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.

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.

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.

Tuscumbia, AL Part II: Pillows and Parks

Tuscumbia, AL - Events of Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011

Our next sightseeing outing was motivated partly by fun and partly by necessity. Paul has been complaining lately that, although his pillow isn't that old, it seems to be getting a lot harder. We figured we would look for a Bed, Bath and Beyond once we got to our next stop so Paul could check out a new pillow. Then Margery noticed a write-up in a tourist magazine we got at the campground office for the Pillow Factory Outlet Store about 10 minutes away in Muscle Shoals. Not only did the Pillow Factory Outlet sell pillows, they made them on the premesis, and their website said they also had factory tours.

Muscle Shoals is named for the shoals along the Tennessee River in that area. Shoal is another name for shallow water. There are several theories about where the "muscle" part of the name came from, but the one that seems most logical is it a mis-spelling on the part of early settlers of the word "mussel" referring to the large numbers of fresh-water mussels that live in the shallow waters.

The Pillow Factory seems to specialize in supplying pillows to high-end hotels and motels, but they also sell pillows, comforters, and other bedding to the public in their online store and at their factory outlet.

The Pillow Factory uses European down, feathers, Comforel hypo-allergenic polyester, or a combination of those fill materials to make their pillows. The best part is they will customize your pillow at no charge while you wait. If you want a softer, flatter pillow, they will open the pillow up and take fill out. If you want a plumper, firmer pillow, they will add fill.

Paul was interested in a Comforel pillow because of his allergies and because they are more affordable than down. Pure down pillows can run over $100, whereas polyester-filled pillows cost much less. Unlike some polyester pillows that contain a wad of continuous fiber, Comforel is made up of small clusters of chopped polyester fibers that make the pillow feel more like it is filled with down. Comforel won't last as long as a good down pillow, but the price is much more affordable.

We were greeted by a very friendly and helpful lady who turned out to be the owner. She showed Paul samples of all their pillows and explained the virtues of each. Paul chose a Comforel pillow, but he thought it was a little too high and firm. No problem. The pillow went back into the shop to have some of the filling removed. We asked if we could tag along to watch the process.

It is a pretty small operation. We saw only two employees besides the owner. One worker was filling pillows. Down is drawn from the storage bin located in the small building next door and is fluffed by air flow in the large, blue bin behind the worker in the next photo. He places a pillow case over the small, round nozzle that is by his elbow to the right, and filling is blown into the pillow case. He is checking the weight to make sure the pillow has the proper amount of fill.

The other worker sews the pillows and adds the "Do Not Remove" tag. By the way, it is legal for the purchaser to remove the tag. The worker is shown below sewing up Paul's pillow after removing several handsfull of Comforel.

Next, the worker places the pillows into a plastic bag, which she then places into a machine that flattens the pillow to only about an inch thick to force out most of the air to save space for shipping. The machine then seals the bag. We obviously weren't going to have Paul's pillow shipped, but they offered to demonstrate the machine for us. When the bag is opened, the pillow pops back to its original fluffiness.

Margery got a water-filled pillow years ago from our chiropractor. It has a vinyl chamber for water on the bottom and polyester fill material on the top for comfort. The height of the pillow can be adjusted by changing the amount of water in the chamber. The water pillow really helped relieve Margery's neck pain. The Pillow Factory sells a few types of pillows that they don't make such as those made from memory foam and also water-filled pillows. Since Margery's water pillow is old and the padding is getting pretty hard, so she decided to get a new one. The next photo shows Paul and the owner holding up Margery's new pillow.

On our way back to the motor home, we made a stop in Tuscumbia at Spring Park. Spring Park is located right near the downtown business district. The park features a spring-fed lake that supplies the city's drinking water, picnic and playground areas, a small number of amusement rides, and the world's largest man-made, natural-stone waterfall. Cold Water Falls, which is shown in the photo below, is 48 feet high and 80 feet wide and has a flow of over 4 million gallons of water a day.

The lake has a memorial fountain dedicated to Princess Im-Mi-Ah-Key, who was the wife of Chief Tuscumbia for whom the town is named. On weekends, there is a water show where the 51 water jets and lights are timed to music.

Tuscumbia was located along the Trail of Tears, which was the route followed by Native Americans (Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Chocktaw) during their relocation from the southeastern United States to the western states. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law in 1830 by Andrew Jackson. We learned a little about  the Indian Removal Act when we visited Andrew Jackson's home recently when we were in Nashville. Click here to read our post about Andrew Jackson's home.

