Living Our Dream

Dallas Part I: Trade Days USA

After our one-week stay at Rainbow Plantation near Mobile, AL, we continued on our westward trek with a one-night stop at Lakeside RV Park in Livingston, LA. We stayed at this campground our first year of full-timing.

Lakeside RV is a Passport America campground. The Passport America discount doesn't apply to pull-through sites, so we unhooked the toad and took a back-in. The photo below shows our site at Lakeside RV.

Lakeside RV is a very nice campground with full hook-ups, trash pick up at your site, and fairly widely-spaced, paved sites. Some of the sites are right on the lake.

About the only thing negative about Lakeside RV is the traffic noise. The campground is far enough from the interstate to eliminate noise from that source, but the road that runs past the campground has quite a bit of truck traffic during the day. Sleep was no problem, however; because traffic appreciably diminishes by early evening.

From Lakeside RV, it was on to Ajax Country RV Livin' in Marthaville, LA. The folks at Ajax are very friendly and accommodating (they even pruned the small tree at our site so we wouldn't drag against the branches when we pulled out), and the campground is a member of Passport America. The campground is a little older, but it seems to be well cared for. They have full hook-ups and some sites have 50 amp power. Roads are gravel and sites are grass with a little gravel. Ajax has mostly extra-long pull-through sites with some back-ins. The photo below shows our site at Ajax.

We opted for a 50 amp site because it was close to 90 degrees the day we were there. Running the air cooled us off and diminished the saw mill noise from across the street. 

The saw mill wasn't operating by the time we left around 9:00 AM the next morning. It was Friday and maybe they only work a four-day week. We were heading toward our next stop at Hickory Creek Corps of Engineers Campground in Lewisville, TX just north of Dallas.

Shortly after we got on the interstate, a car sped passed us. After it got well ahead of us, the driver pulled off onto the shoulder, got out of his car and began gesturing toward us. We knew he was trying to tell us something was wrong, so Paul immediately began to check the rear view monitor and the mirrors. He saw that the steps were out, so we pulled onto the shoulder.

The steps have an interlock so they retract automatically if the key is in the ignition and the door is closed. However, when we raised the jacks, the steps were still extended and touched the ground when the motor home dropped down. This caused the steps to bind and to not retract as they should when the door was closed right before we departed a few minutes later. When we pulled over on the interstate and opened the door, the steps were free and retracted as they should, so all was well. We're very grateful to the fellow who pointed out our problem. Had we hit a dip in the road, the steps could have dragged on the pavement and could have been torn off or severely damaged.

The rest of our trip was uneventful - at least until we arrived at Hickory Creek. When we tried to unhook the toad, the battery was dead. You're supposed to pull a fuse to prevent the battery from being discharged while towing. Paul installed a switch under the dash to make things easier so he wouldn't have to open the hood every time to pull the fuse, but he forgot to turn the switch off again after running the engine of the Vue that morning. Running the engine for three minutes is a required procedure for towing the Vue. We are very thankful to the camp host who brought her car over so we could jump the battery and get the car started. We let the engine run while we completed our set up, and the battery recovered and was fine afterward.

The photo below shows our site at Hickory Creek.

 

And the next photo is the view of the lake from our door.

The first thing we noticed when we initially got to our site was how windy it was. The wind was coming across the lake and hitting the motor home broadside so hard the motor home would shake even with the jacks down. When we took a walk later on, we discovered we had just about the most windy site in the campground. Our site faced a fairly wide part of the lake, which also happened to be the same direction the wind was coming from, so we were completely unprotected.

Fortunately, the wind was hitting our passenger side. Both our slides are on the driver's side, and if the wind is coming from that side, it gets up under the slide toppers and causes them to billow and flap risking damage.

The wind died down to a stiff breeze at night so we were able to sleep, but it picked up again the next morning. Although the wind built up again the next day, it wasn't as severe as the day before.

Our stay in the Dallas area happened to coincide with Trade Days USA held one weekend a month at Texas Motor Speedway, which is north of Ft. Worth. We always like a good flea market even though as full-timers we don't usually buy much. The Speedway was only about half an hour away so we headed there on Saturday.

