And even more exploring

We did some more exploring today. Our adventure started out at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi – Louisiana border. While we never even knew this existed, it turns out that all rocket engines used by NASA were tested here, and some were actually developed here. Werner Bon Braun, the famous German rocket scientist, worked here in the early days. Even commercial jet engines were tested here, including the Rolls Royce engines used on the Boeing Dreamliner.

We toured the visitor center and walked among all the NASA artifacts like suits, capsules and lunar rocks – it was awesome! We thought about visiting a different day, but with the Corona Virus causing things to be cancelled or closed, we decided to go since it was open. The impact of Covid 19 even here at a NASA facility was obvious – thankfully it was open for us to visit at this time.

Since we were reasonably close, we decided to pay a visit to New Orleans again. While we were here a couple weeks the last time, I don’t think you can ever get too much of a really great city. Even though it was a few weeks after Mardi Gras, much of the decorations (and sadly much of the trash on the streets) were still left over from this rockin good time.

The Woman’s niece, Charity, had relocated from New York City to New Orleans withing the last month. So we made arrangements to grab lunch while we were in town, and catch up on all things family. We learned that she was busy – doing interviews for jobs, visiting houses for rent, all the things necessary to make this here new home. We learned that she has several good job prospects – one that she has already had 11 interviews with – but not as lucky on the home front. She seems so happy that it made the Woman smile.

5 miles from our lunch location we identified a Whispering Giant we had never seen before. The 12^th carving by Peter Wolf Toth, it had fallen into disrepair, and we learned when we had bumped into Mr. Toth in Columbia South Carolina that he had just come from New Orleans where he had done similar repairs to his work of art as he was currently doing in South Carolina. Sadly, when we got to Brechtel Park where it was located, we learned that the Park is open daylight hours daily – except for Wednesdays where it is closed!

Fortunately, the Woman spotted the Whispering Giant lest than a block from the locked gate at the entrance. I managed, despite my growing belly, to wriggle under the gate and make my way to the stature. It was in great shape; I am sure in part due to Mr. Toth’s recent work on it. Luckily nobody was patrolling the park, so I was able to sneak in, and then shimmy my way back under the locked gates with no police or park ranger encounters, thank goodness.


Back in the RV Park we stumbled on another amusing vanity license plate. We spotted this on a 42-foot-long Newmar motorhome, with a couple of snowbirds escaping Iowa for the winter. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Things remain weird at the RV Park. The number of families escaping school closure continues to grow, and more and more businesses are closing, or modifying their operations to adapt to the pandemic. We are now actually seeing the Walmart shelves emptying. We were surprised to see the Carnival Valor docked in Gulfport, but learned that the cruise industry needs places to park their idle ships. The Valor will soon be joined by the Carnival Freedom, and later in the week a Royal Caribbean ship will join them as well. They will park in the harbor, and be allowed to dock weekly for provisions, but their crew will not be allowed to disembark. Things just keep getting weirder - hopefully some relief in the pressure will come soon. 

Talk to you soon.