Our RV Adventures

After breakfast at the motel this morning we were on our way home a little after 8:30, via an overnight stay in Slidell about half way.

But our first stop was at the Golden Rule BBQ in Birmingham once again. In fact we timed our motel departure so we would get there right at 10:30am when they opened.

Once again we both got the Jumbo Sliced Pork Sandwich, mine Outside Cut, and splitting a order of Fries.

This so we wouldn’t be as full as when we were here the other day, wanting to have room for their delicious home-made pie. Jan got her usual Double Chocolate,

while I got the Lemon Icebox version.

Our tummies full of great BBQ, 45 minutes later we were back on I-20/I-59 heading for Slidell about 320 miles away. Or ‘Slidle’ as the British lady on our GPS pronounces it.

We made a gas stop at Hattiesburg, paying $1.99/gallon, a nice improvement over the $2.21 we paid in Athens.

Since we’d had a big lunch, getting into Slidell we decided to just grab a sandwich at a Chick Fil A right near our hotel before getting to our room.

And once again we lucked out. We had a very nice King-Size room, made even nicer because it was only $62 a night.

And with a nice computer table as a plus.

There was no blog this past Wednesday due to the storms, high winds and power outages in the Athens area. This on top of the four days of rain that they’d already had.

So a lot of big trees came down, including this 100 year old oak tree on the Limestone County Courthouse lawn.

When it came down about 6:30 Wednesday night, it actually trapped five cars in its extended branches. Though no one was injured, three people had to be cut out of one of the cars when they were trapped inside.

I mentioned in past blogs that I had three girlfriends over the years when I lived here. And a few years ago when we were visiting here, I mentioned to Jan that I was kind of looking around wondering if I would run into any of them.

But then I realized that I was looking for them like they looked when they were 16 or so. Not in their 60’s as they would be now. And I told Jan that I had resisted looking any of them up, even Sam (Samantha) the future duchess I knew in South America, on FB or elsewhere because I didn’t want to find out something bad had happened to them.

Well, as it happened, one of my relatives, who remembered who I had dated back then, told me that one of them had died last March at the age of 68, apparently of cancer.

As I said, not the way I wanted to remember her.

Thought for the Day:

You’re either at the table or on the menu. – Al Capone

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On Thursday we drove back down to Birmingham to get together with long-time friend’s Bill and Carol Alverson. Back in the early 70’s Bill and I worked as Broadcast Engineers for WBIQ-TV, part of the Alabama Educational TV network, located in Birmingham. We also worked part-time at a local radio station as well.

After spending some time at their beautiful home, we all headed right down the road to the nearby Jim and Nick’s BBQ. Before we left the house, Bill double-checked that we still wanted BBQ since he knew from the blog that we had already had BBQ twice in the last three days. We told him ‘no problem.’ We can’t have too much BBQ.

Bill had this enormous BBQ Stuffed Baked Potato,

while Jan and Carol had Pulled Pork Sandwiches.

I went with the Double Decker, a sandwich with a double decker bun like a McD’s Big Mac. But on this one, one layer is Beef Brisket and the other layer is Pulled Pork, the best of both worlds for me.

Delicious!

After dinner we spent some more time back at their home before we finally headed back to Athens a little before 9pm, and getting back to the motel about 11pm.

This morning, after breakfast here at the motel, we headed out to the nearby WalMart to pick up a new, larger TV for my Aunt Virginia. We were bundled up since it was 22° when we got up. And it supposed to be 21° tomorrow morning when we head back toward Houston.

We wanted to get her a new one because her old 32” was just too small for her to see clearly since she sits all the way across the room. So I did some measuringand found that a 43” Samsung like the one we recently got would fit perfectly.

SAMSUNG 43″ Class 4K UHD 2160p LED Smart TV

At $250 this one is about $100 cheaper than ours since it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that ours does, but Virginia doesn’t need. I did go ahead and get her the 3 year Extended Warranty for $25.

And as you can see here, it makes a big difference.

And in this case it was pretty much Plug ‘N Play. I just unplugged the old one, installed the feet on the new one, set it in place, plugged it in and turned it on.

Later, about 1pm, Jan, Virginia, and I drove down to Decatur to have lunch at another favorite BBQ place of ours, Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ. Found on many Top Ten BBQ Places in the U.S lists., they win more awards every year.

We met up with my Aunt Lenette, whose husband Tom Calvin, the former Pittsburgh Steelers football player and Winningest High School Football Coach in Alabama History, died a little over 3 weeks ago at the age of 93.

You can read more about my Uncle Tom here.

https://ourrvadventures.com/2020/01/some-sad-news-2/

https://ourrvadventures.com/2020/01/thanks-for-your-kind-words/

It’s been a few years since we’ve seen Lenette it was good to get together with her again.

it’s hard to believe that these two beautiful ladies are both 91 years young. That’s Lenette on the left and my Aunt Virginia on the right.

Tomorrow we’ll head back toward Houston, spending the night once again in Slidell. But this time we’ll be staying at the Super-8 motel, rather than the La Quinta where we stayed on the way up here.

We got a great deal then at only $54, but when I tried to book a Saturday stay, I found their weekend rate was $84, rather than $54. But I found the nearby Super-8 for only $62, and they’re rated the same.

We will make a lunch stop in Birmingham though. While we were eating at Golden Rule BBQ last Friday on our way up here, Jan suggested that we stop once again on our way home. So we’ll leave here about 9am which will get us to Golden Rule about 10:30 when they open.

Thought For The Day:

Every family has one weird relative. If you don’t know who it is, then it’s probably you.

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