Pass Christian, Mississippi

Good morning from Mississippi. If you remember, this wasn’t our planned destination for yesterday’s travels, but more tire problems landed us here. We left the Emerald Beach RV park in Navarre, Florida just after 9 yesterday morning, joining the steady stream of post Thanksgiving holiday travelers heading west on Interstate 10. We stopped for lunch and to search for Alabama postcards for the kids’ albums just west of Mobile. It took a couple of stops, but we were ultimately successful and continued on our journey towards New Orleans.

Just past Biloxi a car slowed beside us and motioned that we were having tire problems on the trailer. I pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate and got out to take a look. The right rear tire tread had separated from the casing, and a piece had flown off and dented the fender and under side of the trailer. Since the tire wasn’t flat and the traffic was wicked on the Interstate, we limped along the shoulder to an exit ramp a half mile up the road and called AAA. I removed the damaged fender and took the spare out of the back so everything was ready for them when they arrived.

Within an hour the tire was changed and we were ready to hit the road again. We only had an hour of light left, and since the spare is a different brand of tire than the others I didn’t want to push the extra 60 miles into New Orleans. While waiting for AAA on the exit ramp we had noticed a sign to an RV park nearby, so Teressa called and booked a site (and pushed out our reservation in New Orleans). As a result, last night was spent at the “Flea Market and RV Park” near Pass Christian, Mississippi (and yes, we did check out the flea market before it closed at 5)! For $26 a night it is a reasonable campground with full hookups. There are only a handful of travelers here like us, and about a dozen FEMA trailers (old camping trailers) with residents leftover from the Katrina hurricane back in 2005! Apparently FEMA has been trying to evict them, but many have nowhere to go. Our neighbor next door is from upstate Minnesota, and was quite eager to have new people to talk with. His daughter and her family live in Biloxi, so he and his wife come down every winter to visit. He said that since the hurricane, it has been quite an experience. Apparently this RV park was almost completely full with FEMA trailers the first year after Katrina.

This morning we headed back down the freeway to a tire store I called first thing in the morning and had two new trailer tires put on the Cougar. The tire shop was a slice of life (see the picture of their Christmas display out front), but the staff was helpful and the facility clean. I did notice the night before while I was researching tire stores that the only reference on Yahoo for their facility was posted by a user with the same name as the tire store – of course it was a good review! ;-) They had us back on the road headed for New Orleans shortly after 10.
Stay tuned….