Eldy Does It Again!

We are exploring a lot of different parks in the area for possible future winter stays here in Alabama. Right now we are at Gulf State Park which we think is a GREAT place to stay for future visits in the short time we've been here--three days. We are on the water for 35.70 a night on a pull through site, but there are less expensive sites to stay in the park. You can stay for as low as 25.50 a day with a senior rate if you don't mind not being on or near water. There is a relatively new pool (1 year old), nice tennis courts (no pickleball, though), good laundry facilities, a clubhouse and over 400 sites to choose from at the park. There are great bike trails and hiking trails in the 6,150 acre park.

Gulf State Park tennis courts

Gulf State Park has 2 miles of white sand beaches, the longest fishing pier in the Gulf of Mexico, a 900 acre fishing lake, and an 18 hole golf course! There are also a large number of activities to choose from. There is a biking group called Folks With Spokes that go out for regularly scheduled bike rides...

The section we were in had BIG roomy pull throughs with picnic tables and gas grills and overlooked the canal. We loved Gulf State Park, but come January, they don't take reservations, it's too late! According to some people, you can sit outside the park gate entrance and wait for people to come out so you can reserve a spot to come in if you can't get through on the phone. Who knows how long THAT could take?! I guess that's why some people choose to show up and wait at the gate for the very few sites that are available for "walk ins", something like 12 or 13 sites out of 400+!! They told us February and March are already totally booked, that's how popular this park is!

Off we went today to explore Luxury RV Resort in Gulf Shores, about the only other park in the area close to the gulf besides Gulf Shores State Park....not much luxury...crushed gravel sites close together, it looked dry and dusty, and very poorly shaded. It looked like parking in a parking lot. We crossed that one off our list. The second park we looked at was called Emmaus RV Resort. This hidden gem is in the middle of some county roads in Summerdale, AL, about 30 minutes north of Gulf Shores. You feel like you are going to be in the middle of nowhere once you get traveling the back roads to get there, but it's very centrally located to Pensacola, Mobile, and other cities. There is no problem driving a motorhome to the Emmaus Campground, the route is just on county roads. We will have photos of this park in the next day or so, because that's where we are going to be staying next.

LOTS of cotton fields in the area all around us

We passed a LOT of cotton fields on our way there. I have never seen cotton fields before or cotton close up, growing on a plant! Many of the fields have been picked, and probably by machine these days, but you can only imagine what a tough job that must have been with the rough, hard, thorny parts of the plant sticking and poking you. Cotton picking with bare hands, stooped over all day with a sack, temperatures in the 100's on many days, what a tough job!

Rough and thorny!

Some more info about Emmaus Park. Pensacola, FL is 20 minutes from the park. Mobile is about the same distance, we think. The park is a Passport America park, and the manager will honor the Passport America rate for an ENTIRE MONTH, (420.00 a month!) with full hookups, taxes are included for that rate. (11% in Alabama). She says she has NO LIMITS on the number of days to use the Passport America rate!  The P.America daily rate is 14.00 should you decide to stay a shorter amount of time...it's a VERY quiet park and off the beaten path. The park is being developed and is trying to hang in there till the economy loosens up. It's a first rate park with what they've developed so far...classy check in, and nice facilities at the clubhouse. There is lots of shade on many of the park's cement pad/patio sites. No pool yet....It's in the works. This place is going to be a VERY classy place if they can hang on.  Only the first section has been developed, so as things grow for them, they will add to the number of their sites. We decided to stay a week there and will be spending Thanksgiving at the clubhouse with the other residents of the park eating a wonderful dinner provided by the park management which we are helping pay for, lol! Way to go, Eldo, for finding us a nice park with a great rate!

