Eclipse Party & Tornados!!!!

Toomsuba, MS - Jackson, MS
8/Apr/24 - 9/Apr/24

Miles Traveled     109
Trip Total              896
Travel Time         2:00

States visited: FL, GA, AL, Mississippi

Early Monday morning Mark & Karen, Ken & Cheryl and Angel & I headed out for a short drive to Lafleur's State Park to watch the eclipse.  We would have prefered to have gotten closer to the path of totality, but we could not find any available campgrounds.  Also none of us really wanted to deal with the crowds. 

Lefleur' is a small (28 sites) state campground right outside of Jackson Mississippi.  The sites themselves are large and spaced apart.  The only problem is the RV pads are fairly small, and not very level.  Even putting blocks under the rear tires I could not get the RV level.  Once again we had waterfront sites.  

We did arrive early enough to get setup and settled before the eclipse started. The view from our campsite turned out to be perfect.  There was only 90 percent blockage of the sun, but it we still had fun.  The down side was the weather was not not cooperating at all.  It did not rain but there were heavy clouds, with brief breaks were we could see it.  It some ways having the clouds made it more interesting to watch.  Partially because most of the time we could look directly at it, then when the clouds would open up it looked very cool.  Mark & Karen's house is in the path of totality for the 2045 eclipse.  We have already made reservation!!

Up to now the weather on this trip has been good. It was nice to head into warm weather as we traveled to Florida, then temperatures dropped as we headed into Alabama.  Now as we head back to warmer weather we are also running into thunder storms.  Last night it sounded like someone was spraying the top of the RV with a firehose, and Wednesday when we leave they are calling for more.

Tuesday we spent the afternoon exploring the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum.  The museum has exhibits on the history of cotton farming and aviation in agricultural, multiple model train displays, a working cotton gin as well as a replica 1800's village and many other exhibits. I did not expect to spend as much time as we did there.

If you look back two paragraphs, I was saying the weather has been good on this trip.  Well while I was typing this post that went to hell really quickly.  Both Angel and my phone started blaring a National Weather Alert, and in the distance we could hear sirens blaring.  Looking at my phone we were in the middle of a tornado warning.   While trying to figure out the best thing to do, I started by googling "Tornado Shelters Near Me",  The results were great if I was looking to have one built, there are at least three companies within five miles of us that will come build one, Great can they do it in the next 10 minutes!!!!  After conferring with the rest of our group we decided to head to the bath house and wait it out.  We watched as a few campers left in cars. The couple across the road from us moved their RV 20 feet, saying they did not want it hit by trees  WTF?   When we got to the bath house there were a few other campers there with the same idea.  We are located where the blue circle is in the radar map.  It made for a very exciting 90 minutes.  We did not get any tornados but the rain was unbelievable, and the thunder and lighting made a great show.

Once we settled in for the night we still had to decide if we were heading out in the morning.  It is much easier to travel in the RV during bad weather than the boat but if it is to windy we prefer not to go.  But RV or boat you still get wet putting everything away.  The advantages to the RV over the boat there is no need for both of us to get wet, and I get warm and dry once we start moving.