Tuscumbia was sympathetic to the plight of the Indians, and many townspeople provided for the needs of the Indians as they traveled through the area by giving them clothing and food. A sculpture called Sacred Tears stands in the park to commemorate the Indians' suffering.

There is also a chainsaw carving of an Indian brave that stands about 20 feet tall.

We had a pleasant walk partway around the lake, then headed back to the motor home.

The weather was cool when we arrived, but the daytime temperatures had finally risen into the 70s. However, nights were still cool, and the forecast was calling for another cooling trend so it was time to head south again. We'll tell you where we went in our next post.

Tuscumbia, AL Part I: Helen Keller Birthplace

Tuscumbia, AL - Events of Monday, Oct. 25, 2011

Tuscumbia, AL is the birthplace of Helen Keller. She was born at the family home Ivy Green, which was built in 1820 by her grandparents. The photo below shows the main house at Ivy Green.

The main house has 4 large rooms on the first floor including the dining room, the master bedroom and the parlor shown below. Most of the furnishings in the home are original to the Keller family. A small museum occupies the fourth room downstairs.

The second floor had two bedrooms and a storage room. The next photo shows Helen's room on the second floor.

When Helen's parents were first married, the plantation office next to the main house was converted to a cottage for the newlyweds. It was here Helen was born. Later, after Helen and her parents had moved into the main house, the cottage served as a classroom.

Helen Keller was not blind and deaf at birth. It was not until 19 months of age that she was stricken by a severe illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) that left her totally blind and deaf. By the age of 6, Helen had become a very unruly child because of her frustration of not being able to communicate.

The Kellers contacted an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist in Baltimore for advice. The specialist encouraged them to contact Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell subsequently put the Kellers in touch with the Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1887, the director of the institute asked a young woman by the name of Annie Sullivan, who was almost blind herself and who was a former student at the institute, to go to Ivy Green to try to communicate with Helen.

Early attempts by Annie to teach Helen sign language by spelling words into Helen's hand were unsuccessful because Helen had become blind and deaf at such an early age, she didn't realize every object had a unique name. Then one day behind the house at the well, Annie made a breakthrough when she repeatedly spelled the word "water" into Helen's hand while pumping cool water over the girl's other hand. The pump still stands behind the house.

Helen Keller learned Braille by age 10, and she also learned the manual alphabet and how to use the typewriter. She even learned to speak by putting her fingers into Annie's mouth to feel the movement of Annie's tongue and by putting her hand on Annie's throat to feel the sound vibrations. Helen Keller went on to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe college in 1904. The photo below shows Helen Keller on the left in her cap and gown and Annie Sullivan on the right.

Annie Sullivan married in 1905. Although she and her husband separated in 1914, they never formally divorced. Annie continued to live with Helen in New York as a companion until Annie's death in 1936. Helen Keller had another companion and also a nurse in later life. Helen Keller died in 1968.

Helen Keller devoted most of her life to improving conditions for the blind and the deaf. She gave a speech at the Lion's Club Convention in 1925 and persuaded the Lions to become the crusaders they are today for vision preservation and service to the blind. Helen Keller was also a political activist and a member of the Socialist Party. She helped found the ACLU.

As we continued our tour, we visited the kitched that is located in a separate building behind the main house.

Also located behind the house is the herb garden in the foreground in the next photo with the butterfly garden behind.

Next to the house is the Lion's International Memorial Garden.

And to the rear of the property is The Clearing where there is a collection of native trees and shrubs. The collection includes the Moon Tree, which is a loblolly pine that was grown from a seed that was flown to the moon and back on Apollo 14 in 1971. The seedling was presented to Ivy Green in 1976 by the U. S. Forest Service.

Helen Keller was a remarkable woman to have overcome such adversity, and we were glad to have the opportunity to learn more about her life.

We keep saying we have shifted from sightseeing to relaxation; but we found yet more to see in the Tuscumbia area, so stay tuned.

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.

Weeks Bay Reserve

Summerdale, AL

One afternoon when we were chatting with our neighbor at the campground, she asked if we had been to the pitcher plant bog yet. We had never heard of it, so our neighbor filled us in. The bog is part of Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is located along the Fish River less than 10 minutes from Rainbow Plantation. We were planning to return to Panini Pete's for lunch the next day, so we decided to leave early and stop by Weeks Bay Reserve on the way.