We checked out another park....Lake Osprey RV Country Club...a luxury resort under development in Elberta, AL..about 15 minutes from Gulf Shores.  This place is further along in development, but still has a long ways to go. They accept class A motorhomes, 5th wheels, and class C's....There is an infinity pool which is absolutely beautiful, and a luxurious clubhouse, with extra facilities like a Tiki bar lounge area. Rentals go from 45.00 a day/250.00 weekly/$600-700 monthly for a lakefront lot. The lake front lots are facing a lake, but the landscaping across the lake is undeveloped and it's just piles of dirt and clay at the moment. Courtyard lots are $40.00 daily/$200.00 weekly/$550.00 monthly.  Free cable, free wi-fi, and FREE laundry. We liked the weekly and monthly rentals rates but are taking a wait and see on this one......It definitely will be a quality, high class resort with its continued developments. What they've done so far is gorgeous! (And don't forget the GOLF! reminds E.) Oh, right! It sits right next to a championship 18 hole golf course and they have a partnership with the RV resort to offer a reduced rate to the park's guests.

After checking these parks today, we were delighted to catch up with our friends over dinner, Greg and Jan White at Lulu's, Jimmy Buffett's sister's restaurant. Greg and Jan said that sometimes you'll see dolphins jumping around in the causeway outside the restaurant. I swore I saw a big dark shape make a big splash but one blink, and it was gone.

We had a nice dinner and enjoyed Greg and Jan's stories about where they've been, and we got a little information about the area from them on the way home. One of the interesting things we learned was, that the local Hooter's restaurant is the "world's smallest Hooter's."  It's a double wide mobile home! When an impending hurricane is going to hit the coast, they pack up the restaurant and temporarily haul it to a safer location!

Tomorrow, we head over to Emmaus RV Park, but before we go, Sparky is going to head out on a bike trail and share that with you....We'll see you there.....Wish we could have spent more time at the Gulf State Park, it's HUGE and there is so much more to explore there, but it's above our budget staying by the day, at least it was on the water. Cheapest rate for other sections in the park with no senior discounts is 30.00 a day..right at our budget...It was just one of those things where we didn't know how much we were going to like it, so we committed to just three days. We'll know to stay longer next time!  Bye for now......

Who Said RV Life Was Boring! We Didn't!

We had a nice day yesterday exploring downtown Montgomery and the Rosa Parks Museum. We got ready for bed last night, crawled under the covers, tired and happy after exploring all day, were just about ready to fall asleep, when every RVer's worst nightmare happened---the dreaded alarm was heard...."BEEP!  BEEP!   BEEP!" And seen----the red propane warning light was flashing! "OMG! ELDY!!  IT'S THE PROPANE LIGHT FLASHING! I SMELL GAS! WE'VE GOT A LEAK!"

The next series of events is neither politically correct as far as what we SHOULD have done nor is it probably remembered in the correct sequence.....We jumped out of bed like a shot, I headed to the kitchen/living room and opened up all the windows. Eldy went immediately outside, (I know, I know, I should have gone with him!) and turned off the propane.. I had remembered smelling a whiff of propane at the kitchen stove earlier this afternoon, but it went away and I didn't think anything more of it. NOW the smell was VERY strong! The beeping continued for about 30 seconds, then all of a sudden, it stopped. We looked at each other. We looked at the stove. We looked like idiots.  I said, "We've got to call somebody!" Who ya gonna call at 9:30 at night to come to a rural Alabama campground in the boonies?  Oh, duh--now that I think about it, the fire department. The volunteer fire department was just down the road outside the campground! We weren't thinking clearly at the moment, that's for sure!

Eldy made the executive decision that we didn't need to call anybody at this time of night since the warning beep and light had gone off, and the smell dissipated. We kept trying to figure out why the warning beep had occurred. Finally, Eldy noticed that the rear burner knob on the stove was turned on just slightly, not in full "light" position, but it was on enough to trigger a gas flow. After a lengthy discussion of how in the world could a stove knob be turned in just a partial turn on position, we figured that somehow, SPARKY must have bumped the stove knob when cleaning the stove earlier in the evening, or not paying attention because she was too hyped up on Coca Cola today--I confess I had more than my one Coke!-- OR had started to turn on the wrong burner while doing something at the stove. Eldy just could not rest until an explanation was found! I told him it's because I'm developing Alzheimers early, and don't you know that's one of the first things you start to do is forget to turn the stove off! Good thing my nursing home long term care policy is paid up currently, because we might need it sooner than I think! At any rate, because the living room fantastic fan was running, it kept the gas from building up by the stove area. Once we turned the ceiling fan off for the night, the gas accumulated enough to set off the alarm! Wheweee!!!!! THAT was an eye opener! Sparky will be more careful around the stove, and we know that the alarm works great! Just a reminder to everyone to check your batteries in your detectors in your RV and make sure they all work! We know the smoke detector works because every time Eldy makes his huge batch of popcorn, the smoke detector goes off! We test that one about once or twice a week!

