From Little Rock to Dauphin Island

 Hotel free breakfasts look different these days.  We went downstairs to get our "sack" breakfast and ate it back in our room.  Gone are the days when there would be a hot breakfast with one of those waffle makers or perhaps a chef who would make you an omelet the way you wanted.  The hotels may never go back.  It costs much less to give the customers a sack.

We were on the road by 8am.  We find roads like the one above rather interesting.  Or should I say "uninteresting."  All you see are trees.  I love trees, but when I drive through a state, I want to SEE the landscape, the countryside!  

Our son and his family were behind us by a couple of hours.  We were able to "watch" where they were as they shared their location with Google.

Notice the barrier between the kids?!

We also were able to track our daughter Jill and her family on Life 360 and then on Flight Tracker as they flew to Mobile from Milwaukee.  

As we were driving in Arkansas, we drove through the town of McGehee.  We saw a sign for a Japanese internment camp museum.  Bummed that we were on a time restraint.  I would have liked to have seen this place.  I had heard of the internment camps in California, but did you know there was one here too?

Al is always impressed with the rice fields and soybean fields.  Arkansas is the largest rice producing state in the country!  Unlike in Japan where I grew up where rice is grown in rice paddies, rice here is furrow irrigated or row crop farmed.

We were following a car from Oklahoma and Al was trying to keep up with him.  He was going pretty fast!  Our GPS took us on 65 around a C-shaped lake and onto some small back roads to connect us onto Mississippi 49.  This red vehicle above that we were following was taking the same path.  How would we have ever gone this way using the old atlas?   Somehow we did it back then, and without cell phones either!

Crossing the Mississippi.

Al remarked "They must have money out of their old yazoo."

We came to a stoplight and came alongside the Oklahoma car we'd been following.  Rolled down our window and asked them if they were headed to the Gulf.  They were!  To Destin.  They said they assumed we were headed to the same area since we were following them on all these small roads where GPS was taking us both.

When Al retires and we have more time, I'd like to see this place too!  We've been to the one in Arizona.  I found this picture of me and my brother when we went there back in the 1970's.

We began to see many cars toting beach gear.  Maybe next time we will have to hitch along a small U-Haul for all our stuff!

There was major construction in Jackson and took a long time to get through the city.  Here we are along highway 10 along the gulf.

The bridge!!!  Almost there!!  It takes us 16 hours but it is worth it!!

I love, love, love these row houses we see when we first hit the island!

I would love to get some bird houses painted like them!

Our home for the week!

Al and I unpacked the car and in total made 27 trips up those steps unloading!  

Then Al drove to the Mobile Airport to pick up Jill's family while I put the food up on the "pantry" and stocked the bathrooms with tpp and soap.

Then I went and sat on the beach!

After awhile, the rest of the family arrived!  Claire joined me for awhile then jumped up to change into her swimsuit.

The beach - our happy place!