IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING....

The good news is we finally got our satellite working. We got up early today, had breakfast, paid our bill, checked out of the campground, unhooked the coach, hooked up the car......and went to turn on the fans at the front of the coach and.......nothing. After trying new fuses we contacted the tech to see if when re-wiring the satellite something went askew. Yes, when he pulled out the satellite wiring he pulled the ground from the fans. He really knows his stuff and had us on the road quickly



So that's what a TV looks like!


We only traveled 92 miles northeast to Athens, Alabama to visit friends. But as we approached Limestone County we started seeing evidence of the tornado that hit last Wednesday. Large trees uprooted and all electric signals out. We got to the campground and were to pleased to find out they had electricity, unlike most parts of town. The campground is small and full, mostly with locals who either lost their homes or don't have electricity and chose to pack up their rv's and live in them for awhile. I feel for all those effected in St. Louis and the southeast.


Residents from surrounding areas are coming here to gas up.
All opened stations have very long lines.



After arriving at the campground we unhooked the car only to find a dead battery.

We called our road service carrier who couldn't find anyone who was not already responding to the storm disaster areas. So we were on our own...got the car jumped, found a Jeep dealer and we are back in service again.

Besides visiting friends I wanted to tour Huntsville which is only 20 miles away but that will have to wait for another trip to this area.

The two areas in Alabama that took the most direct hit from the tornadoes was Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. Reports are 66 tornadoes touched down in Alabama with over 127 deaths. So glad our family and friends back in St. Louis have a good warning system and basements and are all ok.

There is a dusk to dawn curfew in the entire area until all electricity is restored.

I haven't had to abide to a curfew since high school so there goes our late night wild outings.

Not sure if we should have come to this area but alot of the roads heading southeast were closed, so maybe it is better we stay put for a few days and give the emergency responders time to do some clean up.

Thanks to all who called, emailed or texted checking on us.

Hope all is well!

Phew...we dodged the storm!

We are still in Red Bay and like so much of the country, severe storms have come through for the last 2 days. Storms complete with hail, 60+ mph winds and torrential rain. Storms like that are scary enough in a sticks & brick but in a motorcoach it rocks & rolls to the wind and you can really hear the hail on the roof. We have been living with the slides in for 2 days, but when the sirens went off we decided it was time to take cover. At least this time we heard the sirens. They apparently went off around 4:15 this morning but we never heard them. They are very faint and they sound for maybe 30 seconds. We are use to very loud sirens that continue for several minutes. They credit the warning system in St. Louis for no deaths in the tornado that hit last week. The campground has a customer lounge that they keep open 24 hours when there is threatening weather. So, along with everyone else we walked through 6 inches of water to get to the car and then the shelter. Although there were tornado warnings, none touched down here, but 90 miles from here there were 16 deaths.


May look like a party, but it was everyone crowding into the
customer lounge/storm shelter.


Pets needed protection too...but I felt like I was
in a kennel. Although for the most part they
were well behaved.

Our part came in but now they need to re-wire the work Lazydays did. With the weather today they got behind in their scheduling so hopefully tomorrow we will get into a bay and out of Red Bay.

Take Care!

Exciting Red Bay, Alabama

We have been in Red Bay, Alabama at the Tiffin Service Center since Tuesday afternoon. We do not have an appointment so we went on their list for “express service”.

Express doesn’t mean you get in right away it just means once you get in they will work on as much as they can in 3 hours. Tuesday night we had to dry camp (no utilities) because their 93 site campground was full. But we did get a site Wednesday afternoon and a visit from their satellite guru.

It seems the satellite needs a new control board which had to be ordered. Funny…that’s exactly what Ron told Lazydays the problem was last November!

We just hope it gets fixed…a husband without TV is ugly….especially during Cardinal season.


Our home for a few days. Not too exciting but necessary.


Home..Sweet..Home?!*&!?

Red Bay is a very, very small town..pop. 3256…so there is not much to do here.

They took the coach in this morning so we decided to do some geocaching. We drove to Tishomingo State Park in Mississippi, about 15 miles from Red Bay.

