Travel from Springfield, Louisiana to Lena, Mississippi

We drove our coach 186 miles, about three hours of driving, from Springfield, Louisiana to Lena, Mississippi.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north:

Route map

An interactive map:

Convertible Beetle:

Convertible Beetle

Flooded road in front of our first site:

Flooded road

Our first site was a little damp:

Our first site

An interesting sign near the entrance of the park:

Sign near the entrance of the park

A closer look:

Sign near the entrance of the park

Narrow road from the park:

Narrow road from the park

Petro fuel stop:

Petro fuel stop

We had lunch while driving, with me feeding crackers with salami and cheese to Jenn:

Lunch

Welcome to Mississippi:

Welcome to Mississippi

A sign for the Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument… so of course we had to play Free Bird and songs seeded from that:

Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument

Roadworks on I-55 North:

Roadworks on I-55 North

Watching a Sinclair Trails timelapse travel video while traveling is always a little disconcerting:

Watching Sinclair Trails travel video while traveling

Paladin asleep, touching my foot:

Paladin asleep, touching my foot

Rest area:

Rest area

Exit from I-55 to route 25:

Exit from I-55 to route 25

Paladin asleep:

Paladin asleep

Late foliage:

Late foliage

A narrow road to our destination:

Narrow road to park

Leake County Water Park:

Leake County Water Park

Our site:

Our site

Tickfaw State Park

We stayed at Tickfaw State Park in Springfield, Louisiana. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A nice state park, at least until our site flooded; we moved to a different site for the last night.

Dates:

Check in: 2024-12-08
Check out: 2024-12-13
5 nights

Weather:

Rainy at first then sunny
High temps 56-74°F, lows 35-64°F
A little wind, gusts to 26 MPH, but sheltered by trees

Noise:

No road noise
No train horn noise
Little neighbor noise

First Site:

#27, back-in, asphalt
Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
Mostly level site; high on passenger side; used hydraulic leveling
Asphalt driveway about 65 feet long by 10 feet wide
No neighbors on either side (over 100 feet through trees)
Lots of tall trees between sites
Scraping branches
Picnic table on 24 by 10 feet wooden deck
Charcoal grill and fire pit
Lantern hook
Mostly clean site
Elevation zero feet, front facing South

Second Site:

#6, back-in, asphalt
Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
Level site; used air leveling, since only one night
Asphalt driveway about 70 feet long by 10 feet wide
75 feet to neighbor on driver side
120 feet to neighbor on passenger side
Some tall trees, but only grass between sites
Picnic table on small concrete pad
Charcoal grill and fire pit
Lantern hook
Clean site
Elevation 10 feet, front facing SSW

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located behind site
42 PSI water, fairly conveniently located behind site
Loose sewer connection, very conveniently located (less than 1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

Verizon: 3-5 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up, 25-45 ms ping
T-Mobile: 5 Mbps down, 14 Mbps up, 24 ms ping, unreliable
AT&T: 2-9 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 85-1300 ms ping
Starlink: not used
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters
Boardwalks

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Surrounded by the bayou, sometimes in it

This is a beautiful state park amidst the bayou, but it became a problem because it had rained heavily before we got there, and the river started to rise. We woke up one morning to see that our deck area was surrounded by water and our power pedestal was partially submerged. A very nice ranger came by, ensured we were okay, and offered to help us disconnect the power when we were supposed to depart the following day. However, the water continued to rise throughout the day, and we weren’t comfortable with how high it was getting, so we opted to move to a dryer site for one night. Two other helpful staff put on their waders and disconnected us so we could move. While the rising water was problematic, and the access road is a bit narrow, we would happily stay here again. We camped at Tickfaw State Park in a Motorhome.

Campground map:

Map

An interactive map:

Our first site was delightfully private, surrounded by trees:

Our site

Utilities:

Utilities

Deck, in the rain… hey, what’s a little rain when staying in a bayou?

Deck

Oh, that’s what… we woke up to a flooded site on our last full day:

Flooded site

We kept an eye on it, but the water level kept rising, submerging the power cord from our Watchdog… not great, Bob:

Flooded site

So we made the call to ask to be moved to another site for our last night.

Our second site was more open, not quite as nice, but also not underwater, so that’s a plus:

Our site

Other sites:

Other sites

If we stay here again, this might be a slightly better site, #29:

Other sites

Glamping tent:

Glamping tent

Cabins:

Cabins

Group camp, cabin style:

Group camp

Another group camp, tent style (used by scouts):

Group camp

Dump station:

Dump station

We were very glad we made the call to change sites; our first site was completely submerged the following day, on the day we departed:

Our first site on the day we departed

Yowza!

