Living Our Dream

Bellingrath Gardens

Summerdale, AL - Events of Thursday May 10 to Sunday, May 13, 2012

Bellingrath Gardens is located on the far side of Mobile Bay in Theodore, AL, which is to the southeast of the city of Mobile. We love gardens, and we have visited Bellingrath several times before. However, we have never been there at this time of year, so we decided to drive over to Bellingrath to have a look.

It takes a little over an hour to get to Bellingrath from Rainbow Plantation, so we wanted to get a relatively early start. That meant we would be driving near Panini Pete's well before they stopped serving breakfast at 10:30, so we made a point of stopping to have some more beignets.

Paul squeezing lemon onto his beignets

As we mentioned before, the beignets at Panini Pete's are light and airy like cream puffs except without the cream filling. They are served with lemon, which when squeezed onto the beignets, combines with the powdered sugar to lend a delicious hint of lemonade flavor.

After we finished our yummy beignets, we made our way to Bellingrath. Bellingrath Home and Gardens is part of a 65-acre estate originally owned by Walter and Bessie Bellingrath. Walter, who was one of the first Coca-Cola bottlers in Alabama, bought the property along the banks of the Fowl River in 1917 as a fish camp. In the 1930s, the Bellingraths decided to build a year-round home there and moved out of their house in Mobile. Today, the house and gardens are owned by a foundation and are open to the public.

You can buy tickets to visit the gardens, tour the house, and take a boat cruise on the Fowl River. Tickets are available for the garden only or for the garden in combination with either one or both the other tours. We toured the house and took the boat cruise on our first visit, so we just toured the garden this time.

The first stop along the path that starts behind the visitor center is at the Rose Garden and the conservatory.

Rose Garden and conservatory

Inside the conservatory is a nice array of tropical plants.

Tropical plants in the conservatory

More tropical plants

There were even pineapples in the conservatory.

As we continued down the path from the conservatory toward the house, we could see the annuals were just starting to bloom.

Annuals along the Great Lawn

Impatiens along the waterway at the mermaid fountain

Entrance to the Bellingrath home

Another view of the home from the terraces

We stopped for a self-portrait on the terrace behind the house.

Paul by the Fowl River behind the house

The Fowl River is an estuary, which means it is a waterway where fresh and salt water mix. Estuaries are important ecological areas, and Bellingrath has a boardwalk that makes a loop over a bayou that flows into the river right near the house. The boardwalk provides an opportunity for wildlife viewing, although we have never seen anything more than a couple of turtles sunning themselves on a log. However, it's a pleasant walk if it isn't too hot.

Boardwalk around a bayou that flows into the Fowl River

From the boardwalk, we headed to the upper end of Mirror Lake.

Margery sits astride a cast iron lion at the upper end of Mirror Lake

In the past, we have visited Bellingrath Gardens in March to see the azaleas in bloom, in April to see the spring perennials and in the fall to see the mums, but we have never been there in May. We knew most of the perennials would be done blooming, but we were hoping the annuals would be starting to come into their own. Unfortunately, the planter boxes that line the bridge over the upper end of Mirror Lake were not yet in place, and many of the annual beds along the walkways had not yet been planted even though the threat of frost has been over here in lower Alabama for at least two months. One area that was in full bloom, however, was around the pavilion where they sometimes have weddings.

Many annuals were blooming around the wedding pavilion.

From the annuals that were in bloom, we could see this summer's color theme was going to be red, yellow and orange.

The colors for this summer are going to be red, yellow and orange.

On our way back from Bellingrath, we needed to make a stop at Camping World in Robertsdale, which is near Rainbow Plantation. Camping World also happens to be very close to L.A Barbecue where we stopped for a late lunch a few weeks ago, and it was early afternoon when we finished at Bellingrath and Camping World. Since we were already on a cheat day from our diet with the beignets that morning, we figured we might as well stop for a late lunch at L.A. Barbecue.

We both had the same barbecue pork lunch plate we had the first time we were there along with cole slaw and potato salad for our sides. This time we tried some of the alternate barbecue sauces. Paul liked a mixture of Carolina (a thin, vinegar-based sauce) and Texas Tangy. Margery tried several sauces, but went back to the mixture of Southern Sweet and Texas Tangy she liked the first time we were there.

Paul with an array of barbecue sauces at L.A. Barbecue

A few days after we visited Bellingrath was Mother's Day. Margery got a nice Skype call from Lora. Skype, which provides audio and video communication over the internet, works infinitely better with our Verizon Broadband than it did with the satellite internet we used to have. Gone are the satellite delay and the dropped calls.

Later in the day, we drove down to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lupper so Margery wouldn't have to cook on Mother's Day. The restaurant was fairly crowded for the middle of the afternoon, but we didn't have problem getting a table. Margery had a fried clam basket, and Paul had a fried catfish basket.

Margery had fried clams for Mother's Day.

With the arrival of Mother's Day, we were down to our last couple of days at Rainbow Plantation. We didn't get in all the sightseeing we wanted to do, but that is just a good excuse to return. Look for our next post to see where we ended up next.

Hangin' Around Summerdale

Summerdale, AL - Events of Saturday, May 5 to Monday, May 7, 2012

We don't have a lot to report on this week. The weather in lower Alabama has turned hot and humid, and along with the humidity came a chance of showers. We had two days of almost solid rain (over 2 inches) with several days of partly to mostly cloudy weather, so we haven't gotten out to do any sightseeing.

Saturday was one of the nicer days of the past week, but we don't like to go sightseeing on the weekend if we don't have to. However, we did drive down to Bon Secour on Saturday to pick up some fresh shrimp at Billy's Seafood.

Billy's Seafood

As we have mentioned before, Billy's Seafood is a packing house that ships seafood caught by the local fishing fleet to locations all over the United States. They also sell retail to the public.

The town of Bon Secour is located along the Bon Secour River just before it empties into Bon Secour Bay, which is in the southeast corner of Mobile Bay. We always like to see the picturesque fishing boats tied up along the river.

Fishing boats along the Bon Secour River

We had the shrimp for dinner that evening prepared our favorite way. Margery sautés the shrimp in a little butter and garlic, then she adds a splash white wine and a bit of Old Bay seasoning to the skillet as the shrimp cook for the last few minutes. We eat the shrimp dipped in melted butter. Yum! Tastes like lobster.

Other than going to Billy's to buy shrimp and running a few other errands, we have just been hanging out at Rainbow Plantation. Paul finished a few chores like polishing our aluminum wheels and cleaning the carpets in the motor home, and we have just been relaxing, reading, surfing the 'net and watching TV.

We try to take Freeway for a walk every day after dinner, but we had to skip several days because of rain or the threat of rain. On Monday, the temperature and humidity were down a little, and the sun was peeking through the clouds, so we stopped by the new dog park here at Rainbow Plantation to let Freeway run and play.

Freeway loves to chase his tennis ball. Even in the motor home, he'll drop the ball, or some other toy, at our feet and bark until we throw it. Then he'll race to the back of the motor home to get the toy and start all over. We usually get tired before he does.

We took his tennis ball to the dog park. However, someone had left a golf ball there, so we played with that instead. Paul picked up the golf ball and threw it. Freeway chased after it, but when he got to it he was a little wary because the golf ball was smaller, harder and denser than the tennis ball he is used to.

Freeway was a little wary of the golf ball at first.

It didn't take Freeway long to figure out the ball was OK to play with, however, and he picked it up and ran it back to Paul.

Freeway playing fetch with a golf ball

Margery got into the act throwing the golf ball for Freeway.

It seemed like Freeway would have chased that ball all night, but after about 20 minutes, we could see he was getting warm so we let him sit to cool off a few minutes before heading back to the motor home.

Freeway cooling off after playing fetch

We have noticed lately that the co-op sites and the campground here at Rainbow Plantation have been emptying out as the weather warmed up. When we headed down the road toward the motor home on our way back from the dog park, we could see how empty our row was.

Empty sites at Rainbow Plantation

We only have a short time left at Rainbow Plantation ourselves, but we still have a few things we want to try to squeeze in. Stay tuned.

More Good Eats

Summerdale, AL - Events of Sunday, April 22 to Tuesday, May 1, 2012.

Margery's birthday was a week ago Sunday. To celebrate, we drove down to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lupper. The Shrimp Basket is a chain of about a dozen restaurants in southern Alabama and in the Florida panhandle. They serve a variety of seafoods that are available steamed, grilled, blackened and fried.

The birthday girl had fried clams and Paul had fried shrimp. We both had potato salad and cole slaw for our sides.

We celebrated Margery's birthday at the Shrimp Basket.

We had fried shrimp and clams.

The seafood at the Shrimp Basket is good, and it is reasonably priced. Sandwiches are $6 to $9, baskets are $9 to $14, and dinner platters are $11 to $13. There are all-you-can-eat specials for popcorn shrimp, fried fish and steamed shrimp on certain days of the week. The baskets and platters include hush puppies, slaw and a choice of potato. Not only are the entrées good, but so are the sides. The slaw has tiny shrimp in it, the new potatoes are served swimming in melted butter, and the potato salad has bacon.

Later in the evening, we enjoyed some cake we had purchased at Walmart when we stopped there on the way home from church. Some of the bakery items at Walmart are pretty good, and they have a few selections available as single servings. The slice of cake we bought was big enough for us to share.

Later in the evening, we shared a piece of birthday cake.

Several days later, we had some errands to run, and we conveniently finished up in time to stop for a late lunch at L.A. Barbecue, which is located on the main highway (US 59) in Summerdale. When we first noticed L.A. Barbecue a few years ago, Paul wondered what anyone from Los Angeles would know about barbecue. However, we soon realized L.A. in their name meant Lower Alabama, not Los Angeles. Alabama isn't as well known for barbecue as North Carolina, Memphis or Kansas City; but most barbecue places in the south know how to make good pork barbecue, so we decided to give them a try.

L.A. Barbecue doesn't look like much from the road, but it is a lot bigger inside than it looks.

L.A. Barbecue has sandwiches from $4 to $7, lunch platters from $6 to $8 and dinners from $9 to $13. They also have barbecue and ribs available by the pound and side dishes by the pint, quart and gallon. We both had a chopped pork lunch platter. Paul had lima beans and potato salad for his sides, and Margery had cole slaw and potato salad.

Chopped pork lunch platter at L.A. Barbecue

Margery about to dig into her chopped pork barbecue

The pork had a hint of smoke, and it was moist and tender. There were bottles of sweet and tangy barbecue sauce on the tables. Paul liked the tangy, which had a little vinegar in it, and Margery liked a mixture of the sweet and the tangy. There were also several different types of sauces (including North Carolina, mustard and 4-alarm hot) available on a serving table near the order counter.

The following Monday (April 30), we had a real hankerin' for a sandwich at Panini Pete's, so we headed over to Fairhope. After a brief stop on the way at a health food store to look for some low-sugar/low-carb spaghetti sauce, Margery, who was driving, commented the car seemed a bit sluggish like the parking brake wasn't fully released. Uh, oh. That is the same symptom we had back in January when we had the problem with the front brake caliper hanging up. We stopped, and Paul got out to feel the temperature of the wheels. They were all just warm to the touch - nothing out of the ordinary, so we drove on the last few miles to Panini Pete's. On the way, we started to smell hot brakes; and when we parked, the same left front wheel that was a problem before was now noticeably warmer than the others.

Since it was after 1:00 PM, we realized time was of the essence if we wanted to try get the brake fixed before the repair garages closed for the day, so we decided to skip lunch and head for a Pep Boys repair shop a few miles away. We drove slowly to avoid overheating the brake, and we even stopped for a time to allow the brake to cool a little.

Pep Boys

We're used to seeing Pep Boys as large auto parts stores that also have service bays. Pep Boys recently bought out Big 10 Tires in this area, so they have a bunch of locations that are service only.

To make a long story short, we drove away from Pep Boys with a new left front brake caliper, a new left front brake line, a resurfaced left front brake rotor, and a $365 charge on our Visa account.

The first time we had the brake problem when we were in Florida, the shop we stopped at there rebuilt both front calipers. The theory was the phenolic piston in the left front brake caliper had absorbed moisture from the old brake fluid. The moisture caused the piston to swell and hang up which caused the brake to drag excessively and overheat. The other front caliper was rebuilt as a precaution. Rebuilding the calipers gave us all new pistons, and bleeding the brakes got rid of the old brake fluid.

Unfortunately, there was obviously something more going on than just moisture absorption (like corrosion in the bore of the caliper where the piston rides), so replacing the entire caliper this time should resolve the problem. The other thing that can sometimes happen is the interior of the flexible brake line that goes from the frame to the wheel can delaminate and block the release of pressure in the line and cause the brake to drag. Therefore, replacing the brake line will insure that potential problem has also been eliminated.

Fortunately, we detected the problem quickly this time so no real damage was done to the brake pads or the rotor, and they didn't have to be replaced. The shop just resurfaced the rotor just in case it had been warped by the heat.

It was almost 5:30 when they finished. The repair itself didn't take long, but the shop had to wait for the parts to be delivered from the other side of Mobile, which took almost 2 hours because the parts truck was already out on another run, and they had to wait for it to get back before they could send it out with our parts.

We went back to the motor home hungry and weary, but grateful we dodged a bullet a second time with the brakes. Both times we were near a repair shop instead of out in the boondocks where we would have had to be towed in for repair. We're also grateful we were able to get parts both times so the car wasn't tied up overnight, and we're really grateful the brake didn't hang up while we were towing the car behind the motor home. If that had happened, we wouldn't have known about it and the brake could have overheated to the point where it could have started a fire.

We still had a hankerin' for a sandwich from Panini Pete's, so we gave it another try the following day with much greater success. We found a good parking spot on main street just down from the restaurant. We like the quaint, thriving downtown area of Fairhope with all its boutiques and beautiful flowers at various locations along the streets and on every corner.

Beautiful flowers along the streets of downtown Fairhope

We know we've shown pictures of the patio at Panini Pete's before, but this time the picture was taken by Pete himself. He happened to be walking by just as Margery was taking a picture of Paul, and he offered to take a picture of both of us.

Paul and Margery on the patio at Panini Pete's

We love going back to Panini Pete's because we know we will get a good meal every time. This was one of the best, maybe because we were all juiced up the day before and we came up short due to the problems with the car.

We both had the house-roasted turkey panini. It has mozzarella cheese (also house-made), baby greens, roasted red pepper and Dijon-garlic aioli on fresh-baked foccacia.

House-roasted turkey panini

We have been eating out quite a bit, but we are still doing well with our low carb/low sugar diet. Paul is maintaining his target weight very well, and Margery is still loosing about half a pound or so a week.

We have about another two weeks in Summerdale. We know we'll come up with some more things to do, so look for our next post.

Freeway Gets Clipped and Snipped

Summerdale, AL - Events of Monday, April 16 to Wednesday, April 18, 2012

On Monday, we decided Freeway was long overdue for a haircut. We had him groomed the first two times at PetSmart at their discounted rate of $16 for puppies under 5 months of age. Now that Freeway is a little over 5 months old, we would have to pay the full price for grooming, which starts at $40. Therefore, we bought a new cordless dog-grooming clipper so we could groom him ourselves. We used to groom our previous dog, Molly, so we figured we could learn to do Freeway as well. The clippers even came with a DVD showing how to groom different parts of the dog and how to groom different breeds. We will probably stick with a puppy cut for Freeway, which is the simplest type of cut where the dog is essentially clipped to the same length all over.

Freeway's coat is very fine, and it tangles easily. The tangles eventually turn into knots, so we need to brush him often. Grooming starts with an extra-thorough brushing so the clipper doesn't hang up on the tangles.

Grooming starts with a thorough brushing.

A short time ago, we ordered an arm to mount to a table to hold Freeway still for grooming. We found it works well for the thorough brushing as well.

When we had Freeway groomed at the PetSmart in The Villages, the groomer mentioned using a slicker brush, which we have, to help get out tangles. She also advised getting a metal comb. The metal combs that are available for dog grooming have smooth, round, metal teeth. Unlike plastic combs, the metal comb glides through Freeway's coat. What a difference! The metal comb really makes it easy to keep the tangles out.

The brushing was followed by a bath to remove dirt and grit in Freeway's fur that could dull the clippers. After blow-drying Freeway, Paul started clipping.

Paul grooming Freeway

The hardest part of grooming Freeway for the first time ourselves was deciding how much to take off. The clippers come with several comb attachments that make it easier to maintain an even cut, and we used the longest one for Freeway. We finished up trimming Freeway's face with scissors. That part is going to take a little practice because he fidgets a lot, especially when you stick a pair of scissors in his face. It was hard to get his face trimmed evenly, but we thought he looked pretty good for our first try.

Freeway's first home grooming

Freeway got clipped on Monday, and he had an appointment at the vet to get snipped on Wednesday. When Margery was a little girl, her family always had female dogs, and our first two dogs were females. All the females were spayed. This is our first experience with a male dog, and Paul was feeling a little uneasy about having freeway neutered. However, we had no plans to breed Freeway, and we want to be responsible pet owners to help reduce a pet population explosion. Neutering also eliminates potential problems with aggression and marking in males.

