Sisters on the Gulf Coast

 We spent one night at Fontainbleau State Park on the east side of Lake Pontchartrain.  Expecting only a place to park for the night, we were pleasantly surprised by the abundance of....

...WILD life.

This guy was so tame he strolled right past us without a concern,

But here was REAL wild life.

We didn't try to get close.  There were also deer roaming around, just a great spot right off the highway for getting close to nature.

Our first beach stop was Biloxi and we discovered that Daisy could earn her keep.

Jo was thrilled to get her feet back in the sand...

...but for 'Hilo Mary' it was just more of the same but without the lava.

Daisy discovered that someone put salt in the water.

How annoying!

It was a sublimely pleasant time.  Three (cranky, independent, opinionated, slightly senile) sisters plus a dog, spending 10 days and nights in a 24 foot long RV--has its challenges.

Staying close to the water with lots of room to play...

Soft breezes, the whooshing sound of foamy waves, plus the occasional cawing of hungry seagulls is the perfect antidote to 'ruffled feathers'.

We took the ferry across to Dauphin Island then traveled to Gulf Shores State Park south of Mobile where we stayed a few nights before heading back towards New Orleans.

We explored Fort Morgan. 

As we left the park we noticed the nest on top of the chimney at the Ranger station.

When we crossed back into Louisiana we received the call from Suzanne that Aunt Louise had died. Her passing was easy, she went with no pain.  She was a very strong lady.  She fully expected to be around for a few more years--and so did we, but in the end I think she was just too tired to keep going.
We were 24 hours from the family reunion in Thibodeaux so we decided to attend, especially since Mary had to change all her flight plans and I had to repack the RV for the trip.  So for the next two days we wore out the phones making all the arrangements to reside for most of the summer in Ft Worth and do the very difficult task of closing up an apartment, a history and a life.