Despite the flooding, we’d be happy to stay here again. If we do, our first site (#27) would still be a reasonable choice (if no recent or expected rain!), though site #29 might be an even better site.

Travel from Galveston, Texas to Springfield, Louisiana

We drove our coach 346 miles, about six hours of driving, from Galveston, Texas to Springfield, Louisiana.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading east:

Route map

An interactive map:

Following our coach to the dump station, where we toaded up:

Following coach

Galveston Island coast:

Galveston Island coast

Galveston Island sign:

Galveston Island sign

Super scenic refinery:

Refinery

Fred Hartman Bridge by Galveston Bay:

Fred Hartman Bridge by Galvaston Bay

Entering I-10 East:

Entering I-10 East

Rest area:

Rest area

Back to I-10, with Paladin on the dash:

Back to I-10, with Paladin on the dash

Paladin on the dash

Entering Louisiana:

Entering Louisiana

Another rest area:

Rest area

Paladin in his tower box laying on the bed:

Paladin in his tower box

Food trucks:

Food trucks

Overturned big rig, probably going too fast in the rain:

Overturned big rig

Paladin asleep:

Paladin asleep

Rain:

Rain

Yet another rest area:

Rest area

Bridge over the Mississippi River; it always feels like a momentous milestone to cross this river, the divider between the more spacious west side of the country, and the crowded east side:

Bridge over Mississippi River

Mississippi River

A truck with a blown tire:

Truck with blown tire

Large crest on the road in the turn towards the park:

Large crest on the road in the turn towards the park

Narrow road to the park:

Narrow road to the park

Free-range chickens and ducks:

Freerange chickens and ducks

Arriving at Tickfaw State Park:

Arriving at Tickfaw State Park

Arriving at our site:

Arriving at our site

Galveston Island State Park

We stayed at Galveston Island State Park in Galveston, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A nice waterfront state park. We had the best site, with nobody other than some tent sites between us and the gulf.

Dates:

Check in: 2024-12-01
Check out: 2024-12-08
7 nights

Weather:

Lots of wind, some rainy days, some partly cloudy
High temps 62-72°F, lows 56-64°F
Daily wind, gusts to 24 MPH

Noise:

Little road noise
No train horn noise
Occasional helicopters going over
Little neighbor noise

Site:

#60, back-in, concrete
Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
Mostly level site; high in front; used hydraulic leveling
Concrete driveway about 60 feet long by 12 feet wide
22 feet to neighbor on driver side, offset
80 feet to tent pad on passenger side
Separation between sites: just grass, and a little slope on passenger side
Picnic table on covered 16 by 16 feet concrete patio
Fire pit
No trees
Mostly clean site
Elevation 10 feet, front facing due East
Beach view

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
60 PSI water, conveniently located
No sewer connection

Internet (in usage priority order):

T-Mobile: 160 Mbps down, 30 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
AT&T: 120-130 Mbps down, 24 Mbps up, 36 ms ping
Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
Starlink: not used
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters
Beach

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Beautiful beachside camping

This is a beautiful state park campground with nice, large sites and easy access to the beach. The concrete pad was mostly level (just a bit high in the front). The covered patio area had plenty of room for tables and chairs, with hooks on the supports for hanging a hammock or windbreak. There are no sewer connections in the campground, but the dump station is very conveniently located on the way out of the park. We camped at Galveston Island State Park in a Motorhome.

Campground map:

Park map

An interactive map:

Our site:

Our site

View of the gulf out or side window:

View out or side window

Neighboring site:

Neighboring site

Tent sites, mostly empty — unsurprisingly for winter — though the second one was occupied the whole time:

Tent sites

Bathrooms:

Bathrooms

Noticeboard:

Noticeboard

Surf conditions sign:

Surf conditions sign

Path to the beach:

Path to beach

We’d be happy to stay here again.

Travel from San Antonio to Galveston, Texas

We drove our coach 249 miles, about four hours of driving, from San Antonio, Texas to Galveston, Texas.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading east:

Route map

An interactive map:

Paladin on the dash while leaving the RV park:

Paladin on the dash while leaving the RV park

Frontage road to I-10 East:

Frontage road to I-10 East

Buc-ees:

Buc-ees

I was amused by the name Flatonia, approapriate for Texas:

I was amused by the name Flatonia, approapriate for Texas

Motorhome and T@B trailer:

Motorhome and T@B trailer

Rest area:

Rest area

Several vehicles cutting across from the freeway to a frontage road to avoid traffic… which didn’t really work out for them, as the freeway traffic eased up after roadworks, and there wasn’t an entrance back onto the freeway for a while:

Several vehicles cutting across from the freeway to a frontage road to avoid traffic

Roadworks:

