Unscheduled Stop, Gulfport, Mississippi

It has been awhile since my last post, again.  Things have been hopping and getting online has been a challenge.  But to pick up where I last left off, the people that we engaged to repair the damaged brake lines did a bucks up job.

They showed up the next day as scheduled and got the damaged brake lines removed and off to a local shop that can custom make new lines on the spot.  That was the key to success for this job.  It would have been easy enough to remove the damaged lines myself and order replacements from the manufacturer.  But that would have been days, if not weeks waiting for the parts to get to me.  These repair guys shortened the job to a few hours.  The hardest part was purging about 25 feet of brake line and six calipers.

It was mid-afternoon by the time everything was buttoned up and ready to go but it was horrible hot, plus we were a little gun-shy about having a problem on the road.  That brought us to the decision to stay put until the next morning when it would be cooler, and more importantly, would have access to open businesses if something else did happen.

Well, since we are "stuck" in Gulfport, Mississippi we are obligated to go to the beach aren't we?  I think it is a law or something.  The sun is not setting until after 8:00pm but shadows are getting long so we hustle out of the campground (which is pressed against I-10) and head south.  It is still unbelievably hot and Big Gulp's A/C is going full blast as we approach the beach community.

Like Gulf Shores (see post), Gulfport had been severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but fortunately a number of the old, pre-1900 buildings weren't completely wiped off the face of the earth.  Gulfport has also been spending considerable effort restoring and building back their waterfront.  It looks great.

We got to the beach just as the light of day was beginning to fail.  The crowds had gone and the sand was left to itself to give up the heat it had been absorbing all day.  A stiff on-shore breeze was blowing and the warm waters of the gulf were saturating the air.

It almost got dark before we made it to the beach.
We had the last light of day all to ourselves.

We are going to get an early start in the morning so after just a little bit of looking around we got back to the RV and got it configured for traveling.  The trip should be really short, Mandeville, Louisiana is less than an hour away.