Kiwanis Club Christmas Parade

 ( I'm very far behind on my posts. :D)

We came through Baton Rouge last year, ran into the parade crowd, and spent hours trying to find a route to the north end of town. Surprisingly, I remembered that this year so we made plans to arrive a day early and go to the parade. The parade has been held almost every year since 1948 and features many school bands, dance studio troupes, bag pipers, floats, and the Santa train. Candy, small toys, and cups are thrown from the floats. 

 

We found a fairly quiet spot near the Capitol to watch the parade. Sidewalks and curb cuts are good in this area but since the streets are closed it doesn't really matter.

The parking lots to the west of the Capitol have spaces where RVs will fit. Arrive early to get a space. Parade  30.45774, -91.18909

 

Alice Moseley Museum

Alice Moseley is the Grandma Moses of the southern coast. Like Grandma Moses her paintings are primitive in style and feature scenes depicting the  everyday life of the people where she lived.  She began painting at 65 and created 100s of paintings over the next 26 years. She died on July 2004, at the age of 94. 

The museum is housed in the historic Bay St. Louis Train Depot. The first floor has a few displays on local history plus some colorful Mardi Gras costumes. The second floor is dedicated to Alice Moseley's paintings and a gift shop with prints of the paintings.

The museum is accessible. An elevator provides access to the second floor. 

Shorter RVs will fit in the parking lots. Long RVs can be parked on the street.  Museum  30.30833, -89.33432

 

Scarlet Pearl Casino Resort

 The casino is located north of Biloxi, across the waters of Back Bay of Bilox. Since most of the casinos in Biloxi are not allowing overnight RV parking this one is a welcome alternative.  There are several large parking lots that look like they get little use. We parked in the one north of the gravel lot and had it mostly to ourselves. No need to check in.

A sidewalk with good curb cuts leads to the casino entrance. The casino is accessible but the carpet is plush making wheelchair pushing and moving the chairs a bit difficult. Casino  30.42773, -88.88992

Walter Anderson Museum of Art

Walter Anderson was a prolific and talented artist who worked in many different mediums. He designed and decorated pottery for his family's business, designed and built furniture, carved wood sculptures, illustrated books, painted with oils and watercolors, made linoleum blockprints, and created large wall murals. He was also eccentric, spending long periods of time on an uninhabited island that he accessed by rowboat and bicycling thousands of miles in Costa Rico and China where he sketched and journaled about the people, plants, and animals. 

 

After his death in 1965 a padlock was removed from the door to a small room in his Mississippi cottage to reveal walls covered with detailed murals portraying a day on the coast from sunrise to night fall. The room was removed piece by piece and reassembled in the museum. But the showpiece of the museum is the Ocean Springs Community House with murals covering all four walls, floor to ceiling. Anderson offered to paint the murals for just a dollar but the public wasn't enthusiastic about the project. Disheartened, Anderson quit painting in 1952. He would occasionally stop by the center and work on the murals but he never completely finished them. 

The museum is accessible. The Community Center doors are not opened so make sure to go the the museum entrance. The small sculpture garden is not accessible but it can be seen from the sidewalk.

The streets in Ocean Springs are narrow with overhanging branches. There isn't any parking for RVs on the main street or at the museum. We went south of the museum, turned east on Joseph Street, and parked in a long space in a side lot of the municipal services building. Museum  30.41092, -88.82756

 

Langan Park Trails

 Short trails loop through the park and circle around Spring Hill Lake. The Mobile Museum of Art which we visited in 2011 is located at the east end of the park and the Mobile Botanical Gardens is at the west end. 

We walked/rolled about a mile along the trails on the north side of the lake before turning around and retracing our path. We did not go on any of the trails that paralleled the roads. The trails are paved and level but there are a few steep spots where wheelchair users may need assistance. 

RVs will fit in the parking lots if backed up over the grass or parked lengthwise across the spaces. Trails 30.70427, -88.15547

 

 

Route 20 Boat Ramp

Rainy days and dirt roads derailed my plan to camp at Pine Log State Forest Campground. We'd stayed there in 2011and liked it a lot but after reading reports on the condition of the roads after rain, this boat ramp parking lot seemed like a smart option. 

The parking lot has a row of long spaces for boat trailers that got a lot of use the next morning even with the rain. We had been parked in the long spaces but moved to the shorter spaces by the picnic shelter to leave the trailer spaces open. There are trash cans, a porta-potty, and a picnic table. 30.45064, -85.8994

Newport Campground

This small 29 site county campground makes a great base for exploring the wildlife management areas, refuges, and state parks in this quiet, undeveloped section of Florida panhandle. We visited for just a few days so we definitely need to go back to see more of the area. 

The campground has full hookup sites, water and electric sites, electric only sites, and primitive sites. There's a dump station and restrooms with showers. The sites are a little haphazardly arranged and fairly close together so there's little privacy.

 I did not get out of our RV because of the rain but the ground appeared to be hard packed. The ground around the picnic shelter was the only area that got flooded.  Campground  30.1995, -84.17621