Battling Gnats at Buccaneer

Saturday, 6 April
Buccaneer State Park — Waveland, Mississippi
Temps: Lo 58F / Hi 73F (14C / 23C)

Can’t believe that New Orleans is almost a week in the past.  Time sure does fly!

We left NOLA Monday morning (April 1) for the short 72.6-mile (116 km) drive to our next campground — Buccaneer State Park in Waveland, Mississippi.  The two-hour drive was uneventful.  Based on reviews we’d read that the GPS would want to route us over a rather high railroad hump, we were prepared with an alternate route that took us all the way down Lakeshore Drive to South Beach Boulevard.  Though our trucker’s GPS sounded alerts along the way, knowing other big rigs had driven the same route gave us the confidence to keep going.  In the end, absolutely nothing along that route was problematic for our size or weight.

A short, easy drive takes us to our next temporary home.
(Inset shows our travels since embarking on this gypsy life style on December 1.)

Arriving at the gatehouse at 11:30a, check-in was a breeze.  This is a rather large park with several camping loops.  After wandering around to see if there was an alternate site we might prefer, we concluded that the site we had pre-booked online was one of the nicest and there was no need to change it.  By 12:30p, we were settled into Site 68.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the area in August 2005, winds clocked at over 140 mph (224 kph) and a storm surge of nearly 30 feet (9 m) pretty much destroyed Buccaneer.

Although the park had to once again close down briefly after Hurricane Isaac in 2012, the post-Katrina comeback is quite remarkable.  All but the beach front campsites have been re-built, and construction on many of the amenities are nearing completion.  In the time we’ve been here, we have not been bothered by any noise from the construction work.

Our site — #68 (FHU for $24/night) — is at the end of the Long John Silver loop.  Contrary to the map to the right, most of the sites here are widely spaced; especially around the outer edges of the loops.  Being at the end of our loop, we have an over-sized living area.  On the hook-up side, there’s quite a bit of space between us and our neighbor.  Unlike the Jean Lafitte, Barataria Bay, and Pirate’s Cove loops, which filled up yesterday with weekenders, most of our loop remains empty, thus adding to the sense of privacy.  I should say that there’s plenty of train noise from the tracks that run right outside the park.  We’re not bothered by trains, so not an issue as far as we’re concerned.

Site 68 is at the end of the Long John Silver Loop.
(You can see how far away Our only neighbor was [left on Thursday].)

Looking from the rear of the site towards the main road and the bathhouse beyond.

Despite the weekenders coming in yesterday, our loop looks no different
than this scene, which I took on Monday when we arrived.

Looks great, right!  Sounds great, too.  Well, it was when we went to put up our screen shelter on Monday that we realized there was, in fact, a problem.

Hah!  Screen shelter my you know what!  All was well while we were putting up the shelter — because we were moving around.  No sooner were we seated, however, that the gnats started eating us alive.  These weren’t the kind of gnats that just hover in a cloud.  No, they were biting gnats!  Nothing was going to keep them at bay, so we went back inside, hoping the situation would improve on Tuesday.  No such luck.  Mui even went to Lowe’s for citronella candles, hoping they would help.  They did — for about two minutes.  Changing into long pants and long sleeves, we toughed it out for a while, but eventually we retired indoors.

By Tuesday night, this is what Mui’s legs looked like; his arms are no different!
If I didn’t know any different, I’d think he had come down with the measles.
We know he’s allergic to mosquito bites, but apparently he doesn’t tolerate gnats either.

We debated moving to the beach-front campground operated by the Silver Slipper Casino.  Even triked over to get information about availability and prices.  But when we spoke to the people staying at the campground, they had plenty of gnat stories of their own to tell.  So we decided to stay put.  (As a side note: Buccaneer has a strict no refunds policy … although at one point we were willing to leave anyway.)

The storm that came through on Wednesday gave us a legitimate reason to stay indoors — and hope the gnats would be drowned out.  The latter didn’t happen, I’m afraid.  The heavy rains started around 1:00a and continued through noon.  All that was fine and dandy … and expected.  What followed — strong winds gusting up to 35-40 mph (55-65 kph) — wasn’t expected.  Even the national weather service was caught by surprise by the winds that came out of nowhere — some kind of a wake effect that no one was expecting.  Nothing to do but hunker down and watch our screen shelter get decimated.

No photo of the decimated shelter, but here’s the new one Mui bought Friday.
We put it up today to run through the instructions, and I even managed a
couple of hours out there before the gnats started to gnaw on me.

We’ve been using our forced-indoors time the past several days to continue planning our self-drive trip around Iceland this fall.  With an itinerary in place, we’re now looking at where we will be staying as we make our way around the island.  All this planning work is part of the reason we wanted a sort-of-out-of-the-way campground following our hectic days in NOLA, so at least that part of our stay has been on track.

devastation wreaked on the piers in the area are in evidence along beach boulevard.

Despite the gnats, we’ve not been totally incarcerated here.  We’ve snuck out for a couple of long walks in the cool morning hours to get some exercise before the gnats come out.  I’ve not been able to check out the “Pirate’s Alley Nature Trail” yet, but that’s because the ground is soft and muddy after Wednesday’s storm.  Perhaps it will dry up before we leave.

More storm devastation.

We’ve also taken our trikes out for 6-10 mile (10-16 km) rides on Beach Boulevard, heading in the direction of the Silver Slipper Casino one day; and the opposite direction on another day.  Much of the ride is on the paved road, but traffic is light, and for a portion of the road, there is a newly-built bike/walk path.  Evidence of the damage done to the beach by storms past is visible everywhere along our route.  Sad, really.

Today, after putting up the new screen shelter, there was a light breeze that kept the gnats away long enough for us to sit outside for a bit and even have lunch.  Our respite was brief, but it was a welcome change of pace.  I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that the light breezes continue.  In the meantime, a breeze-generating trike ride is in order.

… Later

Had to come back and add the beach photos and this shot of a laughing gull before posting to the blog …

the end!