This travel article will quickly cover the
months of February through April and the first part of May and I have included
many pictures. By the next travel article we will be back to normal and
putting miles on the motorhome heading up the Mississippi River. Actually,
we won’t drive on the river - just beside it from New Orleans, Louisiana
to northern Minnesota
February Now we realize why we left Louisville. The entire month of February was freezing, snowy, windy and the skies stayed dark. Many mornings we awoke to 5-12 degrees and for over three weeks it never rose above freezing. We spent most of the time at Linda’s parent’s house so we never hooked up the motorhome to water and we didn’t extend the slides for three weeks. I installed an Extend-A-Stay LP adapter and hooked up to a 100-lb external LP tank that lasted only a week with the thermostat set to 55 degrees. Linda’s mother had total knee replacement
surgery and went from the hospital to a nursing home for therapy and then
to home. Linda’s son spent two days in the hospital while doctors monitored
his heart and found nothing wrong - he just needs to slow down and eat
better. Linda’s father basically needed someone with him around the clock
to make sure he ate and took his medicines. While Linda helped her mother
with physical therapy, my job was driver and part time cook. I also became
a good listener and heard the same old stories over and over until I had
them memorized.
March Our new CR-V was out of the collision center
and it was time to go to Rainbow Plantation in southern Alabama, but it
was not set up for towing. No problem. I drove the motorhome the 640 miles
while Linda followed in the CR-V. It was a two day trip with an overnight
stop at Flying J south of Montgomery. The CR-V got 31.1 miles per gallon
for the trip so I think it’s a “keeper.” Gloria (my sister) and Don Martin
arrived the same day as us and he volunteered to help install a baseplate
and wire lighting on the CR-V, a volunteer assignment he may have regretted.
We had to remove the entire front of the CR-V and cut and file and cut
some more, then drill holes and install the baseplate before reassembling
the whole thing. Wiring the rear lights was much easier. Then I got carried
away with drilling and cutting and before we ended we had installed fog
lights, a tailgate spoiler, body side moldings and a chrome exhaust pipe.
(Click here for the
entire story.)
Bean Cook-Off The Escapees park held a Bean Cook-Off and
about 25 people cooked their favorite bean recipes. Each of the 150 people
attending walked around the room selecting samples to eat and voted for
their favorite bean dish. I estimate each person ate between six and ten
cups of beans and then we were treated to an hour of musical entertainment.
Just imagine - 150 people sitting in a tight room after eating 6-10 cups
of beans. I won’t go into details, but there may have been more music in
the room than on stage.
Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve What is an estuary? An estuary is a
semi-enclosed body of water where fresh water from rivers mixes with salt
water from the oceans. Weeks Bay was established in 1986 and is one of
the nation’s sixteen national estuarine reserves. It is Alabama’s best
remaining unspoiled estuarine and it encompasses nearly 6,000 acres of
land and water around Weeks Bay and along Mobile Bay. John Nation lead
us on an interesting tour while explaining trees, bushes, wildlife and
their interactions. After the tour we were treated to a delicious cooked
meal and everything was free, but we did make a donation before leaving.
Picking Pine Needles Don and Gloria, Dave and Sharyl Tholen, and
Linda and I, drove to Elberta, Alabama to visit the Baldwin County Heritage
Museum. It is Sausage Festival The town of Elberta was settled by Germans
and sausage making was a major industry in by-gone days, but one weekend
a year is set aside to bring back the tradition. Over the weekend 30,000
large sausages are cooked and eaten and it is a sight to see. The sausages
start down a long line cooking over wood as volunteer workers flip the
spits and about forty feet later the sausages are ready to eat. A television
crew was filming the cooking process, vendor booths and entertainers and
as soon as we started eating our large sausages a cameraman pointed his
camera toward us. That night we watched the news and sure enough, we made
the evening news. We looked rather charming stuffing our mouths with sausage
sandwiches.
I had completed all my projects and decided
it was time to work on my website when my computer’s hard drive failed.
I know better, but I had not backed up in a very long time. (I am backing
up weekly now.) After two weeks of work, sometimes until 2:00 a.m., I finally
recovered everything except my email address book. It is amazing how much
I (and most of you too) depend on computers. My entire life is on that
little hard drive and I was lost when the computer failed. Heck, I couldn’t
even pay our bills.
April Rainbow Plantation RV Park had an Easter Dinner much as out previous Thanksgiving Dinners where each table had a host and everyone brought a dish or two. For a small donation the campground furnished ham and gravy. We ate more than we should and had a great time. Friends, Rich and Diane Emond (Roaming
America) surprised us by coming to Rainbow Plantation to visit for
almost two weeks. They had been in north-central Florida and were on their
way to Atlanta so the side trip to visit cost them several hundred dollars
in fuel. It was nice being with the Emonds again and Linda took Diane to
her beading classes. Actually, I think Diane came to Rainbow Plantation
just to get involved with the beading ladies.
Linda continued to teach beading classes
(all together about 4 1/2 months during the winter) and her group threw
her a party and presented her with gifts. They made her beaded earrings
and a bracelet and the neat thing was each person made one part of the
bracelet and then they tied the parts together to form the completed bracelet.
Linda will always treasure that bracelet.
May Linda’s daughter Amy and hubby Trent Carr
bought their first house, an old farm house in excellent condition on five
acres south of Shelbyville, Kentucky. We returned to Kentucky to help them
scrape, sand, paint and paper getting it ready to move in. Wow, some days
we worked all day long and until midnight, then got up the next morning
and started again. And we did that for a week. Now we know why we never
want to live in a house again.
We drove to Mt. Sterling, Kentucky and attended
a Kentucky Derby Party at my son’s house, Darren and Martha Payne. They
have a beautiful large house on a knoll overlooking a creek with rolling
hills behind the house. About 100 people attended the party and everyone
brought food and drinks so we ate, drank and visited all day. During the
running of the Derby about 70 people watched the race in their Great Room
and 30 more watched in the library. I told you it is a big house.
For our trip to Kentucky we stored the motorhome and drove the Honda CR-V. We stayed at Linda’s parent’s house, but we were gone most of the time so we didn’t see a lot of them. After we returned to Rainbow Plantation,
Linda had two more days with her beading group before we left and I made
some pictures of their projects.
Don and Gloria joined us and we moved to New Orleans to begin our summer’s travels up the Mississippi River. The drive to New Orleans was uneventful until we missed the turn into the campground and had to make a U-turn in the street. Then we over-shot the campground and ended up making two more street U-turns before finally getting into the campground. I’m sure the citizens of New Orleans thought we were crazy, driving two large motorhomes, both towing Honda CR-V’s, and making three U-turns on a city street. After having a strange winter for us we are back to our normal travels and I hope to update the website every couple of weeks. |
