Our RV Adventures

I spent a good part of the morning working on the mobile site for the new website, trying to get everything to line up correctly.

The Godaddy Website Builder program automagically generates a mobile site on its own, but it needs to be tweaked, sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot. But I can’t really finish it up until I get the last website corrections from the client. So it’s hurry up and wait. As usual.

Later I put in a call to my cousin’s Marjorie and Anna Jean to set up a get-together tomorrow afternoon.

About 3:30 Jan and I headed down to Decatur to have dinner at Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ. Often listed as one of the top 5 BBQ places in the US, several walls are covered with their awards and certificates.

And even their red BBQ sauce and their white BBQ (for chicken and turkey) are award winners too.

Jan got the BBQ Chicken with Mac N Cheese and Green Beans,

(No photo. Hers came out blurry)

while I had the 2 meat Combo with Ribs, Pulled Pork, BBQ Beans, and Potato Salad.

Very, very good, making it very obvious why they’ve won so many awards.

And of course we had to finish up with some of their famous pie. Jan got the Coconut Cream,

while I got the Lemon Cream

This makes the 3rd installment on our Great American BBQ Tour, with one more to go – the Sonny’s BBQ in Brandon, MS, where we’ll stop for lunch on Saturday on our way home.

Coming back to Athens we drove around for a while checking out places we used to live.

This is the house my parents bought when we moved back from Colombia, South America in 1963. It was brand new then, and it still looks pretty good.

I attended the 10th grade at Athens High while we lived here, and then the next year I went off to Columbia Military Academy for my Junior and Senior years.

See, I did have hair back in the day.

Jan and I, and our son Chris, lived here for a while before we moved to our own house (a duplex) nearby.

Again, it still looks pretty good.

After we’d been here a while I got on with a DOD contractor and we moved to Beaufort, SC where I worked at the MCAS (Marine Corp Air Station) at Parris Island. I was working on avionics and radar systems on F-4B, C, D, & S Phantoms.

In some cases we were stripping out all the avionics, electronics, and the engines, testing everything, and then putting it all back together again.

Getting back to the park, we went next door to visit my Aunt Janice and Uncle Ed. Their son Wes owns the RV Park here. And they have a lot to do with Jan and I getting together.

Ed was a veterinarian, and he and Janice lived in Sanford, FL in 1967 where he had his practice. I came down to visit for a while, and saw an ad for a job over in Titusville at Florida Wonderland, a local amusement park there. And that’s where Jan and I met.

Tomorrow will wrap up our last full day here in Athens before we head home on Friday.

Thought for the Day:

— Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR
(Council of American Islamic Relations)
San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998

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Recapping yesterday.

We were out the door about 9:30 and heading about 100 miles south to Birmingham, with our first stop about 11:30 at the Golden Rule BBQ in Irondale.

We’ve been eating here for more than 45 years, but we’re still youngsters as far as the restaurant goes, since it opened in 1891, it’s been around for more than 125 years, the oldest continuously-operating restaurant in Alabama.

It started out as a roadside stand selling BBQ to people on the way to Atlanta . . . by horse and buggy! And when automobiles came along, they did auto repairs on the side.

The roadside stand was replaced by an actual restaurant building in the late 30’s, and then the present building was erected in the 50’s when they widened the highway,.

We both had a sliced pork sandwich, mine with a cup of their famous Brunswick Stew, and Jan’s with fries.

I  also got mine with half ‘Outside Cut’ or ‘Bark’. That’s the darker area of the meat on the sandwich. That gives it a bite, a crunch, with the char really adding to the taste.

From 1993, after my father died the year earlier, I drove up from Houston to Birmingham every month for 12 years, to look in on my mother, getting her groceries, taking care of any repairs, etc.

And I always had lunch at Golden Rule while I was out shopping.

After lunch we drove around for a while, checking all the places we knew that aren’t there any more. One thing we did do was to drive by my parent’s house in Mountain Brook.

My parents owned this place from 1972 until 2005, and it’s really a shame what the new owner(s) had done to the landscaping in the front yard.

Originally there were big tall oak and pine trees there, with a large flower garden underneath. Really beautiful in the spring. But now it’s just blah.

It’s about 3,000 sq. ft., with 5 bedrooms and 3 baths. The neat thing about the place is the garage on the bottom floor. Each side runs the entire length of the house, meaning that you could actually park 10 or 12 cars in there.

One thing I bet the new owners don’t know is that my father’s ashes were scattered in the rose garden there.

Out next stop was the McDonald’s behind what used to be Eastwood Mall.

At the time, in the early 70’s, this was the busiest McDonald’s in the country, believe it or not. They were one of the 3 test locations for the introduction of the 1/4 Pounder Hamburger, the first location to have Ronald McDonald Birthday Parties, and the first one to have a playground, in case, outside, on the left of the building.

For about 18 months in the 72-73 time frame, Jan and I were the grill team here. I worked the grill and Jan did the buns. We got there at 11am after our classes and worked the lunch rush straight through until 1:30 or 2:00pm. Then we hung up our aprons and left. No mopping up, no cleaning. Just make a lot of hamburgers really, really fast, and then go home.

But just like my parent’s house, all the beautiful oaks and the garden/playground are gone. As is the original building, actually. Just stark and bare.

Later we drove out to the Center Point area where we lived two different time and also went to school. Then heading over to the nearby Trussville area and made a stop at a Books-A-Million so Jan could check on a couple of books.

While I was checking out the magazine section, I came across these two magazines telling you how you can start your own home business.

At least if you live in the right state.

Of course that may or may not matter to you.

A little later we drove over to our friend’s Bill and Carol Alverson to get together for dinner. So after catching up for a while, Bill drove us over to the nearby Jim N Nick’s BBQ.

So yes, we had BBQ twice yesterday. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The last time we ate at a Jim N Nick’s was in the Memphis area in 2015, and this one was just as good.

Jan had a Pig in a Bun Sandwich with Coleslaw, and a side of Mac N Cheese.

I had the 2 meat Combo, with Ribs and Pulled Pork, along with BBQ Beans and Collard Greens.

Very, very good.

Afterwards we went back to their house and spent the next several hours catching up. Back in the 70’s, Bill and I were both Broadcast Engineers at WBIQ TV and WENN radio here in Birmingham, so it was great to talk over old times.

And Jan and Carol had a great time comparing booklists of their reading likes.

Finally about 10pm we said our goodbyes and made the two hour trip back to Athens, finishing up a very nice day.

Now back to today.

After our long trip yesterday, we goofed off this morning, not doing much of anything.

I did bring my Garmin 1490LMT GPS in from the truck and tried to update it. And tried. And tried.

It got about halfway through the 2+ GB download and then died. When I tried to restart it, the program said that Garmin was having server problems. So I kept trying for the next several hours until it finally started back up again and I got the update completed.

About 4:15 we drove over to my Aunt Virginia’s house to take her out to dinner.  I’ve always called her ‘Ninny’, since when I was really little I couldn’t say Virginia, so I shortened it to Ninny.

We headed over Rosie’s Cantina in Huntsville, another of our favorites, as well as Ninny’s.

Jan and Ninny both had the Pollo Loco Grilled Chicken Breast,

while I had the Spicy Beef and Cheese Stuffed Chile Relleno.

Both delicious as always.

Not sure what’s on tap for tomorrow, but we’ll figure something out, I sure.

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