Tishomingo State Park, named after a Chickasaw Indian Chief, is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and exhibits a very picturesque and rugged terrain.

The park contains rock formations dating to the Devonian and Mississippian epochs of the Paleozoic eras. This is the only location that these two formations are found in the state.




Another historical feature found in the park is a restored 1840’s log cabin. There was a cache hidden there but this one we could not find. However, it took us to a beautiful part of the park, with a waterfall and running brook.








Another distinctive feature of the park is a 200 foot long swinging bridge that passes over boulder strewn Bear Creek. A great cache was found here and beyond the bridge is a 3.5 mile trail that passes by a series of cliffs popular for rock climbing. We didn’t make it that far..maybe another day.




Beaver Creek

Needless to say there are not too many restaurants in Red Bay, however, we had a pretty good steak dinner at Reeves Fish & Steak House in Golden, Mississippi. It was a little difficult to find, and if it wouldn’t have come recommended I probably would not have gone in from the looks of it. But the salad was very fresh, baked potato cooked to perfection and a tasty rib eye steak. However, Ron's coconut creme pie was still half frozen and definitely not homemade.


Reeves Fish & Steak House. Established 1982.


Classy sign..huh?

We will be stuck here for Easter…..no Catholic Church in town….all Baptist. We’ll have to drive a ways to find a Mass.

Thanks to my wonderful sister-in law, Margie, for the yummy cookies and my favorite speckled malt balls. It makes being away for the holidays a little easier.

Hope all is well and a Happy Easter to all!

GOOD BYE FLORIDA

We couldn’t have planned our winter destination any better to get away from the harsh winter. However, we are ready to move on and today we left Florida for our trip to the Tiffin Manufactuer in Red Bay, Alabama.

A recap of some things we did in Florida that never seemed to make it into an earlier blog.

We took a 90 mile trip to the center of Florida to visit Solomon’s Castle - home and studio of internationally known sculptor Howard Solomon.

Over 300 pieces of art by Howard are on display in the galleries and part of his home. All are created with discarded materials such as oil drums, broken appliances, car parts and old steel style drink cans etc. There is a nice restaurant (service was mediocre) on an outside patio and one sleeping room (Blue Moon Room) in the east tower of the castle that can be rented.


Castle entirely sided with used metal newspaper printing plates.


Howard Solomon self portrait.


"Where's Waldo"...many of his works are fun and whimisical.

We spent an afternoon in the PGA Museum of Golf in Port St. Lucie. If you like golf you'll love this exhibit.




Ron reading the history of golf.
He was in "7th heaven"


An exhibit of the evolution of the golf club, ball & tee.



A young Tiger.



The Probst Library. A collection of more than 6,000 hardcover books,
3,000 handbooks and 600 volumes of bounded periodicals.
Named after an engineer from South Bend, IN who began
collecting golf periodicals and books in the 1920's.
His acquistions feature golf books dating from the 1700's
and periodicals from pre-Civil War. An adjoining temperature
controlled room contains rare books, including the first
published Scottich Acts of Parliment a 1566 manuscript with the first
identifiable reference to golf.

We had a nice stay at the Jonathon Dickenson State Park on the East coast. In 1942 the US Army constructed Camp Murphy which was used for top-secret communications training. The camp was built on 11,364 acres and consisted of 1,000 buildings, 854 officers and 5,752 enlisted men. A few structures remain today. The site was decommissioned in 1944 and transferred to the State of Florida in 1947. In 1950 Jonathon Dickinson State Park opened to the public.


Camp Murphy barracks.



Camp Murphy RR station were thousands of soldiers came through.

Hobe Mountain, located in the park, is 86 feet above sea level. For Florida that's a mountain! On the top is a 27 foot oberservation tower, giving visitors who climb to the top a great view of the park. When the camp was active the Army placed a communication antennae on top.


Ron working his way up to the observation tower.


The park is home to a nesting pair of Bald Eagles and the Pilieated Woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in Florida. Also home to otters, alligators, deer, hawks and a variety of other birds and the gopher tortoise the only habitant we saw.


View from the parks' boat ramp of the Loxahatchee River.