Roadworks

A rather interesting name caught my eye on the map: “Mario’s Flying Pizza Airport”:

Mario's Flying Pizza Airport

The GPS was going insane, thinking we were not on the freeway:

The GPS was going insane

Multiple overpasses outside Houston:

Multiple overpasses

Evil-looking building in Houston:

Evil-looking building in Houston

Downtown Houston:

Houston

Bridge to Galveston Island:

Bridge to Galveston Island

Reached the gulf coast:

Gulf coast

Creepy-looking clouds:

Creepy-looking clouds

Galveston Island State Park entrance:

Galveston Island State Park entrance

Entrance station:

Entrance station

Our site:

Our site

Our coach arriving at our site:

Our coach arriving at our site

2025 travel plans

I hope you enjoyed the posts reviewing 2024. So what are our plans for 2025? Read on!

Like the previous year, we spent the holidays in the panhandle of Florida, in Carrabelle, then headed south in Florida. This time, though, we’ll be spending six weeks in Orlando, including a week in the Disney World bubble. (Unusual for us; we typically don’t stay in one place for more than two weeks, very rarely three weeks.) We won’t be going as far south as the Keys this year; instead we’ll head north, revisiting Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Maryland, reaching the first new state of the year, New Jersey.

We’ll then head northwest via Pennsylvania to new states Ohio and Michigan for a graduation and time with friends, before heading east again, adding upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, then back west to add Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and continuing back to Ohio. That loop through the northeast states is a bit confusing; see an animated GIF below that hopefully clarifies that part. We would normally try to avoid backtracking, but the timing of the graduation dictated the route. We spread out the route to see different areas going there and back, so it’s all good.

After that, we head north to another part of Michigan, then back west via our favorite Black Hills area and Yellowstone National Park, reaching our home base in Washington state for the usual adulting and family time.

Finally, we’ll be heading south next winter, as usual for us snowbirds. But a little different this time: we’ll leave our coach at NIRVC in Phoenix while we travel to New Zealand for three weeks (probably), then finish the year in Arizona and California.

A lot of this is still tentative; we’ve currently booked up to the beginning of September. And we will try to change some of the stops to free alternatives (using our Thousand Trails membership) when they’re available to book.

All up, we should visit 10 new states in the northeast, so by the end of the year (actually by the middle of the year) we will have visited all 48 contiguous states, with just Alaska and Hawaii remaining. We’ll visit those two in a subsequent year (to be determined).

This route should be a little shorter than last year, at around 10,800 miles, give or take.

Here’s a map that shows the state outlines, colored time zones, our travel route, and pins for stops. Our route begins in the panhandle of Florida, and goes generally anti-clockwise, with a loop in the northeast:

Timezones 2025 map

Another variation of the map, that shows a little more detail, but the states are less visible:

Route map 2025

That northeast corner looks a bit messy, doesn’t it? Here’s an animated GIF that shows the route:

Route map 2025

Another interesting animated GIF, showing the elevations along our route; see the elevations and road gradients at the bottom, and a moving dot along the map route showing where those elevations occur (this route has a couple of minor differences from the above maps, but I didn’t want to bother redoing the GIF):

Map with elevations

Super flat until we reach the Bighorn mountains and Yellowstone in Wyoming.

Here’s a Google Maps list that shows the places we’ll stay, as of now; it will be updated as campgrounds are booked.

It’s going to be another busy year. I hope you’ll follow along via this blog and the YouTube channel.

2024 stickers

On the passenger-side slide-out, we have a large sticker with the Sinclair Trails logo, a map of the US showing the states we’re visited, a QR code for the website, and stickers with the SinclairTrails.com domain name and @SinclairTrails social handle:

Map etc on side of coach

The states sticker consists of separate stickers for each state, applied to a base sticker. Our rule is that we have to have done something in a state for it to count (e.g. camp, eat in a restaurant, or explore something, not just driving through). Once we have done something in a new state, we add its sticker. So far, we’ve visited 38 of the 50 states:

States map

We’ll want to replace these stickers at some point; the earlier ones are looking very faded. We’ll probably get new stickers that include Canada when we visit Alaska, since we’ll likely drive through part of Canada to get there.

Visiting Alaska is going to be a major project. And of course we can’t take our motorhome to Hawaii, but we’ll count that when we next visit there.

On the driver-side slide-out of the coach, we have stickers for each of the National Parks we have visited, that being another of the goals in our travels. We visited 12 more parks in 2024 (plus revisited several), so have visited 47 of the 63 parks; still a bunch to go:

National Park stickers

Of course, we’ve also visited numerous National Monuments, National Historic Sites, and other classifications. With 433 units of various types in the National Park System, not to mention parks administered by states, forest services, etc, we had to cap the memorializing of them somewhere! National Parks are the goal; others are gravy.