Finding a vet in an unknown area is almost as challenging, if not more so, than finding a hair dresser. Our first year on the road, we had to take Molly to the vet numerous times. In all, we visited at least 6 vets between Pittsburgh and California. Each visit included the first-visit exam (at the going rate for new patients) in addition to diagnosis and treatment of her problem (which ended up being a deep-seated bladder infection). It was a very expensive first year! About a year before Molly died, we discovered Banfield Veterinary Services which is a national "chain" available at most PetSmart stores. Now, Freeway's records are available at any Banfield in the country. It makes the continuity of care from one city to another so convenient...and cost effective. We also took advantage of the Puppy Early Care Plus Wellness Plan. For $39/month, we get unlimited office calls/exams, vaccinations, diagnostic testing, and neutering services. We don't know if we'll continue a plan after Freeway's first year, but it has been definitely worthwhile for his first year. 

We had to have Freeway at the vet before 8:00 AM, and we dropped him off a little before that time. We took advantage of the early hour to stop at Panini Pete's for breakfast after we dropped him off.

Although breakfast paninis are available, we wanted to try Panini Pete's beignets. As you may know, beignets are fried doughnuts that Café du Monde in New Orleans is so famous for. We had heard a lot about the beignets at Panini Pete's, and we have been wanting to try them; but they only serve breakfast until 10:30, and we haven't been able to in gear to get to Fairhope in time. Having to have Freeway at the vet so early was a perfect excuse to stop.

It was a cool, cloudy morning, so we ate inside for the first time.

Panini Pete's indoor seating

Foggy windows on a cool morning

Panini Pete's version of beignets is a little different from the ones in New Orleans. Panini Pete's beignets are light and airy like a cream puff except without the cream filling inside. Like the biegnets in New Orleans, they are smothered in powdered sugar on the outside. Panini Pete's also serves their beignets with a wedge of lemon. Lemon juice squeezed onto the beignets combines with the powdered sugar adds a hint of lemonade flavor. We initially ordered one serving of four beignets to share. They were so good and they went down so easily, we just had to order a second serving!

Beignets at Panini Pete's are served with lemon.

Yum!

We made a few quick stops on the way back to the motor home from Panini Pete's. After lunch, we got a call from the vet saying Freeway did fine with his surgery, and we could pick him up after 4:00 PM.

We knew our schedule on Wednesday would be a little uncertain and possibly hectic, so we decided to have an early dinner at a restaurant on the way to pick Freeway up. We were both hungry for Chinese, so we stopped at China Wok in Fairhope, which wasn't too far out of our way. The restaurant is located in a strip mall.

We both love General Tso's chicken, and we rarely order anything else at a Chinese restaurant. China Wok had General Tso's chicken on the menu, but they also had a buffet. Chinese buffets are very popular, but we usually don't like them because the breaded coating of General Tso's chicken usually gets soggy sitting on the steam table at a buffet. However, China Wok's buffet looked like it had a good selection of food (including General Tso's chicken). At $5.99, the buffet was cheaper than ordering General Tso's chicken from the menu for $6.75, so we decided to have the buffet.

Paul at China Wok

We were disappointed in our meal at China Wok. The middle of the afternoon isn't a great time to hit a buffet because business is slow at that time of day and there isn't much turn over in the food. Many items were dried out; and, although the General Tso's chicken had good flavor, the coating was soggy as we feared it would be. Some of the other items on the buffet (like the egg rolls, the spicy shrimp, the honey chicken and coconut shrimp) didn't have much flavor.

Most importantly, the steam tables weren't doing a good job of keeping the food warm. Food safety rules say hot foods should be above 140ºF and cold foods should be below 40º. We didn't have a thermometer, but we're sure the hot food wasn't anywhere near 140º.

We didn't know if Freeway would be glad to see us or not when we picked him up, but he was. We expected him to be groggy like he was after his eye surgery, but he was bouncing off the walls by the time we got him home. We are supposed to keep him quiet for a week following the surgery, which isn't an easy task for any 5-month old puppy, and we figured it was going to be impossible the way he was acting. He was running around the motor home, jumping up and down, and trying to get into anything and everything. At first, we thought he was trying to get even with us, but we later found out that the anesthetic sometimes has the side effect of making the dogs hyperactive, disobedient, and downright ornery. Fortunately, the side effects wore off by the following morning.

We still have the job of keeping a young puppy calm and quiet, but we feel we have a fighting chance without the side effects of the anesthetic. We'll be staying around the motor home for a while to keep tabs on Freeway and to work on the project we have mentioned a several times now. It's a fairly big project, and we're working on it in between doing other things so it is taking a while to get it done. We expect the project to be completed soon; and when it is, we'll tell you all about it.

Good Eats

Summerdale, AL - Events of Friday, April 13 to Saturday, April 14, 2012

On Friday, Paul needed to replace a tool he was using for a project we are working on. We'll have more on the project in an upcoming post. We decided to go to the Lowe's in Spanish Fort for the tool instead of the one in Foley so we could stop at Panini Pete's for lunch.

Panini Pete's, which was featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, is located behind a couple of shops along the main street in downtown Fairhope, which isn't too far from Spanish Fort. There is a sign along the sidewalk, but the walkway to Panini Pete's (through the iron gate) is easy to miss if you've never been there before.

Entrance to the walkway to Panini Pete's

Along the walkway to Panini Pete's

Panini Pete's is at the end of the walkway on a nice patio courtyard they call the French Quarter. Indoor seating is available, but we always like to sit at one of the outdoor tables on the patio.

Margery on the patio at Panini Pete's

Panini Pete's is only open for breakfast and lunch. For lunch, they have a nice selection of paninis, burgers and hot dogs that run around $6 to $8 and include home made potato chips, fries or pasta salad.

Margery had a house-roasted turkey panini with baby greens, roasted red pepper, Dijon mustard, garlic aioli and house-made mozzarella on fresh-baked foccacia. The turkey panini is also Paul's favorite, but this time he tried the muffaletta panini. It features Italian meats and cheeses with olive salad on Italian bread. Both paninis were delish!

Muffaletta panini (foreground) and turkey panini

On Saturday, we took another break from our project to drive across the bay to Mobile for the 9th Annual Shrimp Cook Off. The Shrimp Cook Off is a fund-raising event sponsored by HandsOn South Alabama, which is an organization that promotes volunteerism. It is held in Bienville Square in Mobile and features samplings of dozens of shrimp dishes. 

We attended this event back in 2009, and this is the first time we have been here at the same time the Cook Off is held since then. The admission price to the cook-off is a little steep at $15 per person; but it is for a good cause, and it entitles you to all the shrimp you can eat at no additional cost. Advance purchase discount tickets are available for $10 at some of the area banks. In 2009, the bank branches on the eastern side of Mobile Bay didn't have the tickets available, but this time they did so we were able to save a little money. We're glad we did save money - read on, and you will see why.

We arrived shortly after the event opened at 11:00 AM. It was already fairly crowded, and it got even more so as time went on.

The Shrimp Cook Off was already crowded shortly after they opened the gates.

We made our way around the park sampling as we went. One of us would stand in one of the longer lines while the other went to a shorter line and picked up two samples and brought them back.

Paul with skewers of grilled shrimp complete with little umbrellas

Silly costumes at one of the booths

This hula girl must also be a plumber.

There were far fewer samples available this year than there were when we went to the Cook Off in 2009, but we managed to find a few dishes we liked. In addition to having fewer samples, we also thought the overall quality and variety of the food was down from three years ago. Back in 2009, there were numerous dishes we thought were very good, and we found at least three or four dishes we thought were outstanding. In fact, there was shrimp in Alfredo sauce that we went back to sample three or four times.

This year, although there were several dishes we felt were good, there wasn't anything we thought was worth standing in line a second time for. At least half of the groups at this year's Cook Off made some version of shrimp gumbo that all tasted very similar. Gumbo is the easy way out because they could make it ahead of time, then just keep it warm in a big pot instead of preparing their dishes fresh right there at the Cook Off. Back in 2009, the entrants in the Cook Off were made up of amateurs from civic groups and local charities as well as a few professional chefs from local restaurants. This year, we didn't see any restaurants represented, and all the entrants seemed to be civic groups or charities. Overall, we were disappointed with this year's Shrimp Cook Off.

We left Mobile and headed back to the motor home where we resumed work on our project. We'll have a report on that soon along with some of our other activities.

Pine Mountain, GA to Summerdale, AL

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, April 4 to Sunday, April 8, 2012

We originally planned to make the journey from Pine Mountain, GA to Summerdale, AL in two days traveling a little over three hours the first day and about an hour and a half the second day. However, when we thought about it the evening before we left and realized it wasn't that far, and when we realized we would gain an hour traveling from the Eastern Time Zone into Central, we decided it didn't make a lot of sense to split the travel into two days. Therefore, we switched to Plan B and decided to drive straight through and arrive in Summerdale a day early.

However, when we got up Wednesday morning and checked the weather radar, there was a large, ominous-looking rain storm just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico that looked like it was heading directly for Mobile and Summerdale. We could only think of the videos we saw on the news the day before of semi-trailers being tossed through the air by tornadoes in the Dallas area, so we started to think switching back to Plan A and stopping for the night before we got to Summerdale to avoid driving through the rain storm wasn't such a bad idea after all.

When we pulled off the interstate for fuel at the Flying J just south of Montgomery, Margery plugged our Pantech modem into the computer and brought up the weather radar. To our surprise, the rain had remained mostly out over the Gulf, and Summerdale's weather report showed it was overcast with only a few light showers. We went back to Plan B of driving straight through. We checked the radar again a little later while we were on the road (something we could not have done with the satellite internet service we used to have), and there was still no major rain around Summerdale, so we drove on.

We hit a couple of very light sprinkles, and it got a bit breezy for the last 25 or 30 miles or our journey, but none of that was interstate driving so it wasn't that bad. We pulled into Rainbow Plantation around 1:45 Central Time.

Rainbow Plantation has a campground, co-op sites and deeded lots. The campground has full hookups. The roads are paved, and the sites are widely spaced and are mostly grass, although many of the sites have live oak trees under which the grass is pretty sparse. Even with the sparse grass, we usually prefer a site with some shade given the heat of the Alabama sun. The eastern end of the campground has 30-amp electric and the western end had 30/50-amp electric. Wi-Fi is available for a fee. Summerdale is close enough to Mobile that the the Verizon Broadband service is 4G.

We usually end up getting one of the same two sites every time we stop at Rainbow Plantation, and this time was no exception. We got set up in short order and settled in to relax for the rest of the day.

Our site at Rainbow Plantation (two days later after the sun came out)

Looking down our row at Rainbow Plantation

The campground does get its share of winter residents in spite of the fact southern Alabama can get many nights below freezing during the winter. However, by the time we usually arrive in March or April, the weather has warmed up considerably. Most of the winter crowd has left so there are plenty of sites available.

We ran some errands on Thursday, and we hit Walmart on Friday to restock the fridge and pantry. On Friday afternoon, Paul washed the motor home and the car while Margery caught up on laundry. It had really piled up after we spent a week at the state park in Pine Mountain with no sewer hookup.

On Saturday, we did our weekly cleaning inside the motor home in the morning and then we drove down to Bon Secour to Billy's Seafood to pick up some fresh shrimp for dinner.

Billy's Seafood in Bon secour, AL

Bon Secour (French for good security or safe harbor) was originally a French fishing village dating back to the 1800s. Bon Secour is the home of several packing companies that buy shrimp and fish from the local fishing fleet and ship the seafood all over the United States. We found out they also sell fresh seafood at retail last fall when we visited the Swift-Coles House in Bon Secour. The Swift-Coles House was built around 1900 by lumber magnate Charles Swift. Click here to read about our visit last fall to Bon Secour and the Swift-Coles House.

Billy's Seafood has shrimp in many different sizes. We bought about a pound and a half so we would have enough for dinner that evening plus some left for another recipe Margery wanted to try a few days later.

Many different sizes of shrimp available at Billy's Seafood.

We have several ways we like to eat our shrimp, but our favorite, which is the way we had them on Saturday, is to just quickly sauté the shrimp in oil with a little garlic, then add some Old Bay seasoning and white wine for the last few minutes as they finish cooking. Margery drains off the liquid and serves the shrimp with melted butter. When dipped in the melted butter, the shrimp taste almost like lobster. Yum!

Sunday was Easter, and Paul was up in time to catch a beautiful sunrise.

Easter morning sunrise

Although we didn't make it to the sunrise service, we did attended the 10:00 AM service at the Church on the Eastern Shore in Fairhope. The Church on the Eastern Shore, or COTES as they call themselves, is where we worship when we are staying in Summerdale. It was a beautiful service with great worship and a meaningful Easter message.

Rainbow Plantation had a pot-luck Easter dinner in the afternoon, but we decided not to sign up because we felt like we wanted a quieter dinner after the sightseeing and traveling we had been doing in the past two weeks, so we went to Cracker Barrel for an early dinner. Margery had fried catfish, and Paul had a more traditional Easter dinner of country ham. The food, as is usual for Cracker Barrel, was delicious.

On Sunday evening when we were taking Freeway for his evening walk, we met up with Darrell and Judy. Darrell and Judy have a co-p site at Rainbow Plantation, and we originally met them through their blog. They told us about the new dog run that was just installed behind the RV storage area at Rainbow Plantation, so we all walked over to check it out. It is only about 3 weeks old, and it is great. Is is very large and completely enclosed by a fence. We will be stopping there often because it is a safe place to let Freeway run and a good place to use for training.

Freeway, sit. Stay.

Freeway, come!

We will be staying at Rainbow Plantation for several weeks. We have some projects scheduled, we have some sightseeing we want to do, and we have several favorite restaurants where we want to eat while we're here. We'll let you know what we're up to in our next post.

Bon Secour, AL

Summerdale, AL - Events of Saturday, Nov. 26 to Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011

Bon Secour is a small town about 15 miles south of where we were staying in Summerdale. It lies on Bon Secour Bay, which is located along the southeastern edge of Mobile Bay.

Bon Secour was started as a Creole fishing village in the 1800s. The name means "good security" in French, which refers to the fact it was considered to be a safe harbor because it is located inside the mouth of Mobile Bay. The mouth of the bay was also guarded by Fort Morgan, which was completed in the 1830s to help defend the shore line of the fledgling United States following the War of 1812 with Great Britain. We visited Fort Morgan when we were in the area last November. Click here to read about that visit.

The main thing we wanted to see in Bon Secour was the Swift-Coles House, which is a mansion built along the Bon Secour River in the late 1800s. The mansion is normally only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, but they were having special hours on Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving for their Christmas open house. We thought about going then, but there was an extra charge for admission during the open house because there were refreshments. We decided we didn't need the refreshments or the crowds of the open house, so we waited until the following Tuesday. It's just as well because Saturday was cloudy and windy, then the heavens opened up and it rained over two inches from Saturday night right through Sunday. The photo below is a view of the lake outside our motor home on Sunday.

As we mentioned previously, the soil in this area is sandy so it doesn't get very muddy, and most of the water had soaked in by Monday morning.

The rain came through ahead of a cold front, and it was cloudy, cool and windy on Monday. Tuesday was still cool and breezy, but at least the sun came out for our visit to Bon Secour. The photo below shows the entrance to the Swift-Coles House...

...and the next photo shows Paul on the porch.

The Swift-Coles House was originally built as a 4-room, dog-trot fishing cabin around 1882. A dog-trot cabin is two small cabins separated by a breezeway (where the dogs tended to hang out in hot weather) all under one roof.

Charles A. Swift, who owned lumber mills in the area including one near the cabin, bought the cabin around the turn of the century and moved in with his wife and 9 children. They enclosed the breezeway of the dog trot and added on several rooms behind the original cabin. Around 1908, they added a second story. By this time, there were 11 children. The mansion ended up having 16 rooms with an area of about 6,000 square feet. There are also over 3,000 square feet of porches surrounding the house. The next photo shows another view of the sprawling mansion and some of the porches. The original dog trot cabin is the ground floor portion of the wing that juts out to the right.

And the photo below shows the side entrance, which is the enclosed breezeway of the original cabin.

Descendants of the Swift family occupied the house until 1976 when Nick Coles, a restaurant owner and antique collector from Gulf Shores, bought the house. Coles performed extensive renovations and furnished the house from his collection of antiques. Nick Coles willed the mansion to Baldwin County when he died, and the house is now operated as a museum.

There is a guided tour of the entire house, but unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside so we can't show you any of the rooms or furnishings. However, if you click the link above to the Swift-Coles House, there are several good photos of the interior on the web site.

After touring the house, visitors are free to walk the grounds. There was an old barn and an out building behind the main house. They were a little run down, but they had a lot of character. What stories could they tell if they could talk?

The Swift-Coles House is located on the Bon Secour River near the point where the river empties into Bon Secour Bay. Ferries bringing Mobile residents to their summer homes in Bon Secour used to dock near the Swift-Coles House.  The next photo is a view up the Bon Secour River from an area near the mansion.