The Fish River and the Magnolia River empty into Weeks Bay, which in turn empties into Mobile Bay near the southeastern corner. The reserve encompasses more than 6,000 acres of tidal and forested wetlands around Weeks Bay. The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) manage the reserve as a joint venture with the purpose of preserving and studying the important ecology of the estuary. An estuary is where fresh water and salt water mix.

A little beyond the western end of the U. S. Highway 98 bridge that crosses the Fish River is an interpretive center.

The interpretive center has displays about the ecology of Weeks Bay, and it has a classroom that is used to teach ecology to school students. There is also a boardwalk nature trail to observation decks that overlook Weeks Bay and parts of the surrounding marsh. The trail has numerous trees and shrubs that are identified with plaques. The interpretive center will loan visitors booklets that further describe the plants along the way.

On our way down the boardwalk, we came across this green anole lizard. The neck flap, called a dewlap, distinguishes the male anole. The male extends the dewlap to attract females and in territorial displays. Male anole lizards are very territorial; and obviously, we were invading his territory.

At the end of the boardwalk we could see Weeks Bay beyond the saw grass marsh. The area along the horizon where there is a gap in the trees is where Weeks Bay empties out into Mobile Bay. The opening is about 150 yards across.

The thing we wanted to see most at Weeks Bay Reserve was the pitcher plant bog. The bog is located on the eastern end of the Highway 98 bridge over the Fish River. There is a convenient gravel parking lot up the side road where the bog is located. Across the road from the parking area is the start of the bog boardwalk.

The photo below shows Margery standing by one of several observation decks in the bog.

Bogs are a unique habitat. They are damp, but not wet like swamps and marshes. In fact, the bog must be dry enough to burn occasionally for the pitcher plants to survive. Occasional fires suppress tree and shrub growth to prevent the ground from becoming too shaded for the pitcher plants. Natural burns, which are usually caused by lightening, can be dangerous so they are suppressed when close to structures and roads in places like the bog. Therefore, the staff conducts controlled burns every few years.

We set out along the boardwalk in search of the pitcher plants. It wasn't long until we found them.

As you look out over the bog, you can see the white-topped, tubular leaves of the pitcher plants. White-topped pitcher plants are the predominant variety growing in the bog. There is also a variety here called the purple pitcher plant, but we didn't see any.

Pitcher plants are carnivorous. The tall, tapering, tubular leaves have stiff, downward-facing hairs inside that make escape nearly impossible for insects that happen to crawl in. At the bottom of the tube is a liquid that contains enzymes that dissolve the insect so the plant can absorb minerals and nutrients.

In addition to the showy, red-veined, white-topped tubular leaves, the pitcher plants also have very attractive, waxy, red flowers that are borne on tall, leafless stems. The pitcher plants bloom in April and May.

There are other wildflowers in the bog including several types of orchids. We didn't see any orchids, but we thought the flower in the photo below was attractive. We aren't 100% sure what it is, but Paul's research indicates it is most likely a plant called fly poison (amianthium muscaetoxicum). As the name suggests, this member of the lily family (especially the bulb) is considered to be poisonous.

The photo below shows white-topped sedge. What look like white petals are actually bracts, which are specialized leaves. The flowers are the small, yellowish spikes in the center.

At the end of the bog trail is another observation deck that overlooks the Fish River.

As we headed back down the boardwalk to the car, we paused for a final photo.

We're so happy our neighbor at the campground told us about Weeks Bay Reserve. We had a good time learning about the bog, about Weeks Bay, and about pitcher plants. From Weeks Bay, we made our way to Panini Pete's for a late lunch and to look around downtown Fairhope. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

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.

Gulf Shores, AL

Gulf Shores, AL, is located about 45 minutes due south of where we were staying in Summerdale, AL. Toward the end of our stay in Summerdale we took a drive down to Gulf Shores to have a look around.

There is a long finger of land that extends westward from Gulf Shores and runs part way across the mouth of Mobile Bay. Mobile Point is located at the tip of that finger of land and was a strategic location for the protection of the bay. Following the War or 1812, the United States decided it needed to fortify some of its major seaports, so a number of forts were constructed along the Gulf coast including Fort Morgan at Mobile Point. We decided to drive out to see Fort Morgan.

Near the fort there is a ferry that goes over to Dauphin Island which sits on the western side of the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Notice the oil rig in the photo above. Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico are dotted with such rigs.

