June 28

Our first official day was a bit too long (12+ hours, about 10 driving). We didn’t prepare well, in terms of food and the route was fairly rural so we mostly ate crap. But the smaller highways were pretty and I was able to drive for a while (first time towing La Bella Luna).

It was dark and we were exhausted when we arrived at our spot at La Fleur’s Bluff State Park, outside of Jackson MS. I was pretty stressed and not much help to Chris as he worked to back up into our spot. Trying to set up in the dark sucks so we will aim for less total driving time in a day and stoping during daylight.

We decide to slow it down and stay a second night. The second day we ran some errands (as La Fleur is basically inside Jackson city limits) and had brunch at The Manship Wood Fire Grill. It was a nice little restaurant with amazing smoked Gouda grits. Chris had chicken and waffles. So much food he was able to make 3 meals of it!

La Fleur is bayou-esque and we saw many beautiful water birds: snowy egrets, great blue herons and others.

We spent 3 nights total in Cloudland. The third night was Chris’ birthday and hiked down to Cherokee Falls and later \240went to a cute little restaurant that Ian and Marcelle recommended in nearby Merton, Ala.

PS, \240Cocoa is doing better than expected and it turns out that Sadie loves to camp. She spent most of her time sitting in the camp chair outside LBL, watching the world go by.

After the brewery, we did some mad cap shopping for supplies before