Our RV Adventures

Today was a really busy day in contrast to yesterday’s lay-about the rig day.

It started off when I left the rig about 10am heading for a client’s up in Clear Lake. I was there until about  2:30, and then it was off to another client’s in Pearland to drop off a computer that I had taken home to work on a particularly pesky Trojan Virus. I hadn’t run into this one before so it took a little while to figure out how to get rid of it. I also spent some time talking to Bill and June about RV’ing since they have a 5th wheel and travel a good bit.

Then it was time to head back down south to the rig. And I got back just in time to get Jan and head back up to Nassau Bay to pick up our granddaughter Piper and her friend Helena.

Tonight is Bingo night and they’re both going with Jan and Maria to play tonight. Then it was back down to Dickinson to meet Maria at Garcia’s Mexican Grill in Dickinson for supper.

With all this back and forth, sometimes I feel like a yo-yo.

BTW did you know the yo-yo has been around since 500 B.C. in Greece and was made of terra cotta clay.

And when it was first patented in the U.S. in 1866 it was called a ‘bandalore’.

If I don’t tell you this stuff, who will.

Nick Russell called a little before 5pm with a computer problem on Terry’s laptop. Luckily I was able to tell them how to fix it over the phone. Looks like they got a bad update that was messing up the memory card reader.

After we finished dinner, and Maria, Jan, Piper, and Helena headed down to La Marque for Bingo, I headed back up to Clear Lake to another client’s office to do some updates and cleanups that can’t really be done during the day.

About 9:30 it was time to head down to La Marque to pick everyone up. And unfortunately, nobody won anything but Maria, and she only won $25. Wheeee!

And then it was back up to Nassau Bay to drop off Piper and Helena,  After that we finally headed back down to the RV park on Dickinson Bayou.

Told you I was a yo-yo.

___________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

”But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”  -  Carl Sagan

adsf

We got up about 9:30 this morning, looking forward to a nice quiet time just staying around the rig all day.

I fixed some of the coffee our daughter-in-law Linda gave us for Christmas. The gift that just keeps on giving. Thanks, Linda.

Jan and I talked about our upcoming travels for the rest of the year, and things we need to get done before we leave. Then Jan fixed left-over Chinese for lunch.

I think Chinese is one of those foods that, like Italian, gets even better as left-overs. And still spicy hot.

After lunch, I had planned to work outside on some rig maintenance stuff, but quickly found it too cold to work without gloves. And with gloves it was just too clumsy. So I’ll have to put it off until it gets a little warmer. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that will be anytime soon. In fact it’s supposed to be even colder the next few days, with lows in the 20’s.

Later in the afternoon Jan made a batch of her great sugar-free fudge with walnuts using Splenda instead of sugar. Hmm, hmm, good.

And since I couldn’t work outside I decided to make up for it with a nice nap. While I was napping Brandi called and told Jan she thought she might be coming down the the flu.

I sure hope we don’t come down with it.

According to the web, you can be infectious one day before symptoms, and you will have symptoms 1 – 4 days after your infection. So if we’re still OK at the end of the week, we should be all right. We’ll see.

About 5pm I fixed coffee again and supper was the last of the Chinese. Still good.

That was about it for the day. Just another great day of fulltiming.

More tomorrow…

In the meantime I thought I’d might do a repost of our time on the Alabama Gulf Coast in March 2009.

Enjoy!

____________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

Don’t Just Do Something — Stand There.

_____________________________________________________________________

Damn the torpedoes…

Posted on March 25, 2009

Well, our road trip went off yesterday, but not quite as planned.

The idea was to head down to Fort Morgan, catch the ferry over to Dauphin Island and then visit Bellingrath Gardens.  But as we started the 22 mile trip to the ferry, we saw a sign saying the ferry was closed.

I found the number and called to double-check. The lady said the ferry was broke (yes, that’s the way she said it), but they hoped to have it going by 2pm. So we decided to run our trip in reverse. Luckily, we didn’t have to make the 44 mile round trip.

We headed up to Foley and then west on Hwy 98 thru Magnolia Springs, Point Clear, Fairhope, Daphne, and Spanish Fort before hitting I-10 into Mobile. This is the way we used to travel to Mobile when I was a kid, since the the Interstate didn’t exist.  It’s a very beautiful, scenic drive.