However, inside our coach we have a framed board with a wooden map of the US, around which we add stickers and pins for any kind of attraction we visit (we prefer stickers, but tend to get pins, as they are smaller). It’s populated a bit more since 2023 and 2022, though still lots of space for future attractions:

Wooden map and stickers

The wooden map has pins for states we’ve visited; the pins feature the state flags:

Map pins

Fun memorabilia.

2024 travel route

Let’s look back at our coach travel in 2024. You may also want to check out the 2023 travel summary, the 2022 travel summary, and the 2021 travel summary.

We bought our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP diesel pusher motorhome on September 2, 2021, and other than a few times when we’ve been out of it during servicing appointments or flying vacations, we’ve lived in it full-time since then.

When we bought the coach, it only had 5,161 miles on the odometer. In 2021 we drove it about 2,300 miles. In 2022 we drove another 8,772 miles. In 2023 we added 9,945 miles. In 2024 we added 12,248, so have driven it 33,265 miles on our adventures so far, for a grand total of 38,426 on the odometer. (The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,901 miles, so we’ve effectively driven it 1.3 times around the world!)

One of our goals is to visit every state in the US. In 2024 we stayed in 15 new states: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These join North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida in 2023, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas in 2022, and Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, California, and Arizona in 2021, for a total of 38. Just 12 left! (We only count states visited since purchasing our coach.)

We also revisited several states last year, as we headed back to our Pacific Northwest domicile. So all the states we visited in 2024 — in order — were Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi; a total of 29 in the year.

Here’s a map of our coach travels and stays in 2024, via the excellent RV Life Trip Wizard website, using a variation of their maps that more clearly shows the state borders and color-coded time zones. We started the year in the panhandle of Florida, then the route headed south to the Florida Keys, then north and west to Paris, Texas for the total solar eclipse, then to the east coast and up to Delaware, then all the way across to the west coast, south, then back east, ending the year exactly where we started, in the panhandle of Florida:

Timezones 2024 map

Another variation of the map, with more detail:

Route map 2024

Here’s the route map with the travel in 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021 also displayed in different colors; our 2024 travel in orange, our 2023 travel in purple, our 2022 travel in blue, our 2021 coach travel in green, and our 2021 Yellowstone rental trailer trip in brown:

Route map 2021 to 2024

The same map as an animated GIF, adding each year:

2021 to 2024 maps

Here’s a fun variation, showing the 2024 route without the background map; you can clearly see the shape of the country (other than the northeast, that we didn’t get to):

Route map without background

We actually revised our route a few times from what we planned for 2024; here’s an animated GIF that compares what we had originally planned (as shown in last year’s 2024 travel plans post), and what we ended up doing (as above):

2024 maps

Another interesting animated GIF, showing the elevations along our route; see the elevation and gradient at the bottom, and a moving dot along the map route showing where those elevations occurred. You can really see where the mountain ranges are:

Map with elevations

Fascinating!

San Antonio / Alamo KOA Holiday

We stayed at San Antonio / Alamo KOA Holiday in San Antonio, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A one-night stay on our way east, but a nice campground; we’d be happy to stay here longer.

Dates:

Check in: 2024-11-30
Check out: 2024-12-01
1 night

Weather:

Partly cloudy
High temp 65°F, low 44°F
No wind, gusts to 7 MPH

Noise:

Negligible road noise
Faint distant train horn noise
A little neighbor noise

Site:

#E5, pull-through, gravel
Didn’t need to disconnect toad, and didn’t, since only one night
Completely level site; used air leveling, since only one night
Gravel driveway about 73 feet long by 15 feet wide
12 feet to neighbors on both sides
Picnic table
Fire pit
Some tall trees
Clean site

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
60 PSI water, somewhat conveniently located
Good sewer connection, very inconveniently located (for a motorhome) at the back of the site (3 10-foot pipes needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

T-Mobile: 85-105 Mbps down, 5-10 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
AT&T: 470-550 Mbps down, 15 Mbps up, 30 ms ping
Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 15 Mbps up, 30-100 ms ping
Starlink: not used
Campground Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

Garbage dumpsters and pickup from site
Pool
Onsite cafe with breakfast and Hunt Brothers pizza/wings for dinner

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Nice and convenient

We stayed here only one night on our way through San Antonio, and it was quite pleasant. There is easy access to freeways and anything you could want to do in the city. Since it was a short stay, we enjoyed having the on-site cafe available for dinner and breakfast. The staff were all friendly and helpful. We would stay here again and for longer. We camped at San Antonio / Alamo KOA Holiday in a Motorhome.

Campground map:

Map