We stayed at Pat's in Gulfport, MS until yesterday noon, visiting and eating well. We even enjoyed our night in the RV, parked in the driveway during a rain storm - great sleeping weather! But we pulled out later than planned, so didn't get to tour Gulfport which I have seen on a previous trip - it has a cute downtown, and long beach area along the south side of the city. We also passed through Ocean Springs which also had a quaint downtown, but too narrow for the RV, so these areas will have to be explored on another trip. We headed to our next destination, New Iberia, LA - home of Tabasco and a town that sounded like it represented the culture of Louisiana. It was about 4.5 hours, but the last 45 mins from Lafayette to New Iberia was as bad as some of the Alaska Highway - lines in the road and roughness that made me think I was driving on square tires!! We finally pulled into KOC Campground, basically a large field bordered by a canal and huge fishing pond. But the big draw here is cable TV since the new season of Designated Survivor starts and we did want to catch that episode for sure. We do have a nice pull through site and enjoyed dinner outside in the cool breeze. They keep forecasting rain for the afternoons, but we only had it one night. We are up early (thanks to being on Central time zone :), dumped our tanks and out to Avery Island by 10am. The Tabasco Factory is located "on an island", actually just a bridge over swamps and canal. The company has been in business since 1868 and run by the McIlhenny family all these years. It was fun to see the Asian Tabasco commercials (who knew the Asians needed Louisiana hot sauce?!), the village created on the Island for the workers who live on site, and to actually smell the pepper mash that ages in vats for 2-3 years before being added to vinegar for the final process. There were about 7 different varieties of Tabasco sauce, including an Asian Sweet and Spicy, Chipotle, and Raspberry Chipotle they had added to soft serve ice cream - very good! And I had to stock up on Spicy Mayo, always a favorite on tomato or BLT sandwiches! Sara is still having issues with being left alone, but we continue to try short periods of alone time - today, stress caused a little GI distress :( so add another 30 mins for housecleaning! We then drove to New Iberia town, on the Bayou Teche (River) and wandered through town - lots of Louisiana style homes on Main Street and a view of the canal-like river. By 2:30 we had a quick lunch in the RV and were on the road to Beaumont, TX. Only about 2.5 hours after debating about whether to seek campground or boondock at Walmart or Cracker Barrel. We decided to try CB first since it was on west side of town, but I've never used it before, just heard they let RV's camp in parking lots. So we pulled in on Walden Ave and checked with the manager who readily agreed to our camping. We then bought dinners to eat in RV and came out to find 3 more RV's parked around us. Tomorrow we head to Galveston and points south, where we have reservations for the next 5 days, until we have run into full Spring Break timing, and nothing is available on the coast. Still working on those plans!! A highlight of this area is gas prices are as low at $1.93/gal altho gas mileage is still only 9 miles/gallon.