Before heading to Bellingrath Gardens after we got to Mobile, we checked out a Spartan/Cummins dealership looking for parts for my A/C problem I mentioned earlier. No luck, but I did get some good information that helped out.

Heading out, we stopped for lunch at Dreamland BBQ mainly because it smelled so good as we drove by.

Well, you know what they say, Smells can be deceiving, or something like that. I had heard how good this place was for years, and they had all sorts of awards on the walls for “Best BBQ in the South” and other stuff, but not in my book.

Jan’s ribs weren’t bad, but not great either. I ordered the Pork Plate, but I’m not sure what I got.

In the south, pork is normally sliced or chopped. If it doesn’t say ‘chopped’, it’s sliced. Yes, in north Alabama, and up into the Carolina’s, they have “pulled pork”, but it’s labeled too.

What I got was a plate of pork ‘chunks’, or something, covered in thin sauce. In fact it looked more like ‘Carne Guisada’, or ‘Beef Stew’ with no vegetables.

The sides of potato salad and coleslaw were just so-so. Two other chains, Sonny’s BBQ and Famous Dave’s are much, much better.

Not recommended!

We then headed south toward Bellingrath Gardens. The Bellingrath estate was built in the early 1900′s and the family were major Coke distributors… Coca-Cola, that is. Apparently the wife kept buying and buying plants until she just ran out of room. The place is just one big garden.

I’m just going to post some pictures of the place and let ya’ll enjoy.

After enjoying the Gardens, we headed down to the Ferry.  I called ahead to confirm that, yes, they had fixed the ‘broke’ ferry and were on schedule for a 5pm departure. We got there a little after 4 so we had a short wait that we spent talking to the couple in the car next to us that was pulling a small camper. Turns out they were heading to the Gulf State Park where we are, so we gave them directions.

The  ferry wasn’t full so loading didn’t take long, but there was about a 15kt wind, 3ft waves, and white caps. And the ride was pretty rough. The ferry was sometimes rolling and porpoising at the same time.

I was worried about Jan when she said she didn’t have her seasickness bracelets with her.  Jan can be very prone to seasickness. She once got seasick while we were eating at a restaurant built on pilings over a lake.

Sea-Band Bracelets

But luckily, before we took our Alaska cruise in 1998, she heard about the Sea-Band bracelets, and for her, they really work. There was one point on our cruise where people were bouncing off the walls of the hallway going to and from their rooms, but Jan never had a problem.

The bracelets apparently work on an acupuncture principle, but only if she doesn’t leave them in the coach.

Luckily, she didn’t have a problem, through. I did see a few people who were decidedly pale and hovering near the railing, but I thought it better not to mention it.

Actually what I think saved her was the fact that with the motion of the ferry, she was so worried about it sinking, she forgot to be seasick.

Fort Morgan – Dauphin Island Ferry

As we pulled out we passed Fort Gaines at the tip of Dauphin Island. Fort Gaines was one of the two forts guarding Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Fort Gaines

Apparently it was so windy that some seagulls decided not to fly.  They just hitched a ride on the raised loading ramp all the way over.

Hitch-hiking Seagulls

Fort Morgan, named for Gen. Daniel Morgan, a hero of the Revolutionary War, and an ancestor of Jan’s (her mother was a Morgan) was the 2nd fort that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Fort Morgan

The Battle of Mobile Bay in August of 1864 gave birth to the famous phrase uttered by Admiral David Farragut, “Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead”. Torpedoes then being what we now call mines, had been spread out across the entrance to the Bay to keep the Union Navy out.

Ironically,  almost immediately after Adm. Farragut gave this order, his supposedly unsinkable ironclad, the USS Tecumseh, struck a mine and sunk in 3 minutes taking most of its 100 plus crew to the bottom with it.

Wouldn’t you think people would learn not to label something “unsinkable”?

The Union did finally prevail and the Confederacy lost its last port on the Gulf,  New Orleans having fallen a year earlier.

That’s your history lesson for today. Read the next 3 chapters and we’ll have a short quiz on Wednesday. Study hard!

adsf