Our RV Adventures

We headed out about 10:30 am over toward Mountain Brook and Irondale. Mountain Brook because my mother used to live there, and Irondale, because as I told our friend Bill Alverson last night, “You can’t have too much Alabama BBQ”. So we wanted to eat lunch at Golden Rule BBQ there in Irondale.

I’ve eaten at Golden Rule for about as long as I can remember. I drove up to Birmingham every month from 1992 to 2004 to visit my mother, and I used to eat here every month.

After a great lunch of jumbo pork sandwiches, fries, and lemon icebox pie for dessert, we drove over to Mountain Brook to check out my mother’s old house.

My parents bought this house in 1972 and my sister sold it while my mother was in the hospital in 2004. My father’s ashes were scattered in the rose garden that used to be in front of the house.

I’m not sure why the new owners removed all the shrubs and landscaping. When my mother lived here there were shrubs lining both sides of the driveway going down the hill. There was also large plants along the front of the house, and a large rose garden out among the trees in the front. They also cut down a number of the tall pine trees.

The place really looks pretty bleak, and not near as good as when my mother lived there.

Next we drove thru Mountain Brook Village and English Village, up over the mountain and then down into downtown Birmingham. Taking a right on 1st Ave. N., we headed out toward Center Point where we lived and went to college in the early 70’s.

We actually lived in Center Point twice. The first time from Sept 1970 to Apr 1971. We lived in the Colonial Manor Apartments and I was an electronics/video tech at Signal Engineering & Sales.

Here’s a photo of the the apartments. What’s interesting is there used to be another row of apartments right on the other side of the fence in the foreground. Now there’s just a big hole in the ground where the fountain used to be. Don’t know for certain, but I suspect it burned down, and they just tore it down rather than rebuilt it.

Colonial Manor Apartments

Our apartment was the one on the top left.

In Sept 1973 we were back in Birmingham and living in the Valley Brook Apartments in Center Point and attending Jefferson State Junior College. I was working as a Broadcast/Video Engineer for the Alabama Educational Television Network.

We lived in the unit to the rear in this picture.

We drove over to Jeff State and found it hard to recognize the campus. The biggest reason was all the trees. The area, as to be expected, is much more heavily forested than 40 odd years ago.

Leaving Jeff State, we headed back to the rig down in Helena. We got back about 3 pm and decided it was a good time for nap.

About 5 pm we headed off to Alabaster, AL to the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant there. We started to encounter rain as we left the rig, but it slack off as we got to Alabaster.

We did find this sign on the way. Guess they want to be sure where the truck route is.

Coming home about 7 pm, the bottom really dropped out on the rain. It was pouring down by the time we got home.

Tomorrow we’ll head north to Athens, AL for a few days to visit my family there, before heading up to Louisville and The Rally.

More tomorrow…

Quote of the day:
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. – H. L. Mencken

q

Our day started out with breakfast at IHOP before coming back to the rig to get ready to leave Capital City RV Park here in Montgomery. It’s really a very nice park, and, except for our late night over-voltage problems, it was a great stay.

We pulled out of the park right at noon and headed about a mile down the road to fuel up at a nice station that I haven’t seen before called ENTEC. Diesel was $2.78 and I put in about 105 gallons. Hopefully that’ll take us all the way to Elkhart, IN, about 915 miles away. Since we’ll be staying there for a month, we’ll fill up right before we park, because sitting with a partially full tank is an open invitation for condensation and algae growth in your fuel. Which can be a real problem with diesel engines.

Leaving the station we hitched up the toad on the wide shoulder in front of the station and set out on our short 100 mile run to the Cherokee Beach Campground in Helena, AL, just south of Birmingham. We got a site back in the trees but I was still able to get a satellite sight, so it’s all good.

After setting up and resting up, we left at 5 pm heading up to Trussville, about 30 miles away to catch up on old times with Bill and Carol Alverson.

The traffic getting from the park back to the Interstate was a lot heavier than when we came in. It took us over 20 minutes to make the 6 mile trip because of all the going-home traffic.

Bill and I worked together at the Alabama Educational Television Network here in Birmingham from July 1972 to December 1974. So we had a lot to catch up on.

We spent about an hour talking and being shown around their beautiful home. And in one of those strange coincidences, their home floorplan is almost identical to the home my mother used to own here in the Birmingham area. And it was about 20 miles from here. Weird!

About 7 we headed out to dinner at Jim and Nick’s BBQ, a nearby restaurant that had really good Alabama BBQ. And their HOT and SPICY BBQ sauce was GREAT!

Bill and Carol

Coming back to their home we talked for another half hour or so, until it was time to head back to the rig before Jan started nodding off.

We really enjoyed getting to know Carol. Although we had corresponded with Christmas cards and such for years, this was our first time to meet in person. She’s a really neat lady, and must have a lot of patience, since she’s put up with Bill all these years.

We made a date to get together next year on our way thru this area, and will certainly follow thru.

We got home about 10 pm and were in for the night.

Tomorrow we’re going to drive around Birmingham, looking up old memories and places.

More then…

Quote of the day:
An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you have just found out. – Will Rogers

a