Dauphin Island is the location of yet another fort named Fort Gaines. We didn't have time to go over to Dauphin Island on this trip, so we'll just have to plan to come back. A third, smaller fort called Fort Powell also guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay. Fort Powell was north of Dauphin Island and no longer exists.

Construction of Fort Morgan was started in 1819 and was completed in 1834. The fort was named in honor of Revolutionary War hero General Daniel Morgan. In 1841, the garrison was withdrawn from the fort, and the fort was put into caretaker status. When the Civil War broke out, the Alabama Militia seized Fort Morgan from the caretakers. In 1864, Rear Admiral David Farragut sailed to Mobile Bay with a fleet of 18 U. S. Navy war ships and attacked the Confederate defenses. Following a 5-day battle, the Confederate forces surrendered Fort Morgan to the Union. It was at the Battle of Mobile Bay that Admiral Farragut supposedly said, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

In 1867, the fort was again put into caretaker status, but was reactivated in 1898 because of the Spanish-American War. The fort was used as a training base during WWI, and it was manned again during WWII. In 1946, the fort was deactivated and turned over to the state of Alabama. Today, it is a National Historic Landmark and is administered by the Alabama Historical Commission.

There is a senior discount to enter the fort. When we asked the lady at the gate the age eligibility, she said, 'old.' She was a character and sure beat many of the stone-face attendants we have run across in our travels. When we got to Fort Morgan, we stopped for a photo shortly after getting out of the car.

Fort Morgan has a small museum that has drawings, maps, photos and artifacts from the 100+ year history of the fort. In college, Paul worked for a company that made scale models and so he is always attrected to scale models. The museum has a nice model of the Union ironclad the USS Tecumseh. The Tecumseh was sunk by the guns at Fort Morgan during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

Mobile Point Lighthouse was also located near the fort. The original lighthouse, which was first lit in 1822, was heavily damaged during the Civil War and was replaced by a temporary wooden tower. The wooden tower was eventually replaced by a 30-foot iron tower. The 4th order Fresnel (pronounced fray-NEL) lens used in the iron tower lighthouse is on display in the museum. The order relates to the focal length (power) of the lens with a first order lens being the strongest and largest.

In 1858, a 200-foot tall lighthouse was built 3 miles offshore on Sand Island. When this larger lighthouse was built, the Mobil Point Lighthouse was downgraded to a harbor light. The 2nd order Fresnel lens from the Sand Island Lighthouse is also on display in the museum.

From the museum, we headed across the parking lot to the fort. Fort Morgan has double walls with sloped earthen banks built right up to the top of the outer walls. A tunnel leads through the earthen bank to the fort entrance called the sallyport.

The next photo is taken from the top of the outer wall looking toward the inner wall. The sallyport is toward the left.

The top of the inner walls are lined with gun placements. The iron tracks allowed the guns to be swiveled to different positions.

Thirty-two pound cannons like the one in the photo below were widely used for seacoast defense before the Civil War. There were 78 of these smooth-bore, muzzle-loading guns at Fort Morgan at the start of the Civil War, but they were soon replaced by more-modern, rifled cannons. When the fort was captured, only 14 of these 32-pounders were still in use.

The original part of Fort Morgan was built from brick. However, rifled cannons that came into use during the Civil War had much more power and accuracy, and brick construction become obsolete. Later gun batteries were constructed from reinforced concrete. The gun placement below was built in 1898-1899 and was for one of two disappearing guns at Fort Morgan. The disappearing guns fired 12-inch projectiles up to 8.5 miles. They were raised up to firing position by 30-ton counterweights. The recoil would return the guns to a lower position for loading.

After we finished touring the fort we headed back toward Gulf Shores. Gulf Shores is a typical seaside resort with plenty of beach houses outside town and high-rise hotels and condos in town. There are all the usual beach shops selling beach towels, bathing suits and T-shirts, and there are plenty of restaurants and bars.

We stopped at a public beach access area in town to check out the beach, and to sit and enjoy the ocean while we had a snack of cheese, cold cuts and crackers. The palm trees along the beach were decorated for Christmas, as were the lifeguard chairs. That's a Christmas wreath, not a lifesaver hanging on the back.

The sand had been recently groomed and was soft and clean. We saw absolutely no tar balls or any evidence whatsoever of the BP oil spill. Those are all shells and shell fragments at the edge of the water. It was a nice day, and there were a fair number of people on the beach enjoying the warm sun.

