Our RV Adventures

or Nick’s Revenge.

I was up about 5:45 this morning because I didn’t know how long it was going to take me to get trailer hooked up and the truck up on the trailer and lashed down. But when I went outside I found that it’s not nice to mess with Nick, or Mother Nature, because both of them turned on me this morning.

After ragging on Nick the other day about taking all the bad weather to Florida, I stuck my head out the door and found it was pouring down rain. Last night’s weather said Partly Cloudy with no rain for today, but the sky was just full of liquid sunshine. And then later when I talked to Nick he said it was supposed to rain today where he is, but it turned out to be bright and sunny.

Nick bogarted my nice, sunny weather.

Getting the trailer hooked up ended up being easier than I expected. Since it weighs 2200 pounds the rig had to come the trailer, not the other way around. There was no pushing it into place.

But with Jan guiding me, I had no trouble getting it lined up and cranked down on the ball hitch.

Luckily I already had a draw bar ball hitch to replace my Blue Ox tow bar system, so everything hooked right up, including the lights.

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Next I pulled out the ramps and drove the truck up on the trailer, again with no problems. This thing just barely fits.

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The trailer is equipped with straps that wrap around the front tires kind of like snow chains. Plus it also has a safety chain that hooks to the front axle.

sgfsfg

Then I took the safety chains from my tow bar and ran them from the tow bar attachment points down to the trailer.

This thing isn’t going anywhere.

The trailer has surge brakes and a breakaway chain in case it gets loose, so that helps.

We headed out about 9:30 with Jan driving the rent car. She stopped and fill it up, and then we dropped it off at the rental place a few minutes later with not problems.

About 30 miles into the trip the rain disappeared and we had nice weather the rest of the day. And except for a couple of rough pavement areas, the ride was pretty smooth.

We go into Breaux Bridge, LA about 4 pm and drove straight over to Mulate’s, our favorite cajun place and parked the rig in their lot. And came to find out that Mulate’s, a place we eaten at for more than 20 years, is now Pont Breaux.

But we were told it’s the same staff and the same menu, just different owners. Apparently the restaurant manager bought them out.

And luckily for us, the food is just as good as always. We’ll be back.

We got parked at the Breaux Bridge Wal-Mart a little after 5 and went inside to get some stuff for breakfast, and double-check it was OK to spend the night, since we didn’t see any other rigs.

I normally don’t ask if it’s OK if I see several other rigs already parked. Just what the manager needs is 5 or 10 people bothering him every night.

Tomorrow we have a 225 mile run to our park in Dickinson, TX, and then dinner with the kids and grandkids at our favorite Chinese restaurant.

YEAH!

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Thought for the Day:

“Men make plans…God laughs”

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Today was our last day here in Gulf Shores so after coffee we headed out to visit some of our favorite places in the area.

Our first stop was Tallulah’s Treasures, a really neat gift shop that used to be known as Tootie’s Yellow Broom. This is probably the most unique gift shop I’ve ever seen, and believe me, we’ve visited a lot of them over the years. They have some really neat stuff.

When we were here in March of 2009 this really high-end RV Resort was going up in Orange Beach right across the road from the ocean.

And when I say high-end, I mean the lots started at $500,000 and went to over $1,000,000. The sites were nice, and although not very large, they did include a small house or casita on the lot as you can see in this photo.

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Well, this is what it looks like now. Overgrown and out of business.

Guess those million dollar lots didn’t move as well as they thought.

Our next stop was in the Romar Beach area where my parents had two beach houses. At one time they owned all the property from about 100 feet behind me over to the big condo building on the right

And, before September 2004, both sides of the road here was filled with houses, but after Hurricane Ivan hit in September 2004, this is what’s left. The pink cottage on the left is one of my parent’s houses, and the only one to survive Ivan.

Originally there were two of them, and they were side by side on the right side next to the condo. But over the years they sold both of them. One was torn down and replaced by something bigger. The one now on the left was moved there and also replaced by a bigger house of the beach side.

And I’m sure if the other hadn’t been torn down it would have survived too. My father knew how to build for the beach and it showed.

Below is the beautiful ocean view from our beach houses.

Later we drove down the west beach to the bridge where we always see a lot of Jan’s favorite pelicans. There is a large water main along the bridge and the pelicans really like to rest there.

It’s a lot of fun to watch them jockey for position and push each other off the pipe.

While waiting to hear from the U-Haul trailer guy we drove over to the beach and took the walkway out to the ocean.

I’ve visited beaches all over the continental US and I still think Gulf Shores beaches are pretty much the most beautiful around. These sugar sand beaches can’t be beat.

About 3:30 we headed over to pick up the car trailer we were renting to tow our truck home. Normally we would have to pick it up ourselves by taking the rig over there, but I offered the guy $20 if he would deliver it. So after signing the paperwork, the guy followed us back over to our site and dropped it off.

One thing I was surprised to learn is how heavy this thing is.

I had hoped to be able to push it the last 15 feet to hitch it to the back of the rig tomorrow morning, but this sucker weighs 2200 POUNDS. So I’m going to have to back the rig up to it, and hope to get it aligned. We’ll see how it works out.

About 4:30, after getting the trailer delivered, we picked up Eldy and Jeanne and headed up toward Foley to Lambert’s Throwed Rolls. They had never eaten there so we wanted them to give it a try.

This time I just the veggie plate, which along with the pass-arounds, was a great meal. Jan had her usual Fried Chicken, as did Jeanne, while Eldy had the Fried Catfish, which he thought was delicious.

Eldy and Jeanne are staying in the area for another week or so, so we gave them a number of other places to eat and visit. Hopefully they’ll enjoy the area as much as we do.

Tomorrow night we’ll Wally-Dock in Breaux Bridge, LA before arriving in Houston on Sunday. We’re really looking forward to seeing everyone.

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Thought for the Day:

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." – Richard Feynman, father of Quantum Physics

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