Unfortunately, it was a cloudy, windy morning and the market didn't have a very good turnout of vendors or customers. But we were curious so we decided to go anyway. The next photo shows some of the vendors close to where we parked.

The market had a lot of the usual flea market stuff, but there was also a lot of merchandise that had a western flare that we had never seen before - like the decorative longhorn steer head on the table in the next photo of wrought-iron lawn art.

There were also these rocking horses (the dark one on the left is a bull)...

 

...these Texas-themed storage bins...

...and these bird houses made from cowboy boots.

 

Margery particularly liked these children's chairs and rockers by fatratfamily.com.

 

Even though there wasn't a big turn out of vendors, we still got to see a lot of interesting things. We stopped at Walmart to restock some groceries on the way back to the motor home and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. We'll be out and about again soon because we still have a lot to see in the short time we will be in Dallas.

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.

Pittsburgh, PA and Holmes County, OH

If you have been following our blog, you know we were in Florida, and you're probably wondering why we are writing about Pittsburgh and Holmes County. Well, we made yet another whirlwind trip to Pittsburgh, and during that journey we made time to take a side excursion to one of our favorite places - Amish Country in Holmes County, OH.

When we decided that we wanted to take a southern route to California for our summer travels, we needed to figure out how to arrange for some medical and dental check-ups. With the passing of Margery's dad back in February, we also had some estate business to take care of.

Blueberry Hill offered an additional month's stay for half price, so we decided to extend our stay here in Florida and make a short spring trip to Pittsburgh in the car. The reason we decided to leave the motor home in Florida and make the trip to Pittsburgh in the car was because of the additional travel cost of getting the motor home from Florida to Pittsburgh and back from Pittsburgh to our southern route. Driving straight through to Pittsburgh in the car like we did at Christmas and for our February trip, and staying with our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael would save a lot of gas. When we're ready to head west, doing so from Florida allow us travel through Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas and enjoy warmer weather.

After our friends, Dick and Barb, left Bushnell, we had the rest of the week to get ready for the drive to Pittsburgh. Paul had the oil changed in the car, Margery caught up on laundry, and we started a list of things we needed to take.

We set the alarm for 2:00 AM and got on the road about 3:15. With a lot of snowbirds now heading north, traffic was a little heavier than it was when we went to Pittsburgh a month ago, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was just before Christmas. We're also starting to get a better feel for when and where we need to make fuel and rest stops, and that is making our travel more efficient. This time, we completed the trip in just over 15 hours.

In addition to the doctor appointments, Margery found time while in Pittsburgh for tea with Lora and J. Michael's mom at The Uniquely You Tea Room in Cecil, PA. Margery really enjoys her annual tea room "date" with Lora, and sharing it with J. Michael's mom was an added bonus. This was Margery's second visit to this tea room, and it has become a favorite. The food was fresh, delicious, homemade, and plentiful. Harriet, the owner, was gracious; and our server was efficient without being intrusive.

Selecting two teas to share was not an easy task considering there were 12 jars of loose tea from which to choose. The savory sandwiches of cucumber and dill, chicken salad, and egg salad were followed by homemade scones with clotted cream, and topped off with four homemade pastries. 

The Victorian theme of the tea room is carried out in the themed tables with coordinating china, linens, and centerpieces. The decorations around the room included antique ball gowns, purses and hats. It is a total sensory experience well worth the trip to Cecil. Even though Harriet was still recovering from a bridal shower for 47 the weekend before and preparing for a birthday party the next day, our afternoon was leisurely and uninterrupted.

Another thing we had to attend to while in Pittsburgh was to take Margery's dad's cremated remains to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church to be interred in the garden there next to her mom. Margery's mom was baptized in that church, and her mom and dad were married there. They worshiped and they served at St. Stephen's for all 62 years of their marriage. The photo below shows their wedding in 1941.

Returning there brought back many memories for Margery. Here is a picture of a wooden altar table Margery's dad made including the hand-carved flowers in the corners.

Like most of the churches built in the late 19th century, St. Stephen's is majestic with it's large stone columns, a pipe organ, and beautiful stained glass windows. There is something to be said for the reverence that such architecture engenders compared to the more informal/utilitarian-designed churches that are built today.