Margery stuck her toe in the water and was surprised at how cold the water was. Nevertheless, there were several crazy kids swimming.

As soon as we unfolded our chairs and pulled out our snacks, we were surrounded by a flock of gulls looking for handouts.

After we enjoyed our snack (we would have enjoyed it a lot more if Paul hadn't gotten sand into our cold cuts - gritty salami doesn't cut it), we headed back to Rainbow Plantation.

From Summerdale, we headed to Florida where we have a couple of stops to make before we settle in at Blueberry Hill for the winter.

Summerdale, AL, Part III: Bellingrath Gardens

One of our favorite things to do as we travel is to visit botanical gardens, and southern Alabama has an excellent one. Bellingrath Gardens is located to the west of Mobile, AL, about an hour from where we were staying in Summerdale.

Since we had never been to Bellingrath in the fall, we were planning to go during this stop in Summerdale to see their fall mum display which began November 1. After we got our computer problems straightened out and after the weather warmed up again, we drove over to the other side Mobile Bay to Bellingrath Gardens in Theodore, AL.

Bellingrath is known for its spectacular displays of azaleas in the spring. We visited Bellingrath twice before - once last year and again this past spring. When we went there last year it was after the azaleas had finished blooming. However, we got to enjoy the beautiful spring annuals and perennials during that visit. To read our two-part post about our 2009 visit to Bellingrath click on Bellingrath Gardens and on More Bellingrath Gardens.

This spring, we wanted to see the azaleas blooming, so we tried to time our stay in Summerdale to coincide with the azaleas. The azaleas bloomed very late this year because of the unusually cold winter. We delayed our trip to Summerdale until almost a month after the normal bloom time, but the azaleas were just starting to flower when we were there. Even though all the azaleas weren't in full bloom yet, there still pockets of spectacular color. To read about our visit to Bellingrath this spring click here.

Bellingrath was originally a 65-acre estate that was the home of Walter and Bessie Bellingrath. Walter Bellingrath made his fortune in the early 1900s as one of the first and most successful bottlers of Coca-Cola. Walter originally bought the land along the Fowl River as a fish camp. Later, the Bellingraths decided to move out from the city, and the current house was completed in 1935.

Our first stop in the garden was a display of cascading mums hanging from the gateway at the entrance to the rose garden.

The roses were just about done blooming, but the rose garden, its fountain and the display greenhouse in the background were still picturesque.

Inside the greenhouse are lush, colorful, tropical plants.

There weren't as many orchids blooming in the greenhouse as we had seen on our previous visits, but we did find something interesting. Margery took a picture of Paul taking a picture of...

...a pineapple.

From the greenhouse we continued our way around the gardens. One of the best mum displays, even though they weren't yet in full bloom, was along the lawn on the way to the house.

Bellingrath has a light display that runs from the last weekend in November until New Year's Eve. Some of the lights were already up, and we could see workers across the lawn putting up more.

Closer to the house there are some formal gardens with fountains and pools that are also surrounded by mums. Unfortunately, these mums weren't quite at their peak bloom yet either.

We toured the house during our first visit to Bellingrath in 2009. While the inside is beautiful, there is an extra charge to tour the house, so we didn't feel the need to see it again on this visit.

Beside the house is a series of pools descending down to the river.

The pools are connected by a series of cascades and a man-made waterfall. The sound of the falling water is amplified by a grotto beneath the falls.

Down along the river, there were fish jumping all over the place. We tried to catch a photo of one in mid air, but were unsuccessful. There are nature cruises on the Fowl River that run from March until November.

There is a bayou off the river that has a nature trail that follows a boardwalk across the bayou and around the upper end. Informative plaques line the walkway describing some of the wildlife found in and around the water. We've walked the boardwalk every time we've been to Bellingrath, and except for a few birds and some turtles on a log we haven't seen much wildlife. Oh well, it's still a nice, quiet walk. This year when we were there, the tide was out (Bellingrath is close to Mobile Bay, so the level of the river rises and falls with the tide), and we could see the mud bottom. We saw a few tiny fish in the remaining shallow water and lots of raccoon tracks in the mud.

Mirror Lake used to be a runoff pond for a 19th century sawmill that was on the property. The Bellingraths had it dredged out and enlarged it to create a lake to reflect their azaleas. The Lion Overlook, which is located on the bank above the lake, has a life-size, cast iron lion that was made in the mid-1800s as a lawn ornament for a wealthy family in Mobile.

