Tuesday-It takes two days for us to get out of Florida, and one hour to get through Alabama. At least that is true while driving along the Gulf. We made it to Alabama by 11:30.
To get through Alabama on Interstate 10 without detouring, we had to go through the tunnel in Mobile.
Thank goodness we had some big trucks in front of us to see how high the ceiling really is. This tunnel goes deep, because it goes under a major shipping channel. We’ve been OVER the tunnel in the channel with our boat, Island Girl, twice. Now we’ve been through the tunnel with NITRO twice (including last fall on our Southern road trip).
By 12:45 we were popping into Mississippi. It is about 62 miles across Alabama – kind of like driving across the upper panhandle of Idaho…. one hour and you’re through to the next state.
By 1:30 we were at our Harvest Host location for the night. We had received an email from the host earlier in the day, stating that the brewery and restaurant would not be open tonight due to a medical emergency. He assured us that it was fine if we spent the night. Whew!
Kenny got up on the roof just to make sure we weren’t still dragging any branches or moss around with us from last night’s campground. Getting out of there this morning required ducking under some low branches that swept our roof. He said all was good upstairs. 👍
Part of my “Navigator” title includes finding fuel stations where we can drag this behemoth through without issue, finding water and dump facilities if we aren’t staying where we can accomplish those tank requirements, and finding places to fill our propane tanks. I guess I am “Navigator/Tank” person! Some tanks we need to fill, others we need to empty. Well, I have found that Tractor Supply is a great place to get propane tanks filled. We’ve gone through some juice with the last few cold nights, so it was nice that there was a store not far from us. We got that chore done, so off into town.
We went exploring to find some food and refreshment. Since our tastebuds were already programmed to be staying at a brewery tonight, we stopped in at the Beer House in Ocean Springs. We had some lunch and tried a couple of beers. Nothing amazing, but it was a really cute place.
Then we wandered around this cute little town, with it’s boutique shops and restaurants. We are near Biloxi Mississippi, and apparently this little place can really hustle during tourist season – whenever that is. We happened across another brewery! I saw Craft Advisory Brewing on the Google, but there was no info or beer list provided, so I didn’t have it on our radar. We wandered in to see what they had.
Dude! They had about 30 of their own beers, and another maybe 15 guest taps! I asked the bartender if they had any barrel aged, and YES! they do! She described the coffee chocolate imperial milk stout, with a float of Screwball on top! SOLD!! (Screwball is a peanut butter whiskey that I love.). Another barrel aged beer was an IPA. That’s really weird. She said it was still fermenting in the keg? and so it pours with a really deep head on it. Kenny ordered it and he said it was good. Mine was ah-may-zing! This combo just changed my life forever. Why didn’t I ever think of it??
We had a fun experience while sitting at the bar, telling the bartender about how we were in our RV, parked at Fort Bayou Brewing, but they weren’t open, so we had to come find some beer. Another couple had just come in while we were telling the story, and THEY were staying at Fort Bayou too, and came looking for beer! They were a really nice couple from Montreal, camping in their Sprinter type big van. They’d been on the road for two months, and were heading slowly back north. He spoke pretty good English, with quite a French accent. She had never spoken conversational English before this trip, so some things he had to translate for her. They were super nice and friendly, and we had fun talking about places we’d been.
When we got back home, I was perusing Facebook, and saw something about Starkbierzeit. Translated from German means Strong Beer Season! HA! It’s a real thing in Germany that happens during Lent – held every March in Munich since 1751!! There are rules about the beers – like they have to be a minimum of 7.5%. I just thought this was fun, so I had to send a screen shot of this to my boys. Brian and I really like strong (imperial/barrel aged) beers. So we got a little history lesson about Stark. Our oldest daughter took German in high school, and she said that [Stark = heavy or strong]. I asked if I can claim the strong part, because I’m really trying not to be heavy. 😉💪🏼
Back in our parking lot, there was us, a big motorhome with a tow behind jeep, and the van from Montreal. It was a nice level paved parking lot for free, and the weather for the night was forecasted to be mild – in the 50’s. So no heat or a/c would be needed. 👌