Detour to Mississippi

Monday morning we received word that my Mississippi cousin, Ellen, passed away on Sunday. Grammy and I hurriedly picked up some clothes and broke camp, heading to Laurel, MS. We arrived in Laurel Monday evening and stayed at a little campground called Sleepy Hollow. It was perfect for us for a couple of days.

Ellen's funeral was Tuesday morning. We learned that she planned her own funeral which I thought was eloquent and spoke directly to her warmness and friendly nature. I'll always remember Ellen as we were kids playing in Grandma's backyard and eating water mellon.

Afterward, we spend the day with another cousin, Lucy and her husband Don. Wonderful visit with our Mississippi family.

We packed up and headed home Wednesday morning. About the time we drove through Talledaga AL it started to storm as hard as I've ever seen. The weather stayed with us all the way through Birmingham and beyond. By the time we finally arrived at the GA state line it was 3:30p and still raining. I imagined us arriving in Atlanta at 5pm with the storm that had been following us all day. No way!

We concluded that it was a better idea to spend the night and head out the next day. It was a good idea - we found a cozy little park in Tallapoosa GA called Big Oak RV park. Predictably, it continued to rain this morning when we finally headed home for sure.

Post Script: Any time that we run into a local drought, I believe it's an acceptable remedy to pack up the Montana and plan to go camping. When the camper is on the blacktop the rain is not far away! However, it's my policy to forget the weather and get out there and camp.

Happy trails and roadways ahead.

Pappy

Very cool evening last night at the Foley, AL Hot Air Balloon Festival. There were about 40 balloons that fired up and "glowed" for the crowd. A couple of them lifted off but they don't generally fly that late in the day.

Another interesting discovery at the event is that no one minds you wondering around through the maze of balloons. Which means you can get up close and personal with the equipment and crews that power up these giant colorful orbs. The pilots and crew were happy to talk to us and answer our questions.

This is one of those events that Grammy and I would definitely do again.

Our camping buddies, Butch and Bonnie Lenoir, told us about an early morning beach worship service that they learned about a couple of years ago. So, this morning we all headed over to the park's pavilion and found a rather impressive crowd of Christians gathering to worship our Lord. Foley First United Methodist Church has been meeting on this beach for the past 61 years to hold these special summer services. Most of the 150 worshipers this morning were members of the Foley church while 30 of us were visitors. Happy we attended!

Gulf Shores State Park- It's hot here too!

Grammy and Pappy cooling. Beach very hot - 94.... water pretty darn cold - 78. Kinda weird but refreshing.

Ah, to sleep late. The wonder of it. That is, I wonder how Grammy can sleep so late and why I'm always the first up and out. Here we are where it doesn't matter when we rise and I'm up at 5:30a.m. Grammy of course is nicely nested in the camper snoozing away. Oh well... good time to blog... right?

Nearly all of the 500 sites here at Gulf State Park have been filled. As my brother-in-law, Steve, would say: Unbelievable! There was even a traffic jam of 30 campers as they were trying to nudge their way through registration yesterday afternoon. Happily, we are in the very back of the park where it is quiet and traffic is at a minimum. Wonder how long it will stay that way??

Got pretty hot yesterday so Grammy and I made our way to the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores! Surprisingly there were very few people on the beach - but that's ok, cause I usually draw a crowd when I stretch out and soak up some rays:)

The beach was pretty darn hot and the water was pretty darn cold which felt pretty darn good. Grammy wet her pretty little painted toes - which was enough for her and I headed in for a full dip - which was good enough for me to cool down for the rest of our beach lounging.

After the beach scene we packed up and headed over to Doc's, a local eatery, and had some lunch. Doc's Blue Plate Special is always good, cheap, and different every day. They advertise it by airplane on the beach, but when you get to the restaurant don't look for it on the menu. It's not there. If you don't know to ask for the Blue Plate Special, you'll order their "Lunch Special", which is double the Blue Plate price. Go figure.

It was a very nice, cool evening, last night. Just right for riding our bikes around the park to look at everyone else's rigs and how they set things up. Some were, as grandson Braxton would say, ginormous - and some were very tiny. But they all were here to have a good time. Today, I will ride back over to the most interesting site we found.... with a camera this time. I've just got to get a pic of the tent we saw. It had a regular size air conditioner duct taped into a hole in the side of the tent. This one you've just got to see to appreciate!

So, until next time with a few more pics....

Pappy

Gulf Shores State Park- Here we are!

Grammy doing what she likes most

while I'm working around the

camp site:)

Good morning to my Blooger peeps! Grammy and I had a delightful open road drive down here to the L.A.'s golden coast. Yesterday we had a rather uneventful haul down here - uneventful is good - I guess one could classify a torrent downpour around Opelika & Auburn included in the uneventful category. It's during those un-events when I have a tendency to go white-knuckle on the steering wheel and have to remind myself and Grammy that all is well...all is well....all is well.

(ah, if only a little bit more of that wet stuff could find it's way to dear Oconee).

When we stuck our body parts outside this morning at 6 a.m. we found it surprisingly warm (imagine that at the beach). Honestly, the mornings at home have been so cool, that I guess they would be equally appealing down here. Note to self: get used to it. It's the beach!

The breeze however is picking up now and with the shade from camper, it seems this my be a beautiful day. Oh, I'll try to do better about updating our ledger this time around - with WIFI in the campsites my task shall be less of a hassle. Later.

Pappy

Gulf Shores State Park- Here we come!

Well, we pull out tomorrow a.m. en route to Gulf Shores. It's been over a month now since we took the Montana out - went to Mississippi to visit my cousin Ellen. Ellen has been fighting a brain tumor for over a year now and it was wonderful to visit her along with our other Mississippi kin. Great trip.

Well, the visit part was really good but we experienced a nagging issue with the Montana's landing gear. After much consternation we were able to make it home ok, but the camper had to go to the shop.

Now, campers are much like boats in that they are very enjoyable while you're using them, but theres usually some mechanical issue just under the enjoyment scale that seems to be waiting to go wrong while your in midst of the fun. In the Mississippi trip it was the landing gear. On other trips it's been fuses, turing signal lamps, electrical harness, oh yes... and a low hanging roof line which jumped out and caught the side of the camper. It's always something isn't it.

If you'er going to run with the big dowgs up and down the highways and byways, you just can't be a goober, a wiener, or a winer. Things happen. Things go wrong. But we won't let that small stuff get our spirits down. The Montana now has shiny new landing legs and two new motors - willing and ripping to head down the road ..... so,

Like my old boss used to say.... "Don't sweat the small stuff. And remember... it's all small stuff"!

So, here we are ready to pull out. And.... it's raining. Yes, it's actually raining. I'm not kidding or complaining because we've only had 1/2 inch since our Miss trip.

Heck, if I knew all it took was to hook up to the Montana to get this rain.... I wouldn't have waited so long for another trip:)

Happy Trails and Roads Ahead,

Pappy