At the upper end of the lake, there was a spectacular display of cascading mums from the bridge that crosses the lake. Again, the mums were a little before their peak.

Our last stop before leaving Bellingrath was the Asian garden that has elements of both Japanese and Chinese gardens. The tea house in the next photo has cascading mums hanging from the railing. Unfortunately, these mums had barely started to bloom.

That concluded our visit to Bellingrath. We always enjoy visiting gardens at almost any time of the year; but having been to Bellingrath in both spring and fall, we can definitely say we prefer spring.

We'll be hanging around Summerdale a little while longer to do a little more relaxing, some more maintenance and cleaning, and we're hoping to do some more sightseeing. Look for our next post to see what we're up to.

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 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.

Mobile AL Part III: More Bellingrath Gardens

After the house tour and river cruise at Bellingrath, we climbed up the steps of Bellingrath Grotto and began exploring some of the terraces at the top. The photo below shows Mermaid Pool.

 

The next photo is a view of Fountain Plaza with Mermaid Pool in the far distance.

From Fountain Plaza, we made a stop for a short rest at the south terrace near the house. In the photo below, Margery is surrounded by Easter lilies and delphiniums.

 

The walkway from the house and river back to the parking area follows a different, more winding path than that from the entrance of the estate to the house. As we started back, we took a side trip on the ecological boardwalk that extends out over the water of a small inlet from the river. This is supposedly a good place to view wildlife, but there wasn't any visible the day we were there. However, Paul thought the group of bald cypress trees in the photo below was picturesque.

 

Bald cypress trees grow in swamps, wet areas, and even in the water as in the case of the trees shown above. Like mangroves that we wrote about when we visited the Florida Keys, cypress trees have woody projections that are sent up from the roots above the soil or water level. The projections, called cypress knees, help the root system absorb oxygen from the air. You can see a few knees in the photo above, but the trees in the photo below growing in damp soil elsewhere in the garden had many more knees. We thought some of them kind of looked like prairie dogs.

Back on the main pathway, we passed Mirror Lake.

 

At the far end of Mirror Lake is a bridge that was lined with containers planted with geraniums.

The next photo is a view from the bridge looking back down the lake.

After the bridge, the pathway passes through the rockery.

 

We saw this common five-lined skink sunning himself in the rockery.

The next stop along the pathway back to the parking area was the Bridal Garden where there is a white gazebo that is used for weddings. The gazebo is surrounded by more roses.

The last stop along the return path was the Oriental-American Garden. Water usually plays an important role in Japanese-style gardens, and this garden was no exception. The next photo shows one of several picturesque bridges. Margery liked the way this one was reflected in the calm water.

The next bridge arches gracefully over the water with a callistemon (also known as the bottlebrush tree) in the foreground.

The photo below is from the top of the arched bridge looking back down the lake.

We have one last composite photo showing just some of the beautiful blooms we saw at Bellingrath Gardens.

 

We really liked Bellingrath Gardens and the Mobile area in general. This is one place where we definitely want to return. We're already thinking we might come back a little earlier next year in time to see the azaleas blooming at Bellingrath and stay a little longer. There is a lot more to see and do in Mobile; but for now, we need to continue on our way west.

Mobile, AL Part II: Bellingrath Gardens

With spring well underway in southern Alabama, one of the things we wanted to be sure to see in the Mobile area was Bellingrath Gardens. The historic home and gardens are part of a 65-acre estate originally owned by Walter and Bessie Bellingrath. The entrance is shown in the photo below.

 

Visitors can purchase tickets to see the gardens only, or to see the gardens in combination with a house tour and/or a 45-minute cruise on the adjacent Fowl River. We opted for the full combination that included the gardens, house, and cruise.

In 1903, Walter Bellingrath and his older brother William heard about the opportunity to buy franchises to sell bottled Coca-Cola. They scraped together some money, got a loan, and bought a franchise for southern Alabama. Later, they decided to split the franchise; and since Walter liked to fish, he took the area around Mobile. Walter's Coca-Cola franchise became one of the most successful in the United States; and his business interests later expanded to include owning a ceramic tile company, a warehousing company, and a steamship company.

In 1906, Walter married Bessie Mae Morse, who was his stenographer at his Coca-Cola bottling company. Bessie developed an interest in horticulture and antiques and her tireless energy and love of beauty played a predominant role in making Bellingrath the masterpiece it is today. The fact that the Bellingraths had no children and had almost unlimited funds helped a lot, too.