It was a little chilly and breezy, so we didn't walk around the grounds long. Bon Secour is the home of several seafood packing companies, so another thing we wanted to do was to see if we could find some fresh seafood to take back to the motor home with us. We had gotten a tip from some of the other visitors on the tour who were familiar with the area that Billy's Seafood was a good place to get shrimp, so we hopped into the car and drove down the road to Billy's. On the way, we passed fishing boats tied up in the river.

We passed several other seafood places, and we soon arrived at Billy's at the end of the road.

They had a nice selection of different size shrimp at reasonable prices.

We picked out relatively large ones to sauté for dinner that night and some slightly smaller ones to freeze for shrimp au gratin at a later date.

After we bought our shrimp, we put it into the cooler in the car and walked back to the docks behind Billy's. The shrimp boat in the next photo was apparently preparing to head out into the Gulf because they were taking ice on board.

From the dock, we headed back to the motor home. We had some of the shrimp for dinner that evening, and they were outstanding! They were some of the best we've had. They were so good we went back the next day to get some more.

The cool air that moved in after the rain the weekend before was a reminder it is time to continue making our way south. We have a few errands to run over the next couple of days here in Summerdale, then we'll be off to Florida.

Printers and Paninis

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, Nov. 16 to Friday, Nov. 18, 2011

When we first started full-timing back in 2006, we bought a Hewlett-Packard all-in-one inkjet printer to carry around in the motor home with us. All-in-one printers can print, scan and copy. There are other models that also fax, but since we obviously don't have a land-line phone, we don't need that feature. The printer we bought was nice and compact, and it met our needs fairly well. The only problem was the printer was prone to paper jams. We had always had Hewlett-Packard printers at home and at work, and they had always been very reliable; but this one not so much.

We eventually ruined the printer by pulling jammed paper out from the front instead of clearing jams by the recommended method of removing the rear cover and taking the jammed paper out the back. Removing the rear cover meant we had to lift the relatively heavy printer down from the overhead cabinet where we kept it, so we took the easy way out and pulled the jammed paper out from the front. Apparently, that eventually stripped some drive gears so the paper feed no longer worked. The printer just sat there and clicked when you hit "print."

We replaced our first all-in-one printer with a different model HP all-in one. We hoped the newer model had solved the problem of frequent jams, but it hadn't. This time, however, we dutifully took the printer down from the overhead cabinet every time there was a paper jam (which was fairly frequent) rather than risk damage again by yanking the paper out from the front. The first printer lasted less than two years, but this one has lasted 4 or 5 years.

The next photo shows our second HP all-in-one printer in the overhead cabinet. As you can see, we also store paper and other office supplies in the cabinet, and much of that has to be removed every time we need to take the printer down to clear a jam.

Paper jams that would be an inconvenience if the printer were sitting on a desk become a major headache because of having to unload the cabinet and lift the printer down from overhead. In addition, we were not happy with the USB cable that hangs out of the cabinet and connects the printer to the computer, so we wanted a wireless printer (not yet available when we bought our prevous all-in-one printers) that would eliminate the cable and also make it easy to print with both computers. Therefore, even though our HP all-in-one printer still was still working, we occasionally looked at different makes and models of printers when we got to an office supply store.

When we stopped at Staples last Wednesday to pick up some office supplies, Margery started looking at color laser printers. Another thing we don't like about inkjets is the ink will run if you get the document wet. A laser printer would solve that, but most laser printers are too large for the space we have available. There are also very few all-in-one laser printers, and those are VERY large and quite expensive.

As we looked around Staples, we noticed an Epson NX430 all-in-one inkjet that boasted instant-dry, water-resistant ink. This printer is so compact they call it a "small-in-one." It prints, scans and copies, is photo capable, and has built-in Wi-Fi. We printed a test page, and, sure enough, the ink was very water resistant. We couldn't get the ink to run even when we took the freshly-printed sample page outside into the rain.

We went back to the motor home to make sure the Epson printer would fit in our cabinet and to look at online reviews. Because the paper feed is on the top of the Epson printer, Paul would have to modify the storage shelf that is in the cabinet above the printer; but, other than that, the Epson printer is actually smaller and much lighter than our old HP. Lighter weight means it will be easier to get down from the overhead cabinet when we have to change ink cartridges. Hopefully, we won't have to get it down to clear paper jams.

Most of the online reviews for the Epson printer were good. Margery's online research also turned up the fact the printer was on sale at Office Depot for $60 (regularly $100). The next day, we went to Office Depot to pick up the Epson Printer.

On our way back to the motor home, we stopped in Fairhope for a late lunch at Panini Pete's. We discovered Panini Pete's last spring after seeing it featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. Panini Pete's features burgers and paninis that range in price from about $7 to $9. Included with the sandwich is a side of home-made shoestring fries, chips or the side of the day (usually a cold pasta salad). They are also open for breakfast and serve a couple of different kinds of breakfast paninis and beignets.

Panini Pete's is located behind a row of stores along the main street in quaint downtown Fairhope. There is outdoor dining on a nice patio surrounded by small shops and boutiques. Even though it was a little cool and breezy, we found a table in the sun and decided to eat outside.

Indoor dining is in a light and airy enclosure that looks like a Victorian conservatory.

We both had our favorite panini from last spring, which has house-roasted turkey, house-made mozzarella, roasted red peppers, baby greens and garlic aioli on fresh-baked foccacia.

The paninis were great! They were well worth taking a cheat day from our diet. As we usually do when we plan a cheat day, we try to just enjoy our special meal and not worry about the carbs and sugar. However, we do try to be extra careful with the carbs and sugar in our other meals for that day.

Speaking of our diet, we have been following the Belly Fat Cure low-carb/low-sugar diet for about 7 weeks, and we loosely observed some of the guidelines for about three weeks prior to that. Paul has lost a total of about 13 pounds, and Margery has lost a little over 7. We have our ups and downs; but the overall trend is definitely down.

It was fairly late when we got back to the motor home, so we decided to wait until the next day to tackle setting up the new printer. The setup turned out to be very easy. All Paul had to do was follow the quick-start setup booklet to get the printer ready and install the ink cartridges. Then he inserted the installation CD into the computer and followed the directions on the screen. Even setting up the wireless connection was a breeze. It was almost completely automatic. It even registered itself online.

After Paul got the printer working wirelessly with both computers, he started to modify the storage shelf he had installed at the top of the cabinet above our previous printer. After dragging his circular saw out of the storage bay and cutting down the old shelf and some of the supports, he realized the new printer was so much smaller than the old one that there was plenty of room for storage beside the printer and that the shelf was unnecessary. The next photo shows the cabinet with the new printer in place and with some of our office supplies stored beside it.

The new printer weighs less than 10 pounds while the old one weighs over 21 pounds. The Epson printer is noticeably slower in high-quality color printing mode than our old HP printer, but the black printing speed isn't too bad. We can live with the somewhat slower speeds. We're retired - what's our hurry?  The print quality is excellent, scanning and copying seem to be a lot easier and faster than with our old printer, the new printer is a lot smaller and lighter than our old printer and the ink doesn't run. We'll have to wait to see how long ink cartridges last; but so far, we're thrilled with our new Epson printer.

We don't have any firm plans for the remainder of our time here in the Summerdale area. We thought we might find some sightseeing to do, but we seem to be stuck working on projects for now.

Blue Angels

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

Naval Air Station Pensacola is the home of the U. S. Navy flight demonstration squadron the Blue Angels. The purpose of the Blue Angels is to enhance the recruiting of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps and to serve as ambassadors of good will across the United States and in foreign countries.

The Blue Angels show schedule runs from March to November. In November, the "Blues" move to their winter home of El Centro, CA where they stay until sometime in March. We saw them from a distance when we spent a few days in El Centro in February of 2007 during our first year of full-timing. We have never seen them close-up, and since the practice sessions in Pensacola are open to the public, we decided to get up early and drive over to Pensacola on Wednesday to watch one of the last practice sessions before the Angels left for El Centro for the winter. Practice session dates and the show schedule are shown on the Blue Angels website.

The Blue Angel practice starts at 8:30 AM, and it takes almost an hour to drive from Summerdale to Pensacola. The practice sessions take place adjacent to the National Naval Aviation Museum located at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. The museum itself is fantastic; and it's free, so if you've never seen it, be sure to stop. We were there this past spring, and if you would like to see a preview of the museum, check out our post by clicking here.

The banner at the top of this post is at the entrance to the viewing area for the Blue Angels practice. There are bleachers to sit on, and there is also plenty of space for lawn chairs and for standing. We took our own chairs, but we didn't sit in them much because it was easier to see when we were standing. We liked to turn around and watch the Blues after a maneuver to try to guess what direction they would be coming from next.

The Blue Angels were formed in 1946 by Admiral Chester Nimitz as a means to boost Navy morale and to maintain public and political interest in aviation during cuts in defense spending following WWII.

The first aircraft used by the Blues were propeller-driven Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats. The first jets (the F9F-2 Panther) were used in 1949. There have been several other types of aircraft over the years, and the Blues are currently flying F/A-18A-D Hornets.

Although the Hornets have been modified somewhat (including the replacement of the nose cannon by a tank containing the paraffin-based oil used to create the smoke trails), they could be repainted and made combat ready within 72 hours. The next photo shows Blue Angel 5 and Blue Angel 6 ready for takeoff.

Six Blue Angels usually take part in the flight demonstrations. Blue Angels 1 though 4 fly mostly in the diamond formation...

...but occasionally fly in other formations as well.

When in tight formation, the planes are often less then two feet apart, and you can see from the photos above how low they sometimes fly. At other times, they perform their maneuvers at higher altitudes.

Blue Angels 5 and 6 are known as the solos. They usually fly at higher speed than the Blues in the diamond, and they do a number of high-speed passes that make it look like they are about to collide.

Later, one of the solos joined 1 through 4 to do a five-plane vertical loop.

The next photo shows the solos performing a maneuver called "section high alpha" where they slow their speed to about 120 mph and pitch the noses of the planes up to almost 45º to plow through the air belly first.

Toward the end of the show, the solos join Blue Angels 1 through 4 to form a delta.

The delta performs some real crowd-pleasing maneuvers.

The practice only lasted about 50 minutes, but it was well worth getting up early and making the drive to Pensacola to watch. Afterward, we made a few stops in Pensacola, then headed back to Summerdale.

We planned on having a "cheat day" from our low carb/low sugar diet and stop at the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lunch on our way back to Rainbow Plantation, but we would be arriving a little after noon just in time for the lunch rush. Therefore, we decided to go to the motor home for lunch and go back out to the Shrimp Basket later for an early dinner.

We have written about the Shrimp Basket before. They are a chain of about a dozen restaurants in southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle. They have sandwiches and po' boys for $6 to $8, fried baskets for $10 to $14 and platters for $13 to $14.

The Shrimp Basket also has all-you-can-eat specials on various days, and even though we were there on Wednesday for the popcorn shrimp special, neither one of us felt like we could do justice to all you can eat now that we were used to eating less on our diet. Instead, Margery had a fried clam basket, and Paul had a jumbo fried shrimp basket. We both had boiled new potatoes and slaw for our sides.

The food was delish. It certainly isn't low carb, but it wasn't all that bad, especially since neither one of us ate all our potatoes. In addition, we tried to compensate by being more careful with our other meals that day since we knew we would probably be eating out. We both lost a little more this week, so we'll see how we do on next week's weigh-in.

After our early dinner, we headed back to the motor home for an evening of TV and relaxation. We will be chilling out at Rainbow Plantation for a few more weeks. Paul is working on a motor home project, we're planning for a couple more meals out and we are hoping to do a little more sightseeing, so there will be more posts from Summerdale coming up.

Return to Panini Pete's

Summerdale, AL

From the first time we went to Panini Pete's about two weeks ago, our plan was to go back for lunch one more time before we left the Summerdale area. Click here to read about our first visit to Panini Pete's. We headed a few miles north and west to downtown Fairhope after the visit to Weeks Bay Reserve we told you about in our last post.

Panini Pete's, as well as several small shops, are located around a small courtyard behind a row of stores along the main street. The photo below is the same shot we took the last time along the walkway back to where Panini Pete's is located. This time it was a much sunnier day.

Although Panini Pete's has indoor seating, they also use the courtyard for outdoor dining. Since it was an even nicer day than the first time we went, we sat outside again.

The first time we went to Panini Pete's we had roast turkey paninis. This time, we wanted to try beef, which is also roasted in house. The roast beef paninis are served with tomato, onion confit (pronounced con-FEE, from a French word meaning to preserve), baby greens, Dijon, and a spread made from gorgonzola cheese. It's served on ciabatta bread. We both had seasoned shoestring fries.

The medium rare roast beef was thinly sliced, tender and flavorful. The gorgonzola, which is similar in flavor to blue cheese, was made into a creamy spread that had an nice tang. While the roast beef paninis were excellent, we both liked the roast turkey we had the first time a little better. For one thing, the roast beef and the gorgonzola cheese made the sandwiches a lot heavier than the turkey. We also preferred the focaccia used for the turkey paninis over the ciabatta.

There are even more paninis we would like to try as well as some of the burgers and hot dogs, so we'll definitely be back next time we come to the Summerdale area. As we mentioned in our previous post about Panini Pete's, burgers and paninis range in price from about $7.50 to $9.00. Dogs are a little less.

After lunch, we drove a few blocks to the Fairhope Municipal Pier. The photo below is taken from a park on the bluff overlooking the waterfront area.

The quarter mile long pier was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but it has since been rebuilt. There is a restaurant about half-way out, and you can fish from the pier. A fountain surrounded by an extensive rose garden is adjacent to the pier, and a swimming beach is located nearby.

We walked around the rose garden and stopped by the fountain for a photo.

Afterward, we made a quick stop at Walmart to pick up a few grocery items we needed, then headed back to the motor home. We had a couple of days to relax before hitting the road again.

Foley Train Museum

Summerdale, AL

Foley, AL is located about 10 minutes south of where we were staying in Summerdale. We have driven through Foley and past the Train Museum that's located there numerous times; and we had been wanting to stop at the museum. Because the museum is only open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, our timing never seemed to be right. One Tuesday morning we decided to drive down to the Tanger Outlet Mall located south of Foley; and we were passing by at a good time to stop at the Foley Train Museum on the way back.

The town of Foley was founded by John B. Foley of Chicago. He came to southern Baldwin County in Alabama in the early 1900s and liked what he saw, so he bought between 40,000 and 50,000 acres of land. He formed the Magnolia Land Company and began selling off parcels for farming. Foley soon realized people needed a better way to get to his town, so he used his own money to build a spur from Foley to connect to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad about 35 miles north in Bay Minette, AL.

John Foley built the first train depot in the town of Foley in 1905. When it was destroyed by fire, a replacement was built in 1908. Over the years, not only was the railroad a good way to bring people to Foley, but it was also a good way to ship farm produce north. With good highways to bring people in and trucks to ship farm goods out in more recent years, the railroad discontinued service to Foley in 1971. Instead of tearing the railroad station down, it was moved about 5 miles away to Magnolia Springs where it was used as a warehouse for 24 years.

The station was returned to its original location in Foley in 1995, and it subsequently became a museum.

Outside, there are several train cars and a small, diesel switcher locomotive from the L & N Railroad.

There is also a track car used by railroad safety and maintenance crews.

The weather forecast was calling for rain, but since it wasn't raining yet, we decided to look around the park that is adjacent to the museum first. There was a nice fountain...

...and we were surprised to find the Antique Rose Trail, a rose-lined bicycle/walking trail that started at the park.

We walked the trail for several blocks. It is lined with dozens of old rose bushes like the single, white, climbing rose in the photo below.

The trail meanders along the old railroad right of way just a block off the 4-lane main road through Foley. We had driven past the trail dozens of times over the last few years without even knowing it was there.

Paul enjoys roses, even though he was only semi-successful in the one or two attempts he made to grow them when he used to garden back at our stick house. Roses are beautiful, but they require a lot of care to keep them insect and disease free. Paul enjoys roses most when someone else has to worry about taking care of them.

   

After we walked part of the rose trail, we made our way back to the museum. Inside the old depot toward the back where the baggage and freight were handled there are artifacts from Foley and the surrounding area of Baldwin County.

The waiting room was in the front of the station.

 

Back in 2004, Alan Goldman of Montgomery, AL donated his extensive collection of O-Gauge model trains to the city of Foley. A group of local railroad buffs went to Montgomery to disassemble the layout and put it into storage until an addition to the existing train station could be built to house the model railroad. Model railroaders worked on the layout for over a year putting in more than 6,000 hours of work. Even snowbirds stopped in to help during the winter. The model train layout officially opened to the public in 2007. The layout is 24' by 60' and has a quarter mile of track.

Paul loves model trains and scale models of any type. He likes to see all the detail that makes the model realistic. There is an amazing amount of detail in this train layout like the workers in the photo below painting a bridge.

There is a scene set up on the far side of the layout depicting firemen battling a blaze in a fireworks factory. Lights on the trucks flash, and the red glow inside the building flickers realistically.

