And one more just for fun from Yellowstone!

 This picture somehow got out of order but this is one I framed from our trip this summer, a favorite day from our travels and amazing 26 day camping trip from summer of 2021 in Yellowstone. 

Oklahoma Arkansas Mississippi Louisiana Alabama and....FLORIDA!

 After our stay in Kansas and visit with Ron and Cindy Rahjes we were on a mission to get back to Florida for our last fun stop which was a few days on the panhandle in the Destin area on what they call the Emerald Coast.  These were a few painful long days of mostly just driving but we made it.  We stopped at a nice new KOA  in Oklahoma, they had a nice pool, it was very hot and we had done nothing but drive all day so swimming felt great but I remember there were terrible black flies at this place.  We decided we would NOT want to ever live in Oklahoma, pretty unrembarkable.  Behind Oklahoma we drove through Arkansas, there are parts of this state that were pretty and we would like to go back to explore the Ozark lake area in northern Arkansas, we got a quick glance and we decided it is worth coming back!   We would also like to take a stop on a trip to spend  a few hours walking around the HOt Springs national park that is in Arkansas, apparently its in a completely different part than where we were driving through so we did not hit that one on this trip.  We did go through Little Rock the capital and then we were in southern Arkansas (area to avoid, very very poor area) before we ended up for the night in Vicksburg Mississippi.  This was supposed to be a cool stop and we did get to do a drive through Civil War Memorial and had dinner at an old restaurant along the Mississippi but we could see signs everywhere of just how hard this old town was hit by Coivd.  A lot of their economy was from the stern wheelers that have casinos on board going up and down the Mississippi bringing visitors to the town to eat and drink and shop for the day before they get back on the boat for their river cruise.  The pandemic killed that industry off and there were sad signs of that everywhere here.  It was also incredibly hot here and we decided definitely not a place we would ever want to live!!  After our stay in Mississippi for the night it was on to Florida that next day after passing back through Louisiana and Alabama.  

We made it to the panhandle and the Destin beach area by mid day or early afternoon and got set up to enjoy 3 days at the beach before making the final drive back to Vero Beach.  This stop was about 8-9 hours from our house so we still had ONE full day of driving to get back to Vero after our time at the beach.  This has been the way we have ended two long camping trips now two summers in a row and its a really nice part of Florida we don't otherwise get to as it is just so far from home for us!!  On this trip we figured out a few weeks in advance that our good friends from Vero the Shapiro family would be there at their grandparents condo around the same time we were so we spent a few days a the beach with them and even rented a boat one day with them and took it to a well known spot called Crab Island.

Here are our pictures from the balance of our summer trip and our time in Destin.  This truly is a special part of Florida called the Emerald Coast because the water really does have an emerald green hue to it!