Walter was somewhat of a workaholic, and in 1917 he bought a fish camp along the banks of the Fowl River near Mobile Bay on the advice of his doctor so he could have a place to relax. As we said, Bessie had a keen interest in gardens, and she had extensive plantings of azaleas and camellias at their residence in Mobile. She soon realized the fish camp was an ideal location for additional plantings and began gardening there.

The Bellingraths decided to open their weekend retreat to guests year-round and to move there themselves from their home in downtown Mobile. They hired prominent Mobile architect George B. Rogers to design a house to be built on the site of the fish camp. The house was completed in 1935.

Mrs. Bellingrath died of a sudden heart attack in 1943 at age 63 after living in the house only eight years. Mr. Bellingrath continued to live in the house until his death in 1955 at age 86. After Mr. Bellingrath's death, ownership of the house and gardens passed to the Bellingrath-Morse Foundation. The Foundation was established to fund and manage the house and garden and keep them open to the public since the Bellingraths had no children.

From the entrance of the estate, there is a pathway that winds through several garden areas and leads to the house. The gardens are beautiful with picturesque scenes and vistas almost everywhere you look.

Bellingrath always has something in bloom, and the web site lists what is currently in flower. Camellias bloom in January and February, and March is the time for azaleas. Summer annuals dominate from May through September, more annuals and chrysanthemums bloom in fall, and poinsettias along with Christmas lights are featured in December. The display of fuchsia, ageratum, and hydrangea shown in the photo below was just inside the entrance.

Bellingrath Gardens has an extensive rose garden that blooms from April to December. The rose garden is planted with large blocks of the same variety in each section.

The composite photo below gives you an idea of just a few of the many varieties in bloom. The fragrance was intoxicating.

 

Adjacent to the rose garden was the conservatory where there is a lush display of tropical plants and orchids.

 

A little farther along, delphiniums, petunias, and cape daisies line the walkway as it approaches the house.

 

The next several photos show various views of the house. The first shows the approach to the house with the entrance to the right.

The next photo looks toward the house across the south terrace where the original fish camp was located.

 

Below is the courtyard near the entrance.

 

And finally, there is a view from the river side of the house.

 

The tour of the house was interesting. The house was the most modern in Mobile when it was built in 1935, but there was no electric power at the time in the relatively remote area by the river where the house was located. Therefore, the house had its own generator until power lines were finally run in 1940.

Make no mistake, at 10,500 square feet, the house is quite large and it is elaborately furnished; but it is designed to give the impression it is more intimate and more modest than it is, thus making it appear to be quite comfortable and livable rather than stuffy and pretentious. You'll have to take our word for that because, unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside.

After the tour of the house, we were just in time for the noon cruise up the Fowl River. French settlers gave the river the name River of Birds because of the many birds that inhabited the area. The English translation became the much less romantic-sounding Fowl River.

From the back of the house, you can see the river. The river boat is barely visible behind the covered landing.

The river cruise included a brief history of Mobile. Spanish explorers sailed into Mobile Bay as early as 1500. The Spanish, who were known as Conquistadors (conquerors), warred with the Native Americans who lived in the area, killing many of them and destroying their towns and villages. But the Spanish never really established any settlements in the area.

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Spanish power began to wane. Following this defeat, English influence in much of the New World began to grow, but the French remained strong in Canada. In 1682, La Salle floated down the Mississippi River from Canada and claimed the entire Mississippi Basin for France. The French established a settlement near present-day Mobile in 1702. Mobile became part of the United States in 1813 as part of the Mississippi Territory. It later became part of the Alabama Territory.

The river cruise also included a description of the ecology of the Mobile Bay Estuary. The mixing of the fresh water from the rivers with the salt water of the bay creates unique habitats for marine life and serves as a nursery for a multitude of vertebrates and invertebrates, which in turn attracts the many birds for which the river is named.

We also got to see some of the many large homes along the river. The one in the photo below reminded us of Mount Vernon.

 

Seagulls also liked to follow our boat looking for handouts of popcorn. This laughing gull and several of his friends kept flying by.

As the boat docked, we could see Bellingrath Grotto, with its waterfall and seasonal flowers. The grotto was completed in 1929 and is located at the original river entrance to the fish camp.

There are a lot more of the gardens to explore, so look for our next post.

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.