Trains run past a circus at the north end of the display.

One train has a car with a camera mounted on it that transmits a picture to a TV monitor. You can get an "engineer's-eye" view as the train goes down the track.

The Foley Train Museum isn't a major attraction, but if you happen to be nearby during a time when it's open, it is definitely worth stopping. Best of all, the museum is free!

The rain that was predicted never did materialize, but it was very humid. We don't think there is air conditioning in the museum, or if there is, it wasn't set low enough. We were still warm on our way back to the motor home, so when we saw the sign advertising Summer Scoups Ice Cream Parlor, we decided to take a slight detour to downtown Summerdale to check it out.

Inside, Summer Scoups looks like an old ice cream parlor from the 1950s. They even have a lot of the old favorites like banana splits and ice cream sodas. Sodas are Margery's favorite, so when she found out they had chocolate sodas, her choice was a no-brainer.

Paul had a chocolate-cappuccino soft serve.

We enjoyed our frozen treats, then headed back to the motor home. We'll have more to report on from Summerdale before we leave, so stay tuned.

Happy Birthday

Summerdale, AL

To celebrate Margery's birthday we decided to drive about half an hour south to Gulf Shores, AL to Mikee's Seafood Restaurant. Mikee's is part of the Shrimp Basket restaurant chain, but Mikee's maintains it's own unique name. They have a menu that is a little more extensive than the Shrimp Basket. Because Mikee's is near the beach, they are also a little higher priced than the Shrimp Basket.

Another difference between the menus at Mikee's and the Shrimp Basket is that the Shrimp Basket has all you can eat specials on certain days, but Mikee's has all you can eat clams, fried shrimp, catfish, and whitefish (mullet) every day. Even though Margery had fried clam strips about a week and a half ago at the Shrimp Basket in Foley, and, although it was a generous portion, it wasn't all you can eat so she didn't get enough. That's the reason we decided to go to Mikee's.

We tried to time our arrival at Mikee's for about 2:30 PM so we could order from the lunch menu because we were pretty sure the prices for dinners go up another $1 or $2 at 3:00. It was the Easter holiday weekend, so traffic on the way to Gulf Shores was much heavier than we expected. On top of that, Gracie, our GPS, had the wrong address. She had Mikee's on West 2nd Avenue and it's really on East 2nd. Fortunately, we still arrived before the switch to the dinner menu, but just barely.

Lunches range from burgers for about $6 to po' boys for $8-9, and other lunch entrees for $9-14. Entrees include hush puppies, corn fritters and 2 sides. All you can eat clams (in the distance in the photo below) are $13. Paul had jumbo shrimp (not all you can eat) for $11. We both had marinated cabbage (sweet and sour cole slaw) and new potatoes for our sides.

Everything was yummy. Margery had several additional servings of clams.

After eating, we went a little out of our way going back to the motor home to take the Foley Beach Expressway to avoid the traffic we hit on State Route 59 on the way down to Gulf Shores. The toll for the bridge across the canal that forms the Intracoastal Waterway is a little steep at $3.50, but it was worth it to save a good bit of time after the frustration of all the red lights and back-ups we hit on the way south. One reason we didn't want to waste too much time on the way back is we were planning to attend Good Friday services that evening, and we wanted a little time for our food to settle and to change clothes before heading out to church.

We were pleased to know that the church we attend when we're in this area, Church on the Eastern Shore, had a Good Friday service...fairly unusual for a contemporary church. The service included communion, and it was a welcomed opportunity to join with other believers to remember and reflect on Christ's sacrifice for each of us.

After church we went back to the motor home and enjoyed a piece of fudge cake we picked up at Walmart the day before for Margery's birthday. The lid was very difficult to remove from the plastic container the cake came in. Paul really didn't want anything bad to happen to the cake, but he grabbed the camera so he could snap a picture just in case it did. Fortunately, Margery was eventually able to get the lid off without mishap.

All the Walmart bakeries seem to make the same items, and we had one of these cakes when we were back in Florida. Walmart makes a larger version, but for the two of us the small one is just about right giving us four generously-sized pieces. There are two layers of moist chocolate cake with plenty of rich, fudge icing.

The next photo shows the birthday girl doing the honors of cutting the cake.

Margery had a nice birthday. It wasn't anything fancy - just a good dinner out, some delicious cake, and calls from Paul's step mom and from our daughter Lora to wish Margery a happy birthday. For her birthday Margery also got a mechanical pencil with a wood barrel that J. Michael hand turned and a beaded bookmark that Lora made. We were also blessed by the Good Friday church service.

Our time in Summerdale is winding down, but we're planning for at least one more sightseeing outing, so look for our next post.

Pensacola, FL Part II: Pensacola Lighthouse

Summerdale, AL

Also located on the grounds of the Pensacola Naval Air Station a few hundred yards down the road from the Naval Aviation Museum is the Pensacola Lighthouse. You can see the lighthouse from the parking lot of the museum, so we headed on over there after we finished up at the museum. The photo below shows the Pensacola Lighthouse with the keeper's house, which is now a museum, in the foreground.

The first lighthouse was built on Pensacola Bay in 1824. It was a 40-foot tower built on a bluff at the south entrance to the bay. By 1850, there were many complaints that the trees blocked the light and that the light was too dim. In 1856, construction of the current lighthouse was begun on the north side of the bay entrance about half a mile from the site of the first light. The first-order Fresnel lens of the new lighthouse was first lit on New Year's Day,  1859.

Pensacola Lighthouse is 159 feet tall, 30 feet in diameter at the base, and 15 feet across at the top. The lighthouse was originally all white, but in 1869, the top of the tower was painted black to stand out against possible clouds or fog in the daytime. The bottom third was left white to stand out against the trees. The next photo below is a little more distant shot that gives a better idea of the height of the lighthouse and a good view of the black and white paint scheme.

Just opposite the lighthouse is a path to the beach. Since we were already tired from walking all over the 150,000+ square feet of the Naval Aviation Museum, and since it was already mid afternoon, we decided to spend what little time and energy we had left walking to the beach instead of walking around the lighthouse museum. Not only that, but there was no way either of us had the stamina to climb to the top of the lighthouse. The next photo shows us on the boardwalk over the dunes.

As we found out when we visited Gulf Shores National Seashore last year, this area has some of the whitest sand in the world. The body of water is Pensacola Bay.

There were a few people off in the distance sitting on the beach, but we didn't see anyone swimming. Margery stuck her toe in the water, and it was COLD. Panama City, which is not too far from here, is a popular destination for spring breakers. Brrrrr! But we're guessing the college kids go there for the beach, the beer and the bikinis - not the swimming. If they swim, it's in the heated motel pool.

From the beach area, we could see how the black top of the lighthouse stands out against the clouds.

By the time we left the area of the lighthouse, we were both famished. We still had a drive of almost an hour back to the motor home, and on the way back, Margery announced she didn't feel like cooking. We remembered seeing a new Mexican restaurant called Los Cabos in Robertsdale, AL not too far from Rainbow Plantation. We noticed the restaurant was packed on Saturday when we passed by at lunch time, so we figured the food must be pretty good. We decided to stop there for an early dinner on our way back to Rainbow Plantation.

Los Cabos has only been open about a month. They're so new, they don't even have a website yet. Since is was only about 3:30 in the afternoon on a Monday, we had the place to ourselves. We started off with the traditional corn chips and salsa.

We were too late for the lunch specials, which range in price from about $5 to $6.25, so we ordered from the dinner menu. Dinners range in price from about $7 to $8.50 for combination platters to about $12 to $14 for fancier dinners like fajitas. Although some of the combo platters are served with refried beans and rice, we both opted to go with a triple combo without the side dishes. The triple combo, which was $7.95, included (left to right) a chili relleno, a beef burrito, and a chicken and cheese quesadilla. The generously-sized portions were more than we could eat. All three of the items in our combos were excellent, and we both thought the quesadilla was one of the best we have ever had.

With our bellies full, we headed back to the motor home. After we relax a bit, we'll be looking for more to do, so stay tuned.

Hickory House BBQ

Summerdale, AL

We had a little cloudy weather and a brief shower while much of the rest of the South had severe storms and tornados. Our weather radio went off a couple of times, but the really bad weather stayed well north of us.

By the time the weather cleared, it was the weekend, so we decided to postpone our sightseeing again. In the meantime, we remembered passing a little barbecue joint north of Rainbow Plantation shortly after we got off the interstate on our way to Summerdale. We were both kind of hungry for barbecue, so we did an internet search and found out the place was called Hickory House BBQ.

Margery had a little trouble finding some of the produce she needed the last time we stopped at Walmart, and we also remembered passing a large farm market in the vicinity of Hickory House. So we decided to drive north on Saturday afternoon to check out the farm market, then stop for a late lunch at Hickory House.

Burris Farm Market is located in Loxley, AL. They have a large selection of all kinds of produce, but one of the main items featured at this time of year is strawberries.

The strawberries looked gorgeous and smelled delicious, but, unfortunately, we just bought ice cream the last time we went grocery shopping, and it was chocolate. We like tp have our strawberries over vanilla ice cream, so we decided one dessert at a time in the motor home was enough. However, we now have a good excuse to finish up the chocolate ice cream so we can get some vanilla and some strawberries before we leave the area.

In addition to produce, cut flowers and live plants, Burris has a bakery and a deli at the back of the store.

Margery needed some limes for fish tacos she is planning to make soon.

We also got some red cabbage for the fish tacos, plus an eggplant and some jalapeños for other recipes.

Hickory House BBQ is just a few miles south of Burris Farm Market in Robertsdale. The place is small and doesn't look like much from the outside, but there was a steady stream of customers the whole time we were there even though it was mid afternoon.

They had a cow, a chicken and a flying pig outside to symbolize their main menu items.

Hickory House has beef brisket, pulled pork or barbecued chicken sandwiches for $3.99 and baskets with sandwiches and two sides for $6.99. They have a rib basket for $7.99, a Cowboy Up basket (extra-large brisket sandwich with 2 sides) for $8.99, and a Big Boy basket (half-pound pulled pork sandwich with 2 sides) for $8.99. They also have platters that range in price from $8.99 for brisket, pork or chicken to $18.99 for a full rack of ribs.

Margery had a brisket sandwich basket with slaw and potato salad, and Paul had a pulled pork sandwich basket with slaw and new potatoes.

Both the brisket and pork were tender and moist, but not real smokey. On the table in the photo below you can see the IBC Root Beer container which held 5 different barbecue sauces. The sauces were all thick and rich. Margery liked the original, and Paul liked the hickory sauce. The sides were also delish.

On our way out, Hickory House gave us dessert samplers to take home with us. Each sampler had small portions of peanut butter pie, ooey-gooey lemon bar, chocolate cake and spring fluff. The samplers really hit the spot for a little something sweet when we got back to the motor home. After another day or two of relaxation, we finally got out for a little sightseeing. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

Panini Pete's

Summerdale, AL

After a few days, the hot, humid weather we had been experiencing when we first arrived in Summerdale gave way to beautiful, clear, sunny weather with highs around 80º and humidity below 30%. That was a good excuse to try out the new chairs we bought when we went back to Camping World the other day to trade in our old batteries.

Our old chairs were typical high-backed recliners similar to what many RVers have. The old chairs were in pretty good shape for being almost 10 years old, and except for a metal bar that sometimes hit you wrong behind the thighs, they were also relatively comfortable. The main problem with the old chairs was the fact they were so big and heavy. That made them difficult to get in and out of the storage compartment as well as move them around, so we rarely used them.

We have been looking at new chairs off and on for at least a year now but haven't been able to make up our minds about what we wanted. Some of the newer, extra-wide recliners are very comfortable and some even have aluminum frames making them lighter than our old chairs. Unfortunately, since they are wider, we don't have room to store them.

When we went to Camping World to return our old batteries, Margery finally made a command decision and announced she was buying a high-backed folding chair with aluminum frame and adjustable back. Paul didn't want to be left out, so tried the chair Margery had picked out and decided to follow suit.

The new chairs are surprisingly comfortable.

The big advantage to the new chairs is their light weight. They weigh less than 8 pounds each as opposed to our old chairs that weighed 24 pounds each. That is a total weight savings of over 30 pounds. The new chairs are a shorter and narrower than our old chairs when folded, and the new chairs are a lot thinner. That means we have room to store the chairs in a different compartment that has easier access than where we had to store the old chairs. In addition to being lighter and easier to handle, they will also be more convenient to get to.

We probably should have taken advantage of the gorgeous weather to do some sightseeing, but most of what we plan to see during this stop in Summerdale is about an hour away in Pensacola, FL, which means we'll probably end up taking one or two day trips over that direction. Paul is feeling a lot better after having had a chest cold, but he's still not 100% and didn't feel up to a full day of sightseeing. Therefore, we decided to head out to do a little shopping and save the sightseeing for a few more days. Paul stayed in the car and read while Margery looked for her summer tops in Kohl's. She didn't find any new tops, but she used a coupon and sale prices to get some new "unmentionables" at a great price.

After Kohl's and a couple of other stops, we drove back to Rainbow Plantation through Fairhope so we could stop at Panini Pete's for a late lunch. Panini Pete's was featured on the Food Network TV program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (Triple D).

Panini Pete's is only open for breakfast and lunch. For lunch, they have an assortment of burgers; hot dogs; and, of course, their specialty - paninis. They make their own mozzerella cheese on site, they roast their own beef and turkey, and they bake their own focaccia. The burgers and paninis range in price from about $7.50 to $9.00 and include your choice of homemade fries, homemade potato chips or the side of the day. The dogs are a little less expensive.

Panini Pete's is a little hard to find because it's located in a small courtyard called the French Quarter located behind a row of stores along the main street in Fairhope. The walkway back to Panini Pete's is at the left of the photo below.

There is a sign for Panini Pete's at the end of the walkway; but if you don't know where the restaurant is located, you won't know where to park so you probably won't see the sign. We had the location programmed into our GPS, so we stopped at just the right place. The GPS isn't always perfect, but this time it was right on. Another good thing is there is plenty of free parking in downtown Fairhope.

The walkway back to the courtyard is nicely landscaped and very inviting.

There is seating inside the restaurant...

...but since it was a nice day, we opted for a table in the courtyard.

We both wanted to try the roasted turkey because of the way they showed it being cooked on the TV program. They rub boneless turkey breast with thyme, sage and other herbs. Then they roll up the the breast, wrap it in three layers of aluminum foil, and deep fry it. The foil keeps the oil out and seals the moisture in as the turkey cooks quickly in the hot oil.

The turkey panini is served on homemade focaccia with Dijon, garlic aioli (homemade mayonnaise), roasted red peppers, homemade mozzarella, baby greens, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. We both had homemade potato chips for our side.

The thinly-sliced turkey was tender, flavorful, and moist; the mozzarella was soft and creamy; and the focaccia was light and perfectly toasted. We've had paninis that were toasted so hard the roof of your mouth was raw by the time you were done eating. Not so with these. The whole sandwich was to-die-for. We can't wait to go back.

After lunch, we made our way back to the motor home where we relaxed for the rest of the day. There was a chance of rain predicted for the following few days, but we plan to look for some new adventures when the weather clears so stay tuned.

New Batteries

Summerdale, AL

Paul noticed recently that he has had to add water to the house batteries in the motor home much more frequently than before and that there was corrosion building up on the terminals. That is a sign that the batteries are being overcharged either because of a problem with the charger or a problem with at least one of the batteries. When the batteries get old, there can be internal problems that prevent the batteries from accepting a full charge as they should, and the charger works harder trying to built up the charge. The extra charging drives off water, which necessitates adding water more frequently, and it drives off corrosive gasses, which cause corrosion.

A few days before we left Florida, Paul also noticed the tops of both batteries were beginning to bulge around the positive terminals. That plus the fact the batteries were 6 years old was a pretty good sign the problem was with the batteries, not the charger.

Our motor home has two 6-volt, deep-cycle batteries. Since the type of batteries we have is the same as what is used in golf carts, and with all the golf carts around The Villages in Florida, that would have been a good place to look for replacement batteries. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we needed new batteries until we were just about ready to leave, and Paul was still fighting a chest cold and wasn't feeling well enough to rush to try to find replacements.

Therefore, one of the first orders of business when we got to Summerdale was to look for new batteries. A quick internet search turned up a couple of golf cart places near Summerdale, but their websites indicated they were more geared toward sales rather than repair and they didn't indicate they stocked batteries. Therefore, we decided to stop at Camping World, which is only a few miles up the road in Robertsdale, to check their battery prices. The Camping World price for 6-volt Exide batteries of the same size and capacity as the ones we had was pretty good, so we picked up a pair.

Actually, picking them up was the hard part. Man, are they heavy! Getting them into a shopping cart was a tough job, but getting them out of the cart and into the car was even harder.

When we got back to the motor home, Paul donned his work clothes, a "do rag" to help keep sweat out of his eyes (it was 85º and 65-70% humidity), and a pair of rubber gloves and safety glasses to protect from acid residue. He took off his safety glasses for the photo as he started to remove the cables from the batteries.