There are fields as far as you can see of this large fan-shaped leafed Saw Palmetto.


Spring in the park...I thought I was back in the southwest desert.


I just loved walking around the Hobe Sound Nature Center and Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1969 with over 1,000 acres dedicated to providing habitat and protection for a variety of wildlife and plant native to the Jupiter Island coastal area.


Trail through the refuge.



Field of lichens - composite organisms consisting of fungus and alga.



Close up of lichens


Gumbo Limbo tree - nicknamed the "tourist tree" because
its bark is red and peeling like a sunburn.


Eagle protecting its nest.


Refuge includes 3.5 miles of barrier island beach, home to one of the most productive sea turtle nesting areas in the U.S.

We can't miss a St. Patty's Day celebration.

Ron enjoying his green beer on St. Pattys day at the
Yellow Tail Restaurant in Stuart FL.

We enjoyed walking around the Fort Pierce Marina and the fair that takes place every weekend. We also visited the Manatee Observation Center, which was very interesting. However, I thought this sign odd....I'm as much a fan of Manatees as the next guy, but a $20,000 fine and 1 year in prison...I think the fine if you hit a worker in a construction zone is $10,000???



Statue in front of the Manatee Oberservation Center





Had a great time visiting with friends from St. Louis, Rich & Barb, who were in Jupiter for the Cardinals Spring Training. Had a nice dinner together and caught up.


After leaving Punta Gorda we stopped over in Ocala for a few days to visit friends Tom & Sue, who we originally met while in the southwest last winter.

They took us to Micanopy, Florida a small town (pop. Approx. 200) between Ocala and Gainsville. The town of Micanopy was the setting for the 1991 movie “Doc Hollywood” starring Michael J. Fox. There is a neat museum depicting the history of the area, as well as many of the buildings from the movie.

To this day they still celebrate “Doc Hollywood Days” in early April.


Quant little town of Micanopy.



Article from their local paper, announcing the appearance of the author of Doc Hollywood at their annual "Doc Hollywood Days."


Herlong Mansion, Historic Inn and Gardens Circa 1845.
Now a private B&B.




Sue in the Herlong Mansion gazebo, surrounded by sweet smelling honeysuckle.



Tom amazed this original phone booth still had a working telephone.
Located in one of the neat old bookstores.

They also took us to a number of local restaurants …we had a great time!


Somewhere along the way we picked up a nail in one of the car tires and had to wait for a new one to be sent over-night to Sams,so we were delayed in Ocala. What better place to be delayed, we had good friends close by and we were in a large enough town to have a Sams Club.

We will spend one night in Cordele, GA and one or two nights in Bremen, AL then into Red Bay. We do not have an appointment, so our visit should be interesting. I am determined not to leave there until we get our satellite functioning. It has been over a year since we had good satellite reception.

Wish us luck!

Hope all is well!

TOO HOT!

I never thought I would say it is too hot....but he last couple of weeks in Punta Gorda on the gulf was hot & sticky. I can't believe I am glad we are a little further north in Ocala, Florida but the weather is more comfortable....80's during the day and 50's at night...less humidity...aaaahhhh! Not much to report from Punta Gorda. Went into Fort Meyers, Pine Island, Cape Coral a couple of times, mainly to eat & shop!. Some interesting pictures:


This is a huge wood carving that sits in front of
the Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce.
This Whispering Giant "Calostimucu" is an effigy
to the first people inhabiting this area. There
is a time capsule in the base.


Mural of the First City Council
on the wall in front of the Punta Gorda
City Hall

On the road from Pine Island there is a stretch of telephone poles that someone, either was artistically inspired or didn't have anything better to do, painted various whimsical pictures about 8 feet from the ground.


Dragonflies


Smiley face with sunglasses on one side and pink
sun on the other.


This is my favorite one...little froggies. A little
blurred - had to take it while we were rolling.


Unique architecture of condo's in Fort Meyers.

We are in Ocala for a couple of days to visit with Sue & Tom. We will then work our way to Red Bay Alabama...yes...to have the satellite worked on...again.

Hope all is well!