, in the light of day wasn't as menacing as I imagined, but still it is really close to the water.

Another view of our campsite, pull through spot was nice arriving after dark.

The Beach

Luke was finding shells with holes in them so we could make necklaces.  Becky found a shark tooth but gave it to a little girl that was playing with the boys, "never had a shark tooth before" said in a southern tone. How could anyone resist. 

Our beach base, umbrellas are life savers.

The pier

This is only about a third of the way out, didn't get a good shot of the whole thing

A nice lady fishing offered to take our picture

Look at this fun guy

Checking out some souvenir shops while waiting for a table on our night out.  Tomorrow we're heading north

DAY EIGHTEEN-The Magic Kingdom.

DAY EIGHTEEN-The Magic Kingdom.

Out of all the parks, the Magic Kingdom was the least favorite amongst 100 percent of Munschs who were surveyed.

We had just been to Disneyland two years previously, and this was just more of the same. Except for this time, there were a zillion more people. We mostly relied on our fast-passes to get through the park and skipped all of the little kid rides. And It's A Small World.

However, when we went to redeem our fast pass for Splash Mountain, they turned us away as there was a ride malfunction. In my three other Disney visits combined there had been a total of zero ride malfunctions. This visit to the parks it was more the rule than the exception. They did say we could come back at any time in the day to redeem our passes, so we just wove that into the rest of our visit and it wound up working a lot better. But I did feel especially bad for the people who had been waiting in the regular line for over an hour and were evacuated. Hopefully, they got a voucher for a free donut the size of their heads.   

There were only two lines that we waited in. First up, The Peter Pan ride, which was disappointing. I mean, I would wait 45 minutes tops for that ride. Not an hour and a half. One kid, who was clearly overindulged, had a folding beach chair that he would kick along the line and then sit in. He was maybe 10, but could not be bothered with standing in a line for that long. He used his time shuffling along in his chair playing videos games. Apparently, the Disney magic that surrounded him was not captivating enough, and it was pretty impressive as the waiting area of that ride was at least as good as the ride itself. Also, what did he do with that chair when he got on the ride? Did it ride with him? Did he hand it off to a cast member? Did he play his game while he rode? So many questions.
 
We also waited for an hour and forty-five minutes at the Seven Dwarfs Mine Coaster, where exactly one hour and forty-two minutes in, Lucas exclaimed that he had to go to the bathroom and wanted to get out of line. Um. No. It turns out he was nervous that the coaster was going to be scary. We reassured him that it was not even close to scary and he managed to hold it through the ride which lasted about 45 seconds. Whew. To be fair, I also needed to use the bathroom in a serious way in that same line. There really should be little way stops with bathrooms in those super long lines. Our kids were old enough to hold it, but I can't imagine being there with younger kiddos who aren't as capable. Or you know, just other people who didn't have 1-gallon bladders made of steel.

We hit all the rides we set out to ride and finally decided to call it a night. Waiting in the line for the ferry was by far the worst part of our day. Samus was pretty sure that his feet hurt more than anybody's feet in the history of humanity. Thankfully we would be riding in the car most of the next day.

When we finally got back to the camper, we piled inside and slept like dead horses.