Day 23: New Orleans to Apalachicola

2026 Rally4Vets America Grand Tour

July 3rd was one of the biggest driving days of the whole tour — four states in a single day. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, all connected by the Gulf Coast running along my right shoulder. I crossed the Mississippi line, then Alabama, and finally into Florida, with a major stop in the middle that I’d been looking forward to since the WWII Museum.

The USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park

The centerpiece is the USS Alabama herself – BB 60, a South Dakota-class ship that earned nine battle stars in the Second World War and never lost a man to enemy fire. Standing next to her, you understand the scale in a way no photograph prepares you for. I got the WRX parked in front of her for a photo, and the car looked like a toy against that hull.

But the park is far more than the battleship. The memorial also includes the submarine USS Drum and an aircraft collection spanning decades of American airpower. You could spend a full day here and still not see it all. A remarkable place, and a fitting follow-on to the museum in New Orleans.

The War Dog Memorial

What meant the most to me at the park wasn’t the battleship or the aircraft. It was the war dog memorial; five soldiers and a dog cast in bronze, dedicated to the war dogs and their Alabama handlers who served in Vietnam. The plaque calls them “an unheralded breed of soldier,” and lists the handlers by name and date. War dogs have saved the lives of countless service members, going into harm’s way without hesitation.

It resonated with me more than almost anything I’ve seen over the past three weeks, because the whole point of this tour is the DVEN/Rally4Vets service dog program. We fund the training of dogs to become service animals for veterans at no cost to them. Standing in front of a monument to dogs that served alongside our troops in war, while driving across the country to put trained dogs beside veterans who need them now, tied the past and the present together.

A Fellow Veteran on the Road

I also had the pleasure of meeting an Air Force veteran now working with the U.S. Marshals Service. We traded patches – his Operation Shark Tank challenge patch for a Rally4Vets America Grand Tour patch. Another reminder of the thread that runs through this entire trip, veterans who served, and who are still serving in one form or another.

Apalachicola

I ended the day in Apalachicola, Florida, a lovely historic town on the Gulf, and a welcome place to stop. Sitting at dinner last night (July 3^rd), a fireworks display went off.  Here’s the part I loved. I asked my waitress if I had missed a day (I’ve been on the road for 3 weeks).  She laughed and explained that four towns along this stretch of Florida’s coast coordinate their July 4^th celebrations.  Starting July 1st, they take turns holding fireworks on different nights, so the children in the region get a four-day event instead of a single evening. Four towns, four nights, one long celebration for the kids. That’s the kind of small-town American ingenuity that makes this trip worth taking.

Looking Ahead

Tomorrow, the Gulf Coast gives way to St. Augustine on the Atlantic Coast, the oldest city in America, founded on September 8, 1564, by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Fifteen states behind me, four more to come.

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