The photo below shows Paul disconnecting the negative (ground) terminal of one of the batteries. You need to be careful when working with a metal wrench on the positive (hot) terminals not to touch any of the surrounding metal structure and cause a short. In fact, it's best to disconnect the ground first. That way, if you accidentally touch anything metal with the wrench while it's on the positive terminal, there will be no electrical path back to the battery.

Paul used a homemade battery strap made from nylon rope to lift the old batteries out.

In the next photo, you can see the bulge at the positive terminal on the right side. The filler hole on the right end behind the positive terminal was oblong so the cap wasn't sealing at all on that end.

The next step was to clean up all the corrosion in the battery compartment. Paul used a corrosion neutralizer he bought at Walmart, then rinsed with water.

After everything was cleaned up, in went the new batteries.

Paul double and triple checked the polarity before and during hooking up the cables. Then he turned the 12-volt disconnect switch back on, and we were back in business. Well, we were almost back in business. Paul couldn't get the refrigerator to turn back on. He went outside, and, sure enough, the over-temperature safety cut-off switch had tripped.

The cut-off switch is part of the latest recall for 4-door Norcold refrigerators that shuts down the cooling unit to prevent fire if the switch detects overheating of the cooling unit. The switch worked as designed when our old cooling unit failed a few weeks ago when we were back in Florida. The new cooling unit came with the cut-off switch already pre-installed.

Paul knew the cooling unit couldn't have overheated because it was off the whole time he was installing the batteries. Therefore, he figured the cut-off switch must have malfunctioned so he decided to bypass the switch to get the refrigerator back up and running, especially since it was the weekend.

First thing Monday morning, Paul called the mobile repair service in Robertsdale that did the original recall last fall, and they sent a technician out to the rig within an hour. The tech checked everything out and confirmed the safety switch had malfunctioned. Fortunately, the tech had a spare switch so he was able to replace it without having to order a new one and wait for it to come in. There was no charge for the switch, but, unfortunately, we did have to pay for the service call. It was worth it not to have to pack everything up, drive for service, wait around, then drive back and set everything up again.

After replacing the batteries, Paul got cleaned up, and we loaded the old batteries back into the car to return them to Camping World for a refund of the $10 per battery trade-in fee. Lead-acid battery prices are almost always quoted including a trade-in. Paul didn't remove the old batteries before going to Camping World because we weren't sure Camping World would have batteries in stock or that we would like their price. Therefore, so we had to make a second trip.

Since we were out and since it was late afternoon, we decided to drive a few miles south to Foley to the Shrimp Basket for an early dinner after dropping off the old batteries.

The Shrimp Basket is one of our favorite places for seafood. They have baskets of fried shrimp, clams, fish, chicken, and more. Most of the baskets cost $10 to $11 and include include slaw, hushpuppies and a side. They also have all you can eat shrimp and fish specials several days a week. Paul had popcorn shrimp with a side of new potatoes, and Margery had clams with potato salad. Everything was delish.

After our early dinner, we stopped at Walmart for a few items, then headed back to the motor home for an evening of TV.

Summerdale, AL, Part IV: Food and New Friends

One afternoon when we were walking around the campground we ran into Darrell and Judy Patterson outside their rig, and they invited us to stop and chat. Darrell and Judy are full-timers who have a blog called Wandering America that we follow, and they have a co-op site at Rainbow Plantation. Margery and Judy have corresponded by email, but we had never met the Pattersons in person, so we were glad to be able to catch up with them while we were in Summerdale.

When we mentioned we were originally on our way to the office to pick up a new activities calendar for the campground, the Pattersons told us about a dinner at the Escapees clubhouse on Sunday called Souper Sunday. A number of the ladies prepare different soups, and for $3 a person (the proceeds went to charity), you could sample as many soups as you wanted. That sounded like a good way to get to know some people as well as a good way to enjoy some delicious food, so we decided to join them.

One thing we learned about the Escapees a long time ago most of them don't take themselves too seriously, and there's always a bunch who aren't afraid to make fools of themselves. Last September at the Escapade, there was never any trouble getting people to volunteer to put on ridiculous costumes and perform funny stunts and skits to entertain the rest of us. Souper Sunday was no exception. There is a group of ladies at Rainbow Plantation who call themselves the Chenilles (Rainbow Plantation’s own bathrobe ensemble). They got up and serenaded us with a couple of silly songs.

After our entertainment, we all got to wander around to see what kinds of delicious soups there were.

There were at least 20 different soups from traditional soups like chili, chicken noodle, beef barley, and split pea with ham (one of Paul's favorites) as well as more exotic soups like mushroom and wild rice, and pumpkin with mushrooms and curry. Our favorite was the pumpkin with mushrooms and curry.

Darrell and Judy also invited us to join them and a group of people for lunch the following day at the Roadkill Cafe in nearby Elberta, AL. The next photo shows the majority of our group outside. We ended up with 8 couples.

As you might guess from the name, the Roadkill Cafe doesn't take itself too seriously either. Just check out the mural on the wall outside...

...and the sign inside the door.

The Roadkill Cafe specializes in down-home Southern cooking, and they are only open for lunch. Although you can order from the menu, everyone we saw was having the all-you-can-eat buffet. It is good food for $8 a person; and on top of that, someone in our group had coupons that gave you one buffet at the regular price and the second one for half price.

The buffet always includes fried chicken plus at least one other meat - it was pork chops in gravy the day we were there. There was also salad, green beans, collard greens, corn, mashed potatoes and more. Everything was delish, including the chocolate cake and soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

As you might be able to tell from the photo of the outside of the restaurant above, it was cloudy and it rained most of the day. According to our weather station, we got 1.89 inches of rain over a 24 hour period. The region needs rain, so that was a good thing, especially because it was a fairly steady rain instead of a quick downpour. That also meant it got cool after the rain, so we'll be anxiously awaiting a warm up because we still have some sightseeing we want to do before we leave Summerdale. Stay tuned.

Summerdale, AL, Part I: Computer Woes

It was a little over a three-hour drive from Meridian, MS, to Summerdale, AL. Summerdale, which is on the eastern side of Mobile Bay, is the home of the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park. Rainbow Plantation is one of our favorite Escapees parks. The sites are big, and the campground is quiet. There are no trains and no interstate noise.

The park has a campground, and there are also co-op sites and deeded lots. The roads are paved and the campground sites are grass with some shade. There are full hookups (some with 30-amp electric and some with 50), and Wi-Fi is available for a small fee. Our site for this stay at Rainbow Plantation is shown in the next photo.

The campground wasn't very full when we first arrived, but the number of RVs steadily increased during our stay. The next photo shows the view down the road.

You know how you always read about how important it is to back up your computer files? You know how you're always planning to do it some day? Well, we can tell you from experience to DO IT NOW.

We have a fairly new laptop that is our primary computer. Our old laptop is slow and out of date, but we kept it around because sometimes it's nice for both of us to have access to a computer at the same time even if one of them is a little slow.

About the time we arrived in Summerdale, Paul noticed the old computer had slowed down markedly. It would frequently hang up and had to be rebooted. Scans of the hard drive with anti-spyware and anti-virus software didn't turn up anything, but Paul was fairly certain it was a problem with spyware. Paul spent almost 4 solid days trying to correct the problem. To make a long story short, Paul was finally able to find a program on the Microsoft web site called Microsoft Security Essentials that was able to find and remove the spyware from our old computer. The good news is, after all the things Paul learned about speeding up computers while researching the spyware problem, he was able to tune up the old computer and clean up the hard drive so it is now running faster than it has for years.

The second chapter of the story started shortly after we got the spyware problem with the old computer corrected. The new computer is the preferred machine for downloading, cataloging and working with our thousands of photos. However, since we have two computers, we sometimes need to be able to access photos and other data from either computer. For that reason, we store the photos and some of our data files on an external hard drive so we can plug the drive into either computer when we need to access files.

We started experiencing problems with files on the external hard drive that neither computer could read. Paul figured those files may have been somehow corrupted by the spyware. However, the problem began to grow with more files that couldn't be read. Suddenly, neither computer would recognize the external hard drive at all.

We researched companies that specialize in data recovery from failed hard drives. We got an estimate from one company for $350 to $500. Yikes! Further research turned up Tech Advanced Computers in nearby Pensacola, FL, and we gave them a call.

They seemed to be very knowledgeable, and their initial price estimate was reasonable. About a week after we dropped off the drive, we got a call saying their analysis software told them most of the files could be recovered. So for a cost of a little over $200 we had them transfer our files to a new external drive. That wasn't too bad since a new external hard would have cost about $75-100 by itself.

Paul spent a couple of days re-organizing all our photo files and getting our photo catalog software to be able to find the files on the new drive. In going through the files, it doesn't look like anything is missing. Paul will begin the task of backing up our data so we don't have this problem again.

We've had a good bit of hot, humid weather with several rainy days since we first arrived in Summerdale. With the weather and with spending so much time on computer problems we haven't done any sightseeing, but we did find time to go out to eat. One afternoon we headed down to the Shrimp Basket in nearby Foley for an early dinner.

The Shrimp Basket is a chain of 9 restaurants along the Alabama Gulf coast and Florida Panhandle. As the name suggests, they specialize in seafood. We went on a Wednesday because on Sundays and Wednesdays they have all-you-can-eat fried shrimp baskets. The baskets also include cole slaw (with mini shrimp), potatoes (French fries, new potatoes, or potato salad) and hush puppies. The shrimp is delish, and the creamy potato salad or the buttery new potatoes are a nice contrast to the fried shrimp.

We'll be doing a little sightseeing between backing up computer files, so stay tuned for our next post.

 

Red Bay, AL

As we mentioned in our last post, we stopped on our way south in Red Bay, AL, to have the awning on our motor home repaired and to have the top or our front cap repainted where the clear coat had started to peel. The service coordinator began making the rounds of the new arrivals on Monday, and he got to us early on Tuesday morning. He told us the awning repair would take less than three hours which meant we would get into an express service bay within a day or two. However, he told us there would be a long wait to get into the paint and body shop, and he recommended a body shop in town where we could get the painting done much quicker.

Within an hour, someone from McKinney RV Body Shop stopped by our rig to take a look at the area of the front cap we wanted to have repainted. They gave us an estimate, and we made an appointment to take the motor home to their shop in town on Friday.

In the meantime, we investigated the cost of replacing the entire awning. Although the fabric of the old awning wasn't torn, it was discolored in several places, and the stitching along the top where the weather shield was attached was pulling out. Since we weren't happy with the condition of the awning fabric, and since we knew repairing the awning would be fairly expensive anyway, we decided to bite the bullet and replace the whole thing.

Since we were going to be scheduled for an express bay for our awning repair, Paul went to the service department to make sure replacing the awning would still fall into the three-hour repair category, and it did. He must have asked at just the right time because within minutes of his return to the motor home, someone came to the door wanting to know if we could take the motor home to a service bay right away.

Once Paul pulled the motor home in, the two technicians got to work quickly removing the old awning. Awnings are heavy and awkward; but obviously, these guys had done this before. In the photo below, workers use long support poles remove the awning while another guides the awning out of the awning rail from the ladder.

It took 2 1/2 hours to get the old awning off and the new one installed. The new one works better than our old one ever did. It operates much more smoothly, and the new fabric looks great.

We can't stop in Red Bay without taking a tour of the Tiffin plant. One of the reasons we like to do the plant tour is you get to see what's new because they let you go into any of the motor homes sitting in final inspection. The day after our awning replacement, we decided to go over to the plant for a tour.

Several years ago, the plant produced a peak of 13 motor homes a day. When we were there two years ago when fuel prices were sky high, they were only building 6 motor homes a day and working 4 days a week. Last year, they were building 7 motor homes a day and working 5 days a week. This year, they are still working 5 days a week, and they are building 10 motor homes a day. We're glad to see things are continuing to progress upward.

The tours start out with a short video in the visitor center outside the main gate of the plant.

The tours are still being led by Red, who is 83 or 84 years old, and who is still sharp as a tack. He is a former business owner from Red Bay who was recruited out of retirement years ago by the Tiffin family. He has delivered motor homes, he has represented Tiffin at RV shows, and now he leads the tours. Red is in the center of the photo below.

Inside the gate, there was definitely a lot more hustle and bustle going on. There were a lot more motor homes lined up, and there were more cars in the employee parking lot. Parts were also being shuttled back and forth by fork trucks like the one in the photo below.

Inside the plant, there were lots of workers scurrying about, there were lots of motor homes on the production line, and there was lots of noise. Red, who is very soft-spoken, has a microphone, and all on the tour are given headphones in order to be able to hear over the din.

Last year we described the basic steps in the production of a motor home in our post about Red Bay. To see our photos and read about that manufacturing process and about last year's visit to Red Bay, click here.

Last December, Tiffin Motorhomes created a big buzz at the RVIA national RV trade show by introducing a new compact, fuel-efficient, rear diesel motor home called the Breeze. The Breeze has recently started in production with a 28 foot model, and we saw two of them in the plant. The one on the photo below was getting the finishing touches to the interior, and was scheduled to go to the paint shop in a couple of days.

As full-timers, the Breeze is a little small for us; but we could definitely see buying something like a Breeze if we were to settle down somewhere when we're a little older and travel only part of the year.

As usual we were able to go into the motor homes sitting in final inspection at the end of the tour. We'll probably never be able to afford a new diesel pusher, but it's fun to dream.

Swamp John's is a restaurant that is quite well known around Red Bay for its catfish special. The special, which is available all day on Thursdays, includes 4 pieces of fried catfish, two sides and a drink for $7.00. Swamp John's is located just outside town in an old gas station. Most people eat inside, but you can dine on picnic tables under the canopy among the old gas pumps.

The inside is nothing fancy, but the catfish is good, and the price for the Thursday special is excellent.

We got up bright and early on Friday so we could get the motor home to the body shop as soon after 7:00 AM as possible. They were ready for us when we got there about 7:10, and they quickly began sanding and masking off the upper area of the front that needed repainting.

In chatting with the guys at the body shop, Paul found out peeling clear coat on the top happens occasionally because not enough clear coat was applied during the original paint job. Unfortunately, the problem usually doesn't show up until after the warranty has expired.

After Paul watched for a while, we took about a 25 mile drive to the Walmart in Russleville to stock up on groceries. When we returned, we stopped by the body shop to put the cold things we bought into the fridge and to check progress. Then we went over to the Tiffin customer lounge to hang out for a while.

The customer lounge is very comfortable with sofas, easy chairs, TV, microwaves, and vending machines. Often you can see people sitting around a table playing cards, dominos, or putting together one of the many jigsaw puzzles sitting around. Pets are allowed in the lounge, so Margery was able to get her 'puppy fix.'

When we returned to the body shop a little after 1:00, they were waiting for the last coat to harden a bit more so they could do some final buffing. The end result looked outstanding with an excellent color match and a good-looking, glossy clear coat. By the time we got out of there and got set up back at the Tiffin campground, it was around 3:00, and were were starved.

We were both hungry for Chinese, so we decided to try City King Chinese Restaurant in town.

We both love General Tso's chicken, and they had lunch specials for $4.95 that included General Tso's chicken plus fried rice or a spring roll. However, they also have a fairly extensive lunch buffet for $5.89 that also had General Tso's chicken plus numerous other entrees and side dishes, so we decided on the buffet.

The selection was great, and the food was pretty good for the price for a small southern town like Red Bay. By the way, you really know you're in the south when a Chinese restaurant serves sweet tea.

We got all the work done on the motor home done in less than a week, which was excellent considering the work included painting. We talked to people who were told the wait would be up to three weeks for body work and paint. Since ours was paint only, it wouldn't have taken that long, but using McKinney Body Shop was a good suggestion from Tiffin that probably saved us a week.

As we said earlier, we heard the Tiffin service facility gets busier the later it gets in October. We arrived on Saturday, and there were several rigs in the dry camp sites by Sunday Night. We left a little over a week later, and there were 20 rigs in the dry camp area by Sunday night.

Red Bay is in Alabama just over the state line from Mississippi. For our next stop, we're heading south and just back across the line to Meridian, MS, to do a little sightseeing.

Bellingrath Gardens

 The reason we only stayed one night at our previous stop in Vicksburg is we decided to make a slight detour back to the Mobile, AL, area to visit Bellingrath Gardens. The azaleas for which Bellingrath is so famous usually bloom about the middle two weeks of March, which is when we passed through the area on our way north to the wedding in Branson. However, this year the azaleas would be blooming several weeks late due to the unusually cold winter, so we skipped Bellingrath on our way north.

We checked the Bellingrath web and Facebook pages when we were in Maumelle on our way back south. It was reported that the azaleas would be nearing their peak sometime after Easter. Therefore, we decided to shorten our stay in Vicksburg and head back toward Mobile.

When we visited the Mobile area previously, we always stayed at Escapees Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL. However, Summerdale is on the eastern side of Mobile Bay, and Bellingrath is on the western side. Since we would be staying in the area such a short time, we decided to stay on the western side of Mobile right up the road from the gardens at Paynes RV Park in Theodore, AL, a Passport America park.

