Lake Perry Mississippi

Thursday 1/16/14
After leaving Ft Picken's and Pensacola at 9am (temps this morning were 36 at 7:30 and 46 at 9am) we stopped at a Publix grocery store where I picked up all the gluten free stuff I could possibly want!  When we got back to the RV there was an obnoxious sound coming from the LP gas monitor...... we opened all the doors and tried to figure out what was leaking.  All the appliances were turned off.  After several minutes of scratching his head, Greg opened the back storage compartment and found that the small propane bottle attached to the portable grill had accidentally been turned back on when it was put in storage.  Whew!!!! That was an easy fix but it put us behind a few minutes.  We had planned to drive 5+ hours today to get the state line between Mississippi and Louisiana at Homochitto National Forest.  We stopped again outside of Mobile AL at a Walmart to get marine toliet paper and to eat lunch (in the RV) and that put us really behind schedule.  We started looking for somewhere to camp outside of Hattiesburg MS but the GPS couldn't locate anything inside the DeSoto National Forest.  We could see a campground on the map but couldn't see complete directions.  Even after looking it up on the internet we still couldn't get good directions.  We lucked out by passing another campground as we were looking for the way into the original one and it was PERFECT!!!   Lake Perry out of Beaumont MS, a small lake with about 20 RV spots and we were the only campers!  The forest ranger wasn't even there.  We set up camp overlooking the lake and walked over to the office to pay our fee when the ranger pulled up.  Joey (the ranger) showed us lots of trophy fish mounted in his office; showed us a map of the area and even a half-mile interpretive trail they had in the park with local trees labeled.  He even gave us a bag of ice!!!  What a great place.  We did the trail hike with the trees labeled then we had a relaxing evening enjoying home-made gluten free cornbread with jalapenos and cheese, rice with spinach and beans, and grilled salmon patties.  We took a stroll later in the full moon-light, had a really hot shower in the bath house, and slept like babies all night!  We even kept the shades open all night to have the moon light shining in on us.


Friday 1/17/14
Greg woke early and snapped a couple of great sunrise pictures with brillant red skies.  It was 46 degrees at 7:30, not too bad.  We both went for a 40 minute run.  I got back to camp and found a Mississippi State Trooper car parked next to us..... ut oh.... The trooper was out on the pier and it seemed to me he was waiting for us to get back to camp.  All sorts of crazy things were going thru my head like "Joey the ranger was not really a ranger, but a serial killer!!!!".  I walked out on the pier to greet him and he was FISHING!!!!  The only thing fishy going on was him.   His job is tough if he can spend mornings fishing!  Greg got back and joined us on the dock.  After chit-chatting with him a few minutes, we left to eat breakfast then packed up camp to head toward Natchez MS and the Homochitto National forest.

Lake Perry campsite

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