We slept in the Crackerbarrel carpark and it was very noisy. Cars doing burnouts, trains honking and people turning up playing loud music. Mike slept through it all.

After a terrible coffee from the crackerbarrel we ready leave around 8.30am, full of confidence the car would start. But it didn’t. Same problem as yesterday.

Mike decided to Hotwire it directly but I thought I’d call Paul to double check this was the right thing to do. I’ve been so used to talking to him this time of day, but this time he wasn’t on the night shift so I woke him up.

But he was so helpful. He said we’d have to disconnect the Hotwire from the battery each time we stopped to avoid draining the battery. Something Mike hadn’t thought about. Then he suggested a switch to disconnect it.

Luckily there was an auto zone (like Repco) across the road. Mike got all the bits he needed and spent an hour wiring it all up. And guess what? It works!

It was a long day of driving today as we left Florida, drove along the coast through Alabama, and arrived in Gulfport in Mississippi at 8pm.

We parked in the far side of the island view casino carpark which is free to sleep in our van. Then we went in the get a parking permit and they gave us a $20 food voucher and $20 slot machine voucher each! So not only are we getting a free place to sleep, we’re getting food and gambling money!

We could have eaten at the diner for our $20 but we chose the flash restaurant in the non smoking side of the casino. We had a huge yummy salad to start. Mike ordered the petite steak and it was huge. He couldn’t even eat it all. I had salmon which was also a big portion I couldn’t eat all of.

Our dinner with our discounts came to $30. But then I won on the slot machines. I had no idea how much I won but I pressed the cash out button and it printed me a slip.

I proudly handed it to the cashier, announcing excitedly how I’d won. As she was processing my money she asked if I wanted security to escort us back to our car. I declined. Then she handed over my $8.75.

So our grand total for accommodation, meals and gambling cost us $20.

We left the casino about 11pm and it’s still really hot outside. They have a free shuttle that would take us to our van but we preferred to walk. It was good seeing security patrolling our area.

Our sleep in the far corner of the carpark wasn’t so good though. It didn’t seem as noisy as the previous night but there were sirens and trains.

Hopefully we’ll find a campground tonight as we need showers and need to top up our water and empty our tank. Everything has been full up due to the long weekend. RV parks have been chockers. But we’re moving away from the coast today so here’s hoping.