Paynes RV Park has roads that are a mixture of dirt and gravel. The sites in the front section are mostly gravel with a little grass, and the sites in the back section are mostly grass with a little gravel. The photo below shows our site in the back section...

...and the next photo shows shows some of the sites in the front section.

Paynes RV has full hookups with 30/50/amp electric and Wi-Fi. Some of the sites (including ours) were a little narrow. Most of the sites are pull-throughs, and the ones in back are extra long.

The next morning, we drove the car a few miles down the road to Bellingrath. There were delphiniums, hydrangea and Easter lilies blooming by the entrance.

You can get admission to the garden only or the garden plus a house tour and/or a cruise on the Fowl River, which runs past the estate. Since we did the entire package just last year, we opted for the garden only this time. If you want to read the two posts about our visit to Bellingrath last year, click here and here.

We knew the azaleas wouldn't be at their peak because Margery called Bellingrath while we were still in Maumelle, and they told her the azaleas were loaded with flower buds, but still only at about 30 or 40% of them were open. We decided to go ahead with our plans to go to Bellingrath anyway knowing the display wouldn't be as spectacular as we had originally hoped. The walkway in the photo below should be lined with solid pink; but, as you can see, most of the buds still haven't opened.

 

It was hard to believe the azaleas had been delayed by that much. It looked like it would be at least another week until they reached full bloom, which would make the peak about a month late. We visited Bellingrath about the same time last year, and the azaleas were completely done. What a difference a year makes! Thankfully, there were other flowers to supplement the azaleas.

Some of the additional flowering plants included (left to right) Delphinium, miniature daffodil, and wisteria.

The camellias were also blooming. Camellias are an evergreen shrub that bloom during cool weather, usually December through March. Tea is a member of the camellia family.

The next photo shows Margery in a courtyard in front of the house. As we said, we skipped the house this trip because we just toured it last year.
 

A few of the azalea were a little farther along than most, like this one by the patio behind the house.

The next composite photo shows two of the many varieties of azaleas at Bellingrath.

Beyond the house, there is a boardwalk that crosses over and winds around an inlet of the Fowl River that is supposed to be a good place to spot wildlife. The only thing we saw along the inlet the day we were there were these two turtles sunning themselves on a partially-submerged log.

From the boardwalk, we walked around Mirror Lake, which is one of the most beautiful features of Bellingrath Gardens. Fortunately, the azaleas surrounding the lake were blooming more fully than most of the ones in other areas.

There is a little grotto along the far side of Mirror Lake where we saw a common five-lined skink. There was one in almost the exact same location when we were at Bellingrath last year. Maybe it was the same one.

After we left Bellingrath, we were both hungry, so we decided to drive a little out of our way to check out a seafood restaurant called Beaudean's that was recommended by the lady who checked us into the campground.

Paul had a fried shrimp basket with slaw, hush puppies and fries, and Margery had a catfish po' boy with onion rings. A po' boy is a submarine-type sandwich from the Gulf Coast region of the south. Po' boys are usually made from some sort of seafood such as shrimp, catfish, oysters, crab, or crawfish, although roast beef and Louisiana hot sausage versions of the po' boy also exist.

 

From Beaudean's, it was back to the motor home. We'll be moving on in the morning, so stay tuned for our next adventure.

On the Road Again

First of all, we would like to thank all our friends and readers who expressed their condolences about the loss of our sweet dog, Molly. She was such a good traveler, and we'll miss her.

After delaying our departure from Bushnell, we finally hit the road on Thursday. We made an overnight stop at Pine Lake RV, a Passport America campground near Fountain, FL, in the panhandle. In other years after leaving Bushnell, we stayed at Chattahoochee RV located on the Apalachicola River. Chattahoochee is closer to half-way to our destination in Summerdale, AL; but last year, the river was flooded and some of the sites at the campground had recently been underwater. With more rain this year, we thought we would just drive a little farther and try a new campground that wasn't located near a river. The next photo shows our site at Pine Lake RV.

Pine Lake RV is located about 16 miles from the interstate, but there is still some highway noise from four-lane U. S. Highway 231 that passes by the campground on the way to Panama City. There is a railroad track a few hundred feet on the other side of the highway. Fortunately, there were very few trains because the rumble of the few that did pass was very loud. Fortunately, there is no crossing near the campground so there were only a few, distant toots of the train horns.

The roads through the campground are paved, but the pavement is quite narrow. The sites are a combination of grass and sand, and most are extra-long pull-throughs. The site width isn't too bad for a private campground. Pine Lake has full hook-ups with free Wi-Fi. Some sites have 30 amp electric and some have 50 amp. As you can see from the above photo, there are a few trees, but the office was very accommodating in allowing us to move to another site to get satellite reception. In the first site they gave us we could get internet, but not TV. They are on two different satellites, and a tree branch was blocking the TV signal.

In the morning we hit the road at 8:30, which is a little earlier than usual. We pulled into Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL, shortly after noon. It was a good thing we got an early start because we got the last available site. A lot of Escepees spend the winter in Summerdale; and although some had moved on, others (like us) were stopping on our way north from Florida.

Rainbow Plantation is one of our favorite Escapees RV parks. The roads are paved, and the sites are a combination of grass and sand. There are full hook-ups and free Wi-Fi. Fifty-amp electric is available for an extra charge. Sites are nice and wide, and the campground is quiet.

One of the things we like about the Summerdale area is there are lots of things to do and see. Even though our visit to Summerdale was shortened because we extended our stay in Bushnell, we still wanted to see the azaleas blooming at Bellingrath Gardens over in Mobile. Bellingrath is famous for the over 250,000 azaleas that normally bloom around the middle two weeks of March. Unfortunately, when we checked the Bellingrath web site, we found out the unusually cold weather this winter had delayed the blooming by about two weeks. This delay was confirmed by observing the azaleas in people's yards in the area. Only about a third of the blossoms on most of the plants open, and it looked like the azaleas still had at least a week to 10 days to go before they even neared their peak. Therefore, we decided to save seeing azaleas for another time.

One of the other things we like about the Summerdale area is the close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico which means there is a lot of delicious seafood available. Last fall when we were in the area we discovered Shrimp Basket restaurants. Shrimp Basket is a chain of about a dozen restaurants with one in nearby Foley. Paul was hungry for fried shrimp, and the Shrimp Basket has all-you-can-eat shrimp baskets on Wednesdays and Sundays, so we headed down to Foley on Sunday.

 

After spending the weekend at Rainbow Plantation, we hit the road again on Monday. We were heading to Branson, MO, for the wedding of Heather, who is our daughter Lora's best friend and former roommate. We were friends with Heather's parents from our former church back in Pittsburgh, and we were pleased to have been invited to participate in the festivities.

With extending our stay back in Bushnell, our recent travels were a bit less leisurely than normal. We usually plan to travel no more than four hours a day, but this time, we would be traveling 5+ hours a day for a couple of days in a row. Our next overnight stop was at Movietown RV Park in Canton, MS, a little north of Jackson.

Movietown RV is a nice RV park. It has gravel roads and pads with full hookups and 50/30 amp electric. Sites are mostly pull-throughs and are fairly wide with grass between. Even though the campground is conveniently located near the interstate, there is surprisingly little traffic noise - and there are NO trains!

Apparently, the name of the RV park comes from the fact that quite a few movies have been filmed in the Canton area. Canton even has a movie office and a couple of movie museums. Maybe we'll go back some day for a longer visit, especially now that we know a good place to stay.

From Canton, we drove north to Little Rock, AR, in another 5+ hour travel day. We stayed at Maumelle Park north of the city last fall when we met up with our friends Marilyn and Alan. Since that time, Alan took a voluntary layoff when he found out the company he worked for was planning a cut-back, they sold their house, and they are now full-timers.

Maumelle Park is a Corps of Engineers campground located along the Arkansas River. The campground has paved roads and pads and gravel patios. There are water and electric hookups (30 amp) only. As with most COE campgrounds, sites are very generously spaced. The photo below shows our site at Maumelle Park.

We didn't make reservations because we were uncertain about our arrival date and because we thought the campground would be empty in the middle of the week in March. Boy, were we surprised when we arrived and found the campground was almost full! It looked like a lot of families were spending the week at the campground, so we're guessing we hit spring break for the Arkansas schools. There were also some college kids on spring break, and we're pleased to report the group tenting on the site next to us were very well behaved. The next photo is a view down the road from our site and gives you an idea of how crowded it was.

We normally look for a campground with pull-through sites when we make a one-night stop, but we liked Maumelle so much, it was worth unhooking the toad. Not only that, but Marilyn and Alan took us to Larry's Pizza when we were there last fall. Larry's is a chain of about a dozen restaurants around the Little Rock area, and, fortunately, there is one right down the road from Maumelle Park. They have a lunch buffet every day, but they only have the dinner buffet on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Luckily for us, we were there on Tuesday, so we had another good reason to unhook the car. The next photo shows Margery loading up at Larry's. Yum!

Here Paul is toasting Alan and Marilyn for introducing us to Larry's.

The next morning, we headed out for an unprecedented third straight travel day. The distance was a little shorter, and we were only on the road for about 3 1/2 hours instead of the 5+ hours we had been doing. We pulled into Escapees Turkey Creek Campground near Branson, MO, a little after noon.

In contrast to Maumelle Park, the campground in Branson was nearly empty. Late spring, summer and fall are the most popular times for Turkey Creek Campground, and we were a little early. But that was OK because some of the sites are also a little small, so we had plenty of elbow room with the campground almost empty.

Turkey Creek has gravel roads and pads, full hook-ups (there is an extra charge for 50 amp electric), free Wi-Fi and cable. Although the temperature was in the 60s when we arrived, we opted to pay extra for a 50 amp site because the weather forecast was calling for rain and falling temperatures so we thought 50 amp would make it easier to do laundry and use the electric heater at the same time. The photo below shows our site at Turkey creek.

We'll be spending a week in Branson, so we'll have time to relax a little between the wedding festivities. We're also looking forward to seeing Lora and J. Michael. We might even come up with some other activities or possibly a good restaurant, so stay tuned.

 

Mobile, AL Part II: Day Trip to Pensacola, FL

Pensacola, FL is only about 35 miles from where we were staying in Summerdale, AL, near Mobile. We decided to take a day trip over to the Florida Panhandle to do a little sightseeing.

Margery's online research turned up a lot of things to see in the Pensacola area, but since we were only going there for the day, we decided to concentrate on the Gulf Islands National Seashore because we thought it would provide a good combination of history and nature. Gulf Islands National Seashore runs along the barrier islands off the coasts of western Florida and Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. For some reason, the islands off the Alabama coast were not included.

Gulf Islands National Seashore has several visitor centers, and we started at the visitor center at the Naval Live Oaks Reservation located on the spit of land along the outer edge of Pensacola Bay. Prior to the start of the use of steel for ships in the 1860s, wood from live oak trees was very desirable for shipbuilding (especially for warships) because of its great strength. The area gets its name from the fact that the live oaks that grew in this area were once set aside for shipbuilding. More about that later.

Much of the strength of live oak comes from the high density of the wood, which is up to 75 pounds per cubic foot - over 30% more than white oak and 70% more than yellow pine. The visitor center has a display with one cubic foot samples of live oak, white oak, and yellow pine that you can lift with pulleys to feel the difference in weight.

The Pensacola area was first explored in 1513 by Ponce de Leon, and a settlement was established there in 1559 making it the first European settlement in the continental United States. However, the settlement was never able to fully recover from a devastating hurricane that hit later in 1559, and the settlement was abandoned in 1561. Therefore, St. Augustine, FL, which was established in 1565, retains the title as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States. Pensacola lay abandoned for 135 years before it was finally reestablished by the Spanish in 1696.

Pensacola is on the dividing line between what is considered to be French Louisiana and Spanish Florida. Pensacola was occupied by the French in 1719, but the Spanish returned in 1722 after the French left Pensacola following another devastating hurricane. After the French and Indian War, Pensacola became part of the British Colonies in 1763. During the Revolutionary War, Spain reoccupied Pensacola and other parts of Florida, but eventually turned the occupied areas over to the United States in 1818.

The United States established a permanent naval yard in Pensacola in 1824. In 1828, the government established the Naval Live Oak Reservation near the naval yard. It was established not only to protect the live oaks growing there, but also to experiment with the cultivation of live oaks. Today, it is part of the national seashore.

There are several hiking trails in the vicinity of the visitor center, and we decided to take the nature trail. The nature trail winds through a forest made up primarily of magnolias, slash pines, and live oaks. The next photo shows a live oak along the trail.

Many of the large live oaks along the nature trail have plaques in front of them with a photo of that particular tree. The photo has an overlay showing how various shapes would have been cut from the tree to be used for shipbuilding. For example, a rib for the side of a ship's hull might have been cut from a gently curving branch, and an angled support bracket might have been cut from the crotch where a branch met the trunk. The natural direction of the grain helped make the pieces very strong.

One of the most noticeable plants along the trail were the beautyberry shrubs. The magenta berries almost seemed to glow in the bright sun.

We stopped for a photo at the deck at the far end of the nature trail.

We took the trail back to the visitor center that ran closer to Pensacola Bay where we watched a great blue heron hunt for food in the shallows. He would stretch his neck up seemingly to get a better look down into the water ahead of him.

When he would apparently see something, he would crouch down and stalk forward. We watched for several minutes while he repeated those actions, but we never saw him catch anything.

 

From the Naval Live Oak Reserve, we took the bridge over Santa Rosa Sound to Santa Rosa Island. There is another area of the national seashore at the western tip of the island. On the way we drove through Pensacola Beach with its high-rise hotels and condos and its colorful beach houses.

Once we got to the national seashore, we got to enjoy views of Santa Rosa Sound on one side and the beach along the Gulf of Mexico (shown below) on the other. This area has some of the whitest sand in the world.

 

There was considerable damage to the road and the infrastructure in this area of the national seashore due to the severity of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. The road to the western tip of the island had been closed, and it only reopened on March 22, 2009.

At the tip of Santa Rosa Island is Fort Pickens. Following the War of 1812, the United States decided it needed to fortify its major ports. Fort Pickens was completed in 1834 and was one of three forts guarding the entrance to Pensacola Bay. Fort McRee was located on the barrier island opposite Fort Pickens (Perdido Key), and Fort Barrancas was located on the mainland right inside the entrance to the bay.

About 21.5 million bricks were used to construct the walls of 5-sided Fort Pickens. Strength to support the weight of the walls and heavy cannons was achieved by the use of arches. The photo below shows some of the cannon ports along the outer wall. You can see how the walls are a series of arches within arches.

 

Even though Fort Pickens was deep in the South, it was occupied by Union forces throughout the Civil War. The 15-inch Rodman cannon in the photo below was installed atop the northwestern wall of the fort shortly after the Civil War. The 15-inch Rodman cannon was one of the largest smooth-bore cannons ever used by the U. S. Army (there also was a 20-inch version), and it required a team of 10 men to fire.

The Rodman cannon was developed by a career Army officer by the name of Thomas Rodman. Rodman experimented with new casting methods to overcome previous size limitations of cast iron cannons. Rodman worked with the Fort Pitt Foundry located in our old home town of Pittsburgh to develop the new, larger cannons. Fort Pitt Foundry produced many Rodman cannons during and after the Civil War.

Some cannons during the Civil War were rifled, but most were smooth bore. In the 1870s, rifled cannons became more commonplace making brick forts like Fort Pickens obsolete. The rifled cannons were much more accurate and they could repeatedly hit the same spot on the wall of a fort. Brick construction was not strong enough to withstand repeated hits, so a reinforced concrete battery was built diagonally across the parade ground of Fort Pickins facing the Gulf of Mexico in 1898 as a response to possible threats from the Spanish during the Spanish-American War.

Several other gun batteries were constructed at the end of Santa Rosa Island in the early 1900s. Instead of concentrating them within the walls of the fort, the new batteries were spread out over a wide area. Since naval gunfire had become much more accurate and more powerful, the new system relied on disbursement and concealment for protection.

An interesting feature of Fort Pickens is the gap in the walls at the northwestern corner. This gap was caused when a fire in 1899 reached a powder magazine containing 8,000 pounds of black powder. The explosion showered debris 1½ miles, some of it reaching Fort Barrancas on the mainland across the entrance to the bay.

The famous Apache Indian chief Geronimo, along with several of his warriors, were held prisoner at Fort Pickens from 1886 to 1887. Their families were held at Castillo de San Marcos (renamed Fort Marion by the Americans in 1821) that we visited in St. Augustine, FL in 2007. To read about our 2007 visit to Castillo de San Marcos, click here.

Fort Pickens remained in use through WWII until 1947.

When we left the fort and Santa Rosa Island, we took the long way back to the motor home and followed a route along the Gulf. We wanted to stop for an early dinner at Mikee's Seafood restaurant in Gulf Shores, AL. Mikee's is part of the local chain of Shrimp Basket restaurants that we stopped at in Foley earlier in our stay. Unlike the other Shrimp Basket restaurants, Mikee's has a unique name and maintains a slightly different menu.