Here is the garden where the cremated remains of church members are buried. It's a simple plot of grass with no markers, but the church maintains a map showing the locations of the remains. The church and community were such an integral part of Margery's family life, she found it very comforting to bury her parents there.

By Saturday, all our errands and doctor appointments were completed, so we drove to Ohio with Lora and J. Michael to have the breakfast buffet at our one of our favorite restaurants, Der Dutchman in Walnut Creek. The photo below shows the front of the restaurant.

 

And the next photo is the view from the back of the restaurant. There is a panoramic window that overlooks the Amish farms in the valley.

 

We love Holmes County in the spring. New growth was just starting to show on the trees, the grass was greening up, and the farmers were busily plowing their fields to get ready for planting.

After breakfast, we went to the Holmes County Amish Flea Market, which has a new location this year. It is now a few miles west of its previous site near Der Dutchman restaurant in Walnut Creek. The new location is in Berlin, OH and overlooks part of Scenic Hills RV Park where we stay when we visit Holmes County in our motor home. They have converted the former flea market buildings in Walnut Creek to a conference and expo center. The photo below shows the newly-constructed flea market building in Berlin. Note the Amish buggies parked behind the red car coming in the entrance.

The flea market is bigger than it looks in the photo. It is built in the shape of an "H" with the rest rooms and a cafeteria centrally located in the connector between the two legs of the "H." Parking is more convenient than at the old location because it is all on one level instead of being on several terraced levels as it was in Walnut Creek.

It was a beautiful spring day, and it was the opening weekend of the new market, so there was a big turn out. Paul had to wait a while to get the shot below so the aisle wouldn't be too congested, and so he could get a good view of some of the merchandise.

 

The Holmes County Flea Market is mostly indoors, although they have room for some outdoor vendors like they had at their old location. There was a vendor selling plants outside in the space between the legs of the "H," but he was the only one there because it was very windy. The flea market has mostly new merchandise, and much of it has a country or rustic theme. The photo below shows Margery checking out a lamb at one of the booths.

 

We enjoyed our breakfast buffet, the flea market, and driving around the picturesque countryside. We also made a stop at Winesburg Meats to pick up some of Paul's favorite beef snack sticks and at Walnut Creek Cheese for Margery and Lora to get some cooking spices. Walnut Creek Cheese has a variety of merchandise including bulk foods, spices, and candies; cookware; meats and some regular grocery items. They also have a lunch counter, which always seems to be crowded no matter what time we are there, and hard and soft ice cream.

After our side trip to Holmes County on Saturday, we hit the road at 7:00 AM Sunday to return to Bushnell. Northbound traffic was heavy most of the way as snowbirds continue to head north. The Flying J near Wytheville, VA where we like to stop for gas was clogged with RVs. Fortunately, we were in the car and were able to easily zip through the car lanes for our gas.

When we left Pittsburgh in February, it was 3 degrees and it took all the way to Wytheville for the temperature to break the freezing mark. This time, it was 65 degrees when we stopped in Wytheville, and we changed into shorts.

The trip was uneventful except for some heavy rain going through Georgia. We enjoyed some of the beef snack sticks from Winesburg Meats on our way. Our arrival time in Bushnell was about 10:00 PM - just 15 hours from our start time.

As we pulled into the campground, we weren't too surprised to see the front section was nearly empty. Out of almost 100 sites, only about a dozen were occupied. The back section where we are parked is down to less than 50% occupancy. The photo below, which was taken a few days after our return to Bushnell, shows our rig off in the distance near the center of the photo. There is another motor home to the left and a 5th wheel to the right, but there are empty sites beside both of those rigs, empty sites behind us, and empty sites across the road in front of us.

Buds on the trees and shrubs were just starting to become noticeable in Pittsburgh, but from southern West Virginia on southward, spring is very much in evidence. Spring seems to be at its peak around Charlotte. Although we love palm trees, seeing all the dogwoods, redbuds, and forsythia blooming and seeing all the new leaves on the trees made us itchy to get moving again to see some new sights. We will be staying in Bushnell about another week, then we will be off to new adventures.