We decided to leave Gunter Hill Campground in Montgomery, AL a day early. Sparky surrendered to the ants! No, not really.....We just decided to get the hell out of the campground that was rife with ants, raining acorns, leaves and a gritty stone site....Guess there were some more drawbacks to that pretty campground after all...The grit coming into the coach from the crushed stone site was getting Sparky down. Had to clean and re-clean the floors every single day...Along with the ants, along with the acorns "storm" that rained every day on the rooftop...Most of the time, the acorns rained down at night..They hit the roof so hard it would wake us up several times a night. So-o-o-o-o, before we could pull out, Sparky, being of sure foot, climbed up on the rooftop to survey the leaf/water/acorn removal job ahead of her:

She cleaned out the acorns and leaves caught in the fans, swept the awning toppers off, and cleared off all the leaves and debris that had rained down for the past six days, and we were good to go!

An uneventful drive today except for the strong, gusty winds buffeting us from side to side. We drove I-65 down south, eventually picking up highway 59 south, which brought us to Gulf Shores. We will be staying at Gulf Shores State Park, quite the place, for the next 3 days...a little over budget to stay on the waterway--35.70 a night, but Sparky might get to see an alligator, so it's worth it to her! Pull through site, full hookups...great facilities. We'll tell you all about it in the next day or two..AND to make it sweeter, our friends, Greg and Jan White are here!

The Rosa Parks Museum

Just inside the door at the museum entrance

If you are ever in Montgomery, Alabama, this is a DO NOT MISS! Along with the rest of the Montgomery's history making icons all over town, (see yesterday's blog), the Troy University Rosa Parks Museum is a wonderful place to learn lots more that you didn't learn when you were in school. Six distinct sections of the museum tell the story and bravery of the early civil rights activists...

There is a marvelous, interactive part that you can do and we did--The Cleveland Avenue Time Machine.... You get "on the bus", a reproduction of the Cleveland Bus of Montgomery, AL, and Mr. Rivets, the robotic bus driver, leads you into a 360 degree surround sound video tour of the events of history leading up to 1955. It's an interactive bus ride through the early history of the south, slavery, Dred Scott and segregation, from the 1800's to the events leading up to Rosa Park's momentous decision not to give her seat up on the bus that day in 1955. No pictures, please! The videos and photos are copyrighted. (Sparky, put your camera away!) The bus "moves", bounces a little, as if you were really riding and you travel back in time to see history unfold in front of you. Sound and video presentation is excellent! Hop off the "bus", and venture to a couple other parts of the museum for more history.

Here's the upstairs second floor viewing room:

A bank of about ten computers on a tabletop research station allow you to access more information--such as oral histories of people who remember the bus boycotts of Montgomery, the effects of segregation on Montgomery's residents, and other archived information.

On to another part of the museum....view Rosa Park's "bus" line set up so you can see a film made to look like you are watching the events unfold right on Rosa Park's bus through the windows when she gets arrested. Then the tour moves into a more traditional museum setting where more short videos are played, artifacts from that time period are displayed and a beautiful Chevy is on view that was used to transport the boycotters during the strike. Did you know that 350 of the cars were purchased and licensed through the local churches to transport the boycotters? The city had tried to block the alternative transportation for the black residents by saying they had to have a business license and pay taxes. The organizers of the boycott got around this block by having the churches purchase the vehicles.  There were lots  more interesting facts behind the boycott...fascinating! Money flowed in from all over the world and the U.S. to support the boycott. Because no one would insure the cars in the United States, a wealthy Alabama businessman had to go to Lloyd's of London to get the cars insured.  The black residents of Montgomery really pulled together to form a highly organized alternative transportation system that worked well for them for the 13 months the boycott was in effect! We learned a lot from our tour guide today, a young man, who