Margery had all-you-can-eat fried clams (not available at the other Shrimp Basket restaurants) and Paul had all-you can-eat fried mullet. We both had red potatoes and marinated cabbage (similar to German-style sweet/sour cole slaw). Paul's meal also included corn fritters served in their own cast iron skillet. Dinners at Mikee's run $1 to $2 more than at its sister Shrimp Basket restaurants, but the menu is a little more extensive, and the food is the same high quality.

After dinner, we headed back to the motor home. We enjoyed our time relaxing at Rainbow Plantation so much we extended our stay by a few days. We went back to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for all-you-can-eat shrimp with new friends from the park. It was so good the first time we just had to have more.

In our next post we'll tell where we headed after we left Mobile.

Mobile, AL Part I: USS Alabama

We left the Corinth Recreation Area, drove east a few miles, then headed south on I-65. After about a three-hour drive, we pulled off south of Montgomery in Hope Hull, AL, for a one-night stop at Montgomery South RV Park. Montgomery South is a fairly new campground with full hookups, 50-amp electric, and cable TV. The roads and pads are gravel, there is sparse grass between most of the sites, and the site width isn't bad for a private campground. All the sites are pull-throughs, so we didn't have to unhook the toad.

The campground is conveniently located right off the interstate, but that means there is a fair amount of traffic noise. There is also a railroad track right on the other side of the interstate, so we could hear train whistles as well. Fortunately, it was warm when we were there, so we just ran the air conditioner all night which helped cover up the noise outside.

The next morning, we continued south to Summerdale, AL, to Rainbow Plantation RV Park where we stayed after we left Florida this past spring. Rainbow Plantation is owned by the Escapees RV Club and has a campground, co-op sites, and deeded lots. The campground has full hookups, and about half the sites have 30-amp electric and half have 50-amp. The roads are paved, and the sites are mostly grass with a few bare, sandy spots under the live oak trees and where the RVs park. The sites are fairly widely spaced, and the campground is nice and quiet.

Although the campground is in a quiet area, Summerdale is near Mobile, AL, and the campground is convenient to shopping, restaurants (the area is known for seafood), and lots of things to do and see. It was sunny the day we arrived; but for most of the week afterward, it was hot and humid with clouds and showers almost every day. We didn't do any sightseeing, but we did run some errands, and we ate out a couple of times.

One of the restaurants we tried was the Shrimp Basket. The Shrimp Basket is a local chain of a half dozen or so restaurants with one in nearby Foley, AL.

The Foley location has all-you-can-eat fried shrimp on Sundays and Wednesdays. We went on Wednesday, and we both had the shrimp. The meal, which was excellent (probably the best fried shrimp we've ever had), and included hush puppies, slaw, and a choice of fries, potato salad, or boiled new potatoes. Everything was yummy, and the price was only $9.99. We got there early, so it wasn't very crowded when we took the picture below of Margery about to dig in; but it was filling up fast by the time we left.

 

The hot, humid weather eventually gave way (after a night of thunderstorms) to cooler, clear air. The temperatures dropped from highs in the mid 80s to the mid 60s with lows in the low 40s. Brrrrr! But the lack of the threat of rain was a little more conducive to sightseeing, so we headed across Mobile Bay to Battleship Memorial Park to see the USS Alabama. The USS Alabama is a battleship that served in WWII in both the Pacific and the Atlantic theaters.

The Alabama was built in Norfolk, VA, and was commissioned in 1942. She was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to reserve duty. In 1962, the Alabama was retired, after which she was taken to Mobile Bay and opened as a museum ship in 1965.

The USS Alabama is 680 feet long, a little over 108 feet wide, and has a draft of about 34 feet. Her fully loaded weight is 42,500 tons (that's 85 million pounds).

 

As we boarded, we saw a few of the twenty 5-inch guns. These guns could fire a 5-inch diameter projectile distances of up to 10 miles.

We were able climb up into the conning tower (the tall structure in the center of the ship) to get a good view of the BIG guns. There are nine 16-inch guns - three facing aft, and six facing forward. These guns are capable of firing a 16-inch diameter projectile weighing 2,700 pounds distances of up to 21 miles!

The lower part of the gun turrets that lie below decks are called barbettes. The Alabama is one of the only ships where visitors can enter the barbettes of the 16-inch gun turrets to see how the shells were loaded and fired. In the next photo, Paul is standing beside a number of disarmed 16-inch shells. You can see part of the circular track where the barbette, which is to the left, rotates.

The USS Alabama carried a crew of 2,500 during war time. We saw how closely together the men lived and worked. The officers had things a little better than the crew sleeping only two or three to a room, but the rooms were still very small. The next photo shows a typical office. Four sailors would have worked in this small space. There is also a bunk (called a rack) in the background, so it looks like at least one of the men would have also slept in this room.

The Alabama would have been out to sea for months at a time, so there were facilities on board to tend to the crew's needs. We saw the mess halls, galleys, sick bay, doctor's offices, and dentist offices. They also had a soda fountain where the crew could enjoy special treats like ice cream, a store where the sailors could buy necessities like razor blades, and a barber shop.

The ship is powered by two oil-fired boilers driving two steam turbines that produced a total of 130,000 hp. The turbines, one of which is shown in the next photo, drive the ship's four propellers to move the ship at speeds of up to 28 knots (32 mph). We could only imagine the noise the sailors endured while serving on these battleships...and we won't go into the smell of 2500 bodies in close quarters, but a locker room comes to mind. :-)

 

Battleship Memorial Park also has a number of other military exhibits including the submarine the USS Drum. The Drum was commissioned in 1941 and saw action in the Pacific during WWII. She was donated to Battleship Memorial Park and opened as a museum ship in 1969. The USS Drum is almost 312 feet long.

Inside the hull of the Drum, the space was even tighter than in the Alabama. The next photo shows the forward torpedo room.

 

There are also a number of planes on display at the park. Some of the larger ones are outside; and some, like the F-16 in the photo below, are housed in a 36,000 square foot indoor pavilion.

 

In addition to ships and planes, the park also has a collection of other military equipment such as tanks, armored vehicles, and guns. The large gun in the foreground is a 155mm artillery piece, and that's an M60 tank right behind it toward the left. Many U. S. allies around the world are still using newer versions of the M60 tank, which was first introduced in late 1960.

 

There is a lot to see at Battleship Memorial Park. We spent several hours there, and we could have easily stayed longer to view the displays in more detail. But, although the sun was out the day we were there, it was quite cool and breezy...no, it was windy...there by beside Mobile Bay, and we were getting tired from all the stairs we climbed. We were also getting hungry, so we headed back to the motor home to put our feet up and to have a snack.

Although we are definitely in relaxation mode, there is still a little sightseeing we want to do in the Mobile area, so look for our next post.

Red Bay, AL 2009

After we left the Memphis area, we stopped in Red Bay, AL, like we did last fall. Red Bay is the home of Tiffin Motorhomes, and we wanted to take another plant tour to see the new 2010 models. Even though we weren't having work done on our motor home like last year (click HERE to read that post), we stayed at the Allegro Campground again because it's conveniently located right at the edge of town and it's cheap.

The Allegro Campground has full hookups, 50-amp electric, and free Wi-Fi. The campground is built at an old airstrip, so it is all gravel, except for the main campground road which is the old asphalt runway. The repair facility, which has 40+ repair bays, is right next to the campground. The sites are pretty close together, and there is a fair amount of commotion between 7:00 and 8:00 AM when everyone is taking their coaches over to the repair facility. But, like we said, the campground is convenient to town, it's cheap ($10 a night), and it's also fun to see all the Tiffin motor homes all lined up in a row and to talk to some of the other Tiffin owners. The photo below shows our site at the Allegro Campground.

The Allegro Campground does not accept reservations, and it fills up by Sunday night or Monday, especially during the snowbird migration, with people coming in for service. Therefore, we timed our arrival for Saturday to avoid the rush and found the campground only about half full when we pulled in around noon.

We headed into town to Tiffin Motorhomes on Monday for the 10:00 AM tour. There is also a 2:00 PM tour; but since the workers go home at 2:30, there isn't as much going on during the afternoon tour. The tour starts at the visitor center outside the main gate.

Red, who is now 83 years young, is still leading the tours. He is very well informed about Tiffin Motorhomes, and he is sharp as a tack. If someone makes a joke, he will pick up on it immediately and join in with some good-natured banter of his own. He knows all the models and all the floorplans; and if someone asks a question to which he doesn't know the answer (which is rare), he will usually find the answer by the end of the tour.

As we walked through the plant gate, we were heartened to see many more motor homes sitting around than there were last year and to see a good many employees' vehicles in the parking lot. Back in 2007, Tiffin built 13 motor homes a day; but when we visited last year when fuel prices were so high, they were only building 6 motor homes a day and they were only working 4 days a week. This year, even with the weak economy, they are working 5 days a week and producing 7 motor homes a day. There are still a lot of lay-offs, but things are on the upswing and they said the number of motor homes will soon be increased to 8 a day. The next photo is the view inside the main gate. Motor homes waiting for final inspection are in the distance, and a portion of the employee parking lot is to the left.

The tour includes only the main assembly building. The chassis shop welds the beams that support the floor and other brackets and components onto the chassis. The chassis then enters the main assembly building under its own power (notice the temporary seat to the left) where workers begin installing wiring, holding tanks, storage bays, and plumbing under the floor.

Workers then install the floor, the carpet, and the tile. Wires and plumbing are fished up through openings in the floor.

Interior walls and appliances go in next. More wiring and plumbing are added.

In another area of the plant, exterior walls are being fabricated. Slabs of polystyrene foam are cut by CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) routers to hollow out slots for the aluminum frame.

In the next photo, pieces of pre-cut, square aluminum tubing are being installed into the slots in the foam at the table on the left. On the right, the pieces of aluminum are being welded into a strong, solid frame.

After the frames are welded, an outside skin of fiberglass and an inside skin of thin, wallpaper-covered plywood are laminated to the foam. Workers then cut openings for windows, doors, and slide-outs in the walls. The completed wall leaning against the ladder in the photo below is waiting to be hoisted into place on the motor home behind it.

A foam ceiling assembly is fastened down on top of the walls in the bay with the overhead walkway to the left in the photo below. A one-piece, molded fiberglass roof (stacked on the floor) is lifted by the overhead, yellow-frame hoist with vacuum-powered suction cups and placed on top of the foam.

Workers then install slide-outs. A few, smaller Tiffin motor homes have two slide-outs. The rest have at least three slide-outs, and most have four.

Next, the workers install storage bay doors, interior cabinets, furniture, trim, front and rear end caps, and miscellaneous items. When the assembly is complete, the motor homes are driven a few miles north to Belmont, MS, to the paint shop. All Tiffin motor homes get full body paint. The units are then returned to Red Bay for final cleaning and inspection.

After our plant tour, we stopped at La Estancia Mexican Restaurant, which is right down the road from the campground. The food was good, although not as good as our favorite Mexican restaurant Cozumel back in Greensburg, PA; and prices were reasonable. We both had Lunch Special #1, which consists of a chili relleno, a taco, salad (guacamole was extra), and refried beans. Margery substituted rice for the beans. In the next photo, Margery is about to take a bite of her taco.

When we got back to the Allegro Campground, we stopped in at the surplus store. Tiffin sells furniture and other components leftover from older models in a warehouse-like building adjacent to the campground and repair facility. We didn't find anything we needed this time, but you never know what they may have.

We stayed in Red Bay a week, but other than taking the plant tour and eating out once we didn't do much. We stopped at the local grocery story to pick up a few necessities; Margery got a haircut, read, and did some budget work and travel research on the computer; and Paul ran over to the local hardware store, washed the car and motor home, and did a little puttering around the motor home. And to help with the puttering, all the men on the Tiffin plant tour got a gift of a 10' tape measure with the Tiffin logo. It was the best promotional gift he could have gotten. You know men and their toys...big and small.

From Red Bay, we had a short drive to a new destination where we planned to relax some more. Look for our next post, and we'll tell you all about it.

Mobile, AL Part I: Shrimp and More

After spending four full months in Florida (with the exception of taking three trips to Pittsburgh with a duration of about ten days each), we headed north and west to begin our summer travel adventure. Our primary destination this year will be Yosemite National Park in California, but we will make a number of other stops on the way there. Afterward, we plan to visit northern California, Oregon, and Washington before heading back east for fall and winter.

After we left Bushnell, we made an overnight stop at Chattahoochee RV Resort in Chattahoochee, FL. We stayed at this campground, which is located right along the Apalachicola River, our first year of full-timing. The campground is located just downstream of a dam that forms Lake Seminole. The city of Chattahoochee operates the campground and honors a 50% Passport America discount for stays of up to three days. There is also a picnic and boat launch area adjacent to the campground.

The use of the word "resort" in the name may be a little too hopeful, but it is still a fairly nice campground - especially at a Passport America price of about $8 a night. The photo below shows our site at Chattahoochee RV Resort.

 

If you go to this campground, make sure you use a pressure regulator because their water pressure is very high. Without a regulator, the pressure pegged our 100 psi gauge.

The main road in the campground is paved, but the rest of the roads are gravel. Some sites are gravel, but the ones down over the hill near the river are grass. The sites are all back-ins; but the last time we were there, they let us park down over the hill and just pull across several unoccupied sites so we wouldn't have to unhook the toad for a one-night stop. This year, since they again weren't very filled, we did the same thing except we were at the far end of the upper section of the campground. The sites near the river were still a bit soggy because they had been underwater until a few days prior.

Northern Florida and Georgia have had quite a bit of rain lately. There have been a series of heavy storms passing through for the past few weeks. A storm gave Chattahoochee over four inches of rain the day before we arrived. After we got set up, we walked down to the boat launch and picnic area where we could see the water was still pretty high.

From Chattahoochee, it was on to Rainbow Plantation, the Escapees RV Park in Summerdale, AL, near Mobile. Rainbow Plantation has a transient camping area, leased/co-op sites, and deeded lots. The photo below shows our site in the camping area.

We also stayed at Rainbow Plantation our first year of full-timing; but it was fairly cool because it was the end of December so we didn't stay long and we didn't do any sightseeing. Summerdale is located on the eastern side of Mobile Bay, and the city of Mobile is located on the western side of the bay.

One of the things Mobile Bay is known for is seafood. We did a little research online and decided on a restaurant not too far from Summerdale called Big Daddy's Grill, which is located on the Fish River. Big Daddy's is shown in the photo below.

Big Daddy's has live entertainment on weekends, but it bills itself as a family restaurant. The entertainment usually runs from 3 or 4 in the afternoon until 7 or 8 in the evening instead of late into the night. They even have a couple of piles of sand for the kids to play in. There is indoor seating, outdoor seating in the pavilion shown above where there is a huge fireplace for cool evenings, and outdoor seating behind the restaurant overlooking a small marina. Although is was a weekday when we were there and there was no activity to watch at the marina, we chose a picnic table overlooking the water.

 

Margery had a catfish strip basket and Paul had a fried shrimp basket with local shrimp. Both were excellent. The baskets come with hush puppies, slaw, and a choice of fries or onion rings.

Another thing that showed up in our research for seafood was the fact that the Annual Shrimp Cook-off would be held in Mobile the Saturday we were in town. The cook-off is a fund raiser for an organization called Volunteer Mobile, which seeks to promote volunteerism to solve community problems such as disaster relief.

The admission price to the cook-off is a little steep at $15 per person; but it is for a good cause, and it entitles you to all the shrimp you can eat at no additional charge. Advance purchase discount tickets are available at some of the area banks, but the branches on the Summerdale side of the bay didn't have the tickets because they said they were too far from downtown Mobile.

The Organized Seafood Association of Alabama provides all the shrimp for the cook-off at no cost. The contestants, which are made up of professionals such as area restaurants and amateur teams such as civic groups, submit their dishes for judging. The winners in both the professional and amateur categories receive bragging rights. The teams also serve samples of their dishes to the public.

The event is held in Bienville Square, which is a pleasant, shady park that covers one square block in the downtown area of Mobile.

 

The cook-off runs from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM. We arrived around 11:30, and some of the booths already have fairly long lines. We developed a system where one of us would stand in one of the longer lines line while the other would walk to one of the nearby, shorter lines and bring two samples back to where the other was waiting. The photo below shows Margery enjoying one of our favorite dishes of the entire cook-off - shrimp in an Alfredo-style cheese sauce. We liked that one so well, Margery went back three times and Paul went back four times.

 

The shrimp cook-off had live entertainment that included a band that sounded pretty good. Miss Seafood, the event queen, and several pre-teen members of her court also sang. They were quite talented.

 

We had fried shrimp, peel-and-eat-shrimp with old bay seasoning, shrimp with pine nuts, shrimp with rice, barbecued shrimp, grilled shrimp wrapped in prosciutto, oriental shrimp, and our favorite shrimp in cheese sauce. By about 12:30, most of the lines were getting quite long, but that was OK with us because we were getting pretty full. We had another sample or two and left a little after 1:00.

