After picking up our 24’ Cruise America RV in Kissimmee, Florida, we’ve been on a 6-day journey from Florida to Austin, Texas with plenty of family adventures along the way. In Part 1, we navigated RV life for the first time, and by Part 2, we found ourselves chasing the rain to beautiful Grayton Beach State Park, where we spent two nights enjoying the Gulf’s pristine shores. Our journey continues below.

Part 3 Summary

• USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park
• Tickfaw State Park closed due to rain!
• Driveway Surfing aka Moochdocking at our friends’ house
• Getting Electrical Power into our RV
• New Years in the RV!

Day 5 Travel Map

Sweet Home Alabama

USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park

We arrived at USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park after a 2.5 hour drive from Grayton Beach State Park at 9am.

Lunch in Front of the Battle Ship

After about 2 hours of touring the battleship we circled back to the RV for lunch. Nothing like an awesome view of the battleship while eating left over tacos!

Onward to Tickfaw State Park

After enjoying ourself at the Falling Water State Park in Florida, we were looking forward to our overnight stay Tickfaw State Park, located 7 mi west of Springfield, Lousiana.

The Epic Arrival at Tickfaw State Park

You’d never believe our luck. The park was CLOSED when we arrived. Not because we showed up after dark…

…but because it was closed due to flooding!

The park is closed due to flooding from the Tickfaw River.
The park will re-open on
Monday 01/07/19 @ 8:00am

Driveway Surfing on New Years Eve

Driveway surfing is basically couch surfing in your RV or camper. Instead of staying in an RV park, you park in a fellow traveler’s driveway. In other words, it’s boon docking on the driveways of friends and even strangers. …
src: https://www.roverpass.com/blog/driveway-surfing/

We had to think fast on our feet given it was already 6pm with no glimpse of where we were gonna dock for the night. Luckily for us, we had unintentionally greased the skids earlier when we notified our friends we’d be passing by the New Orleans area.

Mind if we mooch-dock in your driveway for the night?

Keep in mind, we did have plans for new years and that was to stay in Tickfaw State Park, not to come mooch-dock on our friends’ driveway like it turned out.

Below is a shot of the Cruise America RV parked in their driveway that night.

Mind as well have a few drinks with our friends!

Kids got to play together also!

So Where Did We Sleep?

Our friends offered us rooms to sleep in their home for the night but we politely declined. I wanted the full RV experience and by gone it we were gonna sleep in the RV parked in their driveway!

Given it was New Years, we did battle the sound of fireworks on top of the rain pounding on the RV roof. Needless to say, all of us didn’t sleep until around midnight that evening.

Getting Electrical Power into to the RV

It wouldn’t but a full “moochdocking” experience if we didn’t borrow our friends’ electricity right? 😉

In order to connect the RV up to the standard 3-prong household plug available in homes, you need a 30 Amp to 15/20 Amp adapter. Cruise America provides one of these!

Since the RV need at least 30/50 Amp to power the rig, you are limited in what you can run when connected to the home’s 15/20 Amp electrical outlet. Research showed that to operate within safe parameters, you should only use one appliance a time otherwise you will trip the home’s breakers.

Knowing that you can risk damaging both the RV and home’s electrical system if you use all the appliances and electrical stuff like usual while connecting to the home’s electrical outlet, we didn’t bother with electric hogs such as the air conditioning, hairdryer, microwave, etc.

Powering the RV fridge, RV lights and to charge our phones and laptop were the safe essentials 😉

Morning of New Years Day 2019

Our friends fed their bellies and ours before we headed out that morning. Nothing like a home cooked breakfast with eggs, bacons, pancakes and nutella 😉

Good byes are always hard but no better way than to give a nice hug 😉

Some Thoughts from Day 5

• Wished we had more time to explore the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in more detail instead of just 2 hours but we were on a strict schedule!
• Expect the unexpected when it comes to RV Road-tripping especially when it’s weather related and you just gotta take a detour on your plans.
• Driveway surfing or mooch docking can be really fun! A great way to pop in and hangout with friends with the “comfort” of your home on wheels on their driveway.

Check back on the next post as we make our way to Houston and then back to Austin, TX before returning the RV to Cruise America:

“Black Tank Dumping and Back Home — RV Road Trip Part 4”