Our RV Adventures

As I mentioned yesterday, our weather here was forecast to be pretty nasty the last few days, but all of sudden it all just went away.

Thanks, Nick.

It’s really nice to have a close friend who sacrifice his own comfort to suck all the cold, rainy weather down to Florida just to keep his friends in Alabama comfortable.

About 10am Jan and I headed out for the day, first a few sites down the road to see Eldy Tompkins and Jeanne Sparks. They just got in last night, and we wanted to set up a time for a supper get-together tonight.

Then it was off to Pensacola via Alabama Point. Our first stop was our favorite Sonny’s BBQ, where we try to eat every time we’re in this area. And we’re always sure to have enough leftovers to bring home.

Our next stop was at Artesana, a really neat gift shop that we’ve been visiting for more than 30 years. And every time we find something new and interesting.

Heading home, we came back via US98 thru Foley. I wanted to stop there because I had seen signs for the Holmes Hospital Museum.

The reason was two-fold. My mother, an Army nurse during WWII, and a Public Health nurse in Birmingham, worked here for Dr. Holmes as a part-time nurse after we moved here in late 1950.

And I had my tonsils out here in 1953 or ‘54.

The hospital opened in 1936 and was the first hospital in Baldwin County. It occupied the top floor over Crosby Drugs, as seen here, and closed in 1958 when the Baldwin County Hospital opened north of Foley.

This would have been the operating room where my tonsils were yanked out, and the room below is where I remember walking up. My bed was against the far wall, and I remember my throat hurt and I got ice cream and a new toy truck.

They also had a book listing all the people born there, and I was able to find several kids in there that I went to school with.

Really brings back a lot of memories.

We got back to the park about 3 pm, and then at 4 we picked up Eldy and Jeanne and headed up to Lulu’s at Homeport, Jimmy Buffett’s sister’s place.

On the way, our son-in-law Lowell called and said our roller coaster pic had gone viral again. We had a bad connection so I don’t know who saw it, but the website for Ch. 2 in Houston has a series called Scared Straight – Best Roller Coaster Faces Ever, and if you check out #16, you’ll once again see our happy faces. Well, mine’s happy, anyway.

I really loved the comment at the bottom of the picture.

Eldy and Jeanne really enjoyed Lulu’s and said they’ll go back before they leave in 10 days or so.

Tomorrow we’re taking them up to Lambert’s for some Throwed Roll dodging. Hopefully they like it too.

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Thought for the Day:

“No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’” – Texas Ranger Bill McDonald (1852-1918)

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or a new ride . . . temporarily.

We’ve really lucked out on the weather since we got here. Originally it was supposed to rain for most of our time here, but except for a short shower about midnight last night, and a little rain squall early this afternoon, it has really been nice, and looks to stay that way until we leave on Saturday.

For lunch today I decided to just have chips and salsa, but the salsa was the Ghost Chili Salsa I bought at Jungle Jim’s Market in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago.

To refresh your memory, Ghost Chilies, until recently, were the hottest chilies in the world. At about 1,000,000 Scoville Units, it’s about 200 times hotter than regular jalapenos.

I’ve had hot wings made with Ghost Chilies a couple of times and they were pretty much the hottest things I’ve ever eaten, so I approached the salsa with some trepidation.

So I was kind of disappointed to find it was only about as hot as the hottest salsa I’ve had, but not near as hot as the Ghost Chili hot wings.

I’m kind of wondering if they just don’t make the salsa and then tie a string on a Ghost Chili and just dunk it in the salsa a few times. I’ve had Chinese food that was much hotter.

As far as our new temporary ride, this is it.

A Ford Explorer from Enterprise Car Rental.

And this is the reason we have it. Those two broken flanges sticking up should be holding up the right front wheel drive axle on our 4 wheel drive to the truck frame.

But the bracket broke, dropping the drive shaft, and severing the flexible joint in the drive line on that side. But the real problem is the other side. The broken bracket let the front differential drop enough so that the change in angle of the drive line on that side causes a lot of noisy banging.

The truck is drivable, but with over 500 miles still to go to get back home, I decided to rent a dolly to tow it home, and also rent a car to use for the next few days while we’re here.

So about 3 pm, the Enterprise Car Rental guy came by to pick me up. After dropping him off I stopped off at the U-Haul place to follow up on the car dolly rental.

After I talked with the rental guy we decided the dolly wasn’t really big enough to handle our 5000 pound truck, and we would need a full car trailer to carry the load. We’ll pick it Friday afternoon before we leave on Saturday morning.

After getting back to the rig, about 4:30 Jan and I jumped into our new ride and drove up to King Neptune’s Seafood for some more great seafood, and topped it off by splitting a Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce.

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Thought for the Day:

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." – Winston Churchill.

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