Since it was still early in the day and since we were already downtown, we decided to drive several blocks to the Mobile Carnival Museum. Carnival is another name for Mardi Gras. The Mobile Carnival Museum is shown in the photo below.

When someone mentions Mardi Gras, we always think of New Orleans. The celebration in New Orleans is more well known than the one in Mobile because New Orleans publicizes theirs more. Carnival in Mobile bills itself as being more family oriented which may also help account for the greater notoriety of the celebration held in New Orleans.

Mobile claims to have the oldest Mardi Gras or Carnival celebration in what would eventually become the United States dating back to 1703. Mardi Gras literally means "fat Tuesday" in French. It is a celebration prior to Lent when supplies of fat and other foods that the pious would traditionally forgo during Lent are used up. Parades and masquerading typically associated with Mardi Gras and Carnival can be traced back to medieval Italy.

Carnival in Mobile is centered around mystic societies (called krewes in New Orleans and other locations) that sponsor parades, balls, and other activities for members, guests, and the public. The mystic societies are private organizations that grew out of the social and business structure that cotton brought to the city. There are approximately 55 active social societies today. Membership in a society is by invitation only.

The king and queen of Carnival are selected almost a year in advance. The selection is made based on social standing, connections, and money. The king and queen don't necessarily need to be residents of Mobile, but they must have a connection to the city. For example, one past queen was a New York opera star, but her mother was a resident of Mobile.

The debutantes of the season serve as Ladies of the Court. Each lady selects her escort. The societies kick off the season in Mobile with a formal debutante ball held Thanksgiving weekend.

The societies also select their own kings and queens who wear elaborate costumes that include ornate trains to some of the events. The Carnival Museum has many of these beautiful costumes and trains on display, some of which are shown in the photo below.



The photo below shows the trains and costumes of the 2008 Mobile Carnival Association king and queen.



The next photo shows the costumes of the 2008 Mobile Mardi Gras Association (formerly the Colored Carnival Association) king and queen.



The gown and train shown in the photo below are from 1936. Although this train is very elegant, you can see how much more elaborate the trains have become today.

 

Children's page costumes are shown in the next photo. The job of the pages is to look cute and stay out of mischief.

The importance of the king and queen having financial resources can't be overstated. All of the dresses, robes, crowns, scepters, and men's costumes are paid for by the families. Each train is designed to include symbols which are meaningful to the wearer. The embellishments are all hand-sewn and the costumes take many months to complete.

The museum also has portions of a couple of parade floats on display. The floats are made from paper mache. The photo below shows us pretending to ride on a float and to throw Mardi Gras beads.



The next photo shows a decoration from another float on display in the museum gift shop.



And finally, here we are posing as King Felix III and Queen Margery. All Carnival kings in Mobile are traditionally named Felix, and since the current Carnival Association is the third embodiment of the ruling organization, the king is called Felix III. The queen gets to use her own name. We can't seem to pass up those tourist cutouts and statues that you stick your faces through for photos.



It was a fun and interesting day, but there is more to see in Mobile. Look for our next post in a few days.

Change of Plans - Heading for Charlotte

We left Red Bay on a Wednesday and drove an hour and a half east to the Corinth Recreation Area located in the Bankhead National Forest. As we said in our last post, there wasn't much to do in Red Bay so we had plenty of time to drive out to Corinth one day to pick our site in advance. We probably wouldn't have needed reservations; but there were so few sites where we could get satellite, we went ahead and made them just to be sure.

Corinth Recreation Area is located about 4 miles east of the small town of Double Springs and then about 3 miles south of U. S. Highway 278, so it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. (Zeller translation - the closest Wal-Mart is at least 25 miles away.) Consequently, the campground doesn't seem to be used much. That's unfortunate, because the campground is beautiful and is very well maintained. The couple that manages the campground is very conscientious. The grass was well manicured, the fire rings were all cleaned out, and the gravel at all the sites had been raked.

Corinth has full hookups with 50 amp electric. Most of the campsites are well shaded, except for about a half a dozen sites on Firefly Loop, where we were located, that are a little more open with a clear view of the southern sky for satellite. Roads and pads in the campground are paved and the patios are gravel. The America the Beautiful Pass is honored at Corinth for half-price camping. The photo below shows our site at Corinth Recreation Area.

The seclusion was refreshing after the close quarters and bustle of Red Bay. The recreation area is at the end of a county road, so there is no other traffic. We could hear birds during the day and crickets at night. There were no trains, no highways, and few other campers - except for the weekend when they were about 50% full. Even with all that seclusion, we still got 3 bars on our cell phone. Corinth will definitely be on our list of places we want to return to soon!

We got the opportunity during our five-day stay at Corinth to sit outside to read and relax (there were very few bugs), to walk, and to ride our bikes. Right outside the entrance to the recreation area is the Corinth Baptist Church, which was built in 1884. Late one afternoon, we rode our bikes to the church.

We just looked around the church and the adjacent cemetery and enjoyed the quiet.

The photo below shows the ladies' rest room. It was curious that there were only "facilities" for the women, but it WAS decorated with silk flowers in the corner. :)

Last year, our travel route took us through Charlotte, NC, in October. We were there the week before the fall NASCAR race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and we toured the track as well as the shops of several race teams.

Our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael, have gone to the fall race in Charlotte with friends the last several years. This year, we got a call from Lora saying one of the couples who usually goes with them wouldn't be able to attend this year. Since Charlotte wouldn't be very far out of our way from our route to Myrtle Beach, they wanted to know if we were interested in the tickets. We had planned to meander over to the Escapees' Raccoon Valley Campground outside Knoxville, TN, until it was time to go to Myrtle Beach for our November 1 reservations. However, we jumped at the chance to go to the race instead, and immediately began researching places to stay.

We found a county park with full hookups about an hour from the track just over the border in South Carolina, and we also found a reasonably-priced spot without electricity within sight of the speedway. The plan would be to go to the county park a week or so before the race, then move to the spot near the speedway for the night before and the night after the race. Since we usually don't like to drive more than four hours a day, we planned on stopping a couple of times between Corinth and the county park outside Charlotte.

The first stop was Wills Creek RV Park in Fort Payne, AL. Wills Creek is an 18-month old campground that honors Passport America for a maximum of two nights during the week. They have full hookups with 50 amp electric, excellent satellite reception, gravel roads and pads, cable, and relatively widely-spaced sites with grass between. The owners are working hard to make sure the campground is in top shape. There are newly-planted trees, decorative lamp posts along the roads, and they are in the process of installing patios made from pre-cast concrete pavers. The campground is relatively quiet, but there is some distant noise from I-59. There are also some construction workers from a nearby highway project staying there who leave for work in their diesel pickups about 6:30 AM. The photo below shows our site at Wills Creek RV Park.

One problem with our plan to go to the NASCAR race in Charlotte was with the availability of gas. Even though many of the refineries were back on line following Hurricane Ike, there were lingering distribution problems in the Southeast. A few weeks ago, we heard about gas lines in Nashville. Then it was Atlanta. Then, the spot shortages spread even farther, and many areas of the Southeast (particularly Georgia and western North Carolina - especially around Asheville and Charlotte) were reporting gas lines. Even though the pipeline that distributes gasoline to the Southeast had been repaired, shortages were expected to continue a little while longer.

All the stations except Wal-Mart near the interstate exit in Fort Payne were out of gas. The Wal-Mart gas station was much too small and much too crowded for the motor home, so we had to pull into the campground with less gas than we would have liked, especially since we would be crossing the border the next day into Georgia where supplies were reportedly very low.

After leaving Fort Payne, we passed many stations that had bags over the nozzles indicating they were out of gas, but there were also some stations with gas and without long lines. We were able to buy gas, albeit premium grade, in Summerville. The station we stopped at was out of regular unleaded; and all the other stations in the area, while they didn't exactly have lines, were too small and too crowded to get into with the motor home. The RV pumps at some of the Flying J stations were limiting purchases to 25 gallons, but gas was available. We are hoping things get back to normal in Charlotte before race weekend.

Our next stop was Hartwell Lake Corps of Engineers Campground near Springfield, SC. Hartwell Lake is a typical, heavily-wooded, COE campground. But, since they have photos of each campsite online, we were able to pick an available site where we might get satellite.

When we arrived it was early in the week, and we found the campground was almost empty. They told us in the office we could have any vacant site since we were only going to be there one night; however, we were pleased to find the site we had already picked was fine for satellite. Because it was also a pull-through, we didn't have to unhook the toad for a one-night stop. The photo below shows our site at Hartwell Lake COE.

The water level in the lake was way down due to the ongoing drought in the Southeast. The online photo showed the site we picked was a waterfront site; but when we got there, the inlet behind the site was totally dry. Judging from the size of some of the saplings where there used to be water, the water level has been down for some time. The photo below shows what's left of the inlet behind our site.

At Hartwell Lake, we got to enjoy another afternoon and evening of seclusion. We walked almost the entire campground, which felt good after sitting and riding in the motor home for several hours on each of the past two days.

The next morning, we left for Ebenezer Park, which is where we planned to stay for a little over week until we are ready to head to Charlotte for the race. Ebenezer Park is owned and operated by York County near Rock Hill, SC, and is about an hour from Lowe's Motor Speedway just north of Charlotte.

Ebenezer is first-come, first-served so there are no reservations and no saving of sites. The locals have figured out a way around the no reservation policy by using tents to hold their favorite sites, so the best lake-view sites seem to be hard to get. There is a sign that says "NO SAVING SITES"; but, the ranger turns a "blind eye" while the locals use tents to hold sites for themselves or for their friends who might be arriving later.

Even though we arrived in the middle of the week and fairly early in the day, there weren't many sites left. Most of the available sites were in the one section of the campground that was heavily wooded. There was one available site, however, with a partial lake view. It looked like the tree on the back of the site might block our satellite dish, but we backed in anyway before someone else came along and snatched up the site. We sent the dish up to search for the satellite; and to our surprise, the dish found a signal!

One of the reasons the campground at Ebenezer Park is so popular is the price. Their regular rate is $15 a night, but they only charge $10 for anyone over 60 years old.

Ebenezer Park campground has gravel roads and pads. Most of the sites are fairly widely-spaced with grass between, except for the sites in the heavily-wooded section which have little or no grass. The sites all have full hookups, there is free Wi-Fi, and many of the sites have 50 amp electric. We don't know about the other 50 amp sites, but ours had 50 and 20 amp only. There was no 30 amp plug, which might be an inconvenience for some people with a smaller rig. The lack of a 30 amp plug, plus the fact the site is very close to the one to our right, may be the reason the site was still open and hadn't been saved by one of the locals. The photo below shows our site at Ebenezer Park.

 

The park is located on Lake Wylie which has a surface area of 21 square miles and a 325-mile shore line. The lake extends well up into North Carolina. The Catawba River was dammed in 1904 in order to build a hydro-electric power plant. Today, Wylie Steam Power Station is located on the northern part of the lake and Catawba Nuclear Power Station is located on the southern part of the lake a short distance from Ebenezer Park. Because of the power plants, the water in the lake must be maintained at a relatively high level in spite of the drought.

In addition to the campground, Ebenezer Park has a day use area, which is shown in the photo below. There are also boat-launch ramps out of the photo to the left.

 

From the dock by the boat launch, you can get a beautiful view of the sunset over the lake.

 

One day we headed to Matthews, NC, to visit with friends whom we had met in Davenport, IA, while we were waiting for the flood waters to subside this past June. Although they travel extensively throughout the year, they fly home every 3-4 months to see family. Our timing was just right to re-connect. We enjoyed a barbecue lunch at Mac's Speed Shop and especially appreciated eating in the outdoor dining area on a mid-70's afternoon. The pulled pork sandwiches were delish and their onion rings outstanding. 

On our way back to the house, our friends wanted to show us Calvary Church, an evangelical, non-denominational church that is stunning in its architecture, envisioned as a modern day cathedral. This photo was shooting into the sun, but it gives you an idea.

It is home to one of the largest pipe organs in the world. The blue shadows between the windows and the large panel in the back of the platform are some of the 11,499 pipes. Notice the cross on the ceiling. The sanctuary seats over 5,000 and has two balconies.

We have yet to visit the Crystal Cathedral. Until then, this is the most beautiful modern cathedral we've seen. The photo below shows the entrance to the lobby.

It was great re-connecting with friends, and we look forward to seeing them "down the road."

We will stay at Ebenezer until heading into Charlotte for the race. There is plenty of time for us to chill out. During our stay at Ebenezer Park, we will catch up on some shopping now that we're in a metro area with our favorite chain stores. Margery will be trying to pick a beauty shop for a haircut (always a challenge), we'll have our mail forwarded, and we'll need to restock our pantry. We will be tailgating in the parking lot on race day; and since the other couples with whom we will be attending the race will be staying in a motel, we're going cook ribs for the tailgate party.

Red Bay, AL Part II: Around Town

Red Bay is a fairly small town (Zeller translation - they don't have a Wal-Mart). Red Bay has a nice, Southern, small-town feel; but there isn't much to do. Our primary reason for being there was to have the windows on the motor home replaced. We needed to stay around the rig much of the time anyway during the early part of the week waiting to talk to the service liaison and during the latter part of the week waiting for them to call us over to service; but we didn't want to spent the entire time just sitting around either.

We knew we would have a couple of hours to wait while the motor home was in the repair bay, so we decided to take a drive to the Coon Dog Cemetery. The cemetery is a little over a half hour northeast of Red Bay off State Route 247.

In 1937, Key Underwood buried his beloved coon dog, Troop, in a grassy meadow that was a popular gathering spot for hunters. Soon, other hunters started burying their coon dogs in the same location. Today, there are over 185 coon dogs in the cemetery.

These guys are serious about their dogs! When asked by a reporter why other types of dogs weren't allowed to be buried there, Key Underwood responded, "You must not know much about coon hunters and their dogs, if you think we would contaminate this burial place with poodles and lap dogs."

Markers range from hand-lettered wood plaques...

...to elaborate, polished-granite grave stones.

After the completion of the repairs to the motor home, we decided to stay in Red Bay a little longer. We still needed to research our next stop, the inland path of hurricane Ike was still a little uncertain, and getting gas had the potential for being a little dicey with many Gulf Coast refineries shut down because of the hurricane. Staying put after the motor home work was completed seemed like the prudent thing to do. It also gave us time to relax after our western U.S. "vacation" this past summer.

One thing there is to do in Red Bay is to eat. There are quite a few small restaurants that many of the locals frequent. One of the local favorites is Swamp John's. The restaurant is in an old gas station (the pumps are still outside) and looks like a real dive, but they serve delicious fried catfish. Catfish is available every day for dinner and all day on Thursdays. Meals are ordered cafeteria-style and are served on paper plates.

Another couple we met at the Allegro Campground also suggested Reeve's Fish and Steakhouse for catfish. They are only open on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On Thursday of the following week, we headed out to Reeve's. The restaurant is located about 8 miles south of Golden, MS and about 10 miles west of Red Bay on Mississippi Route 25.

The decor at Reeve's has a little (but not much) more ambiance than Swamp John's. The inside is paneled with OSB (Oriented Strand Board - a type of low-cost construction panel similar to particle board), and there are some old photos on the walls. The menu is quite a bit more extensive than Swamp John's with healthier side dishes offered including a bountiful salad bar. Reeve's is a sit-down restaurant, but prices are very reasonable and only slightly higher than Swamp John's.

We both had the fried catfish, and, although they do offer healthier side dishes, we had french fries and onion rings. :) Cole slaw and hush puppies were also included. The catfish was great - piping hot, light, and crispy. The sides were also good.

One day during our extended stay, we went over to Piney Grove COE in Mississippi, a campground on the Tom-Bigbee waterway, to check out campsites suitable for satellite for a possible future stay. We found this COE on our first visit to the area and loved it. Here's a picture of our favorite site in the campground from that 2004 stay in our pre-satellite days in our travel trailer.

As you can see, the park is heavily wooded and the chance of getting satellite is extremely limited to say the least. In fact, we only found one or two sites out of 200+ that might work.

On another day, we also scouted out Corinth Recreation Area campground, a national forest campground, for our next stop. Sometimes we can tell from an aerial view (available from Google Maps) whether or not there are campsites that are suitable for satellite reception. There were several sites at Corinth that looked good, but we couldn't tell from the campground maps exactly what the site numbers were. Therefore, since Corinth was only about an hour and a half from Red Bay, we decided to drive there in person to pick our site in advance.

During the remainder of our stay, we also made a Wal-Mart run to nearby Russellville for groceries, Paul rotated the tires on the Vue, we cleaned the carpet in the motor home, Margery finished entering all her recipes into the computer, and we researched and made some reservations for Thanksgiving weekend and for the Florida Keys. We've learned that the popular camping months in the South are September through March, when the temperatures moderate, so reservations are advisable for popular areas and for holiday weekends.

As we said, we will be going to Corinth Recreation Area about an hour and a half to the east near Double Springs, AL for our next stop. We look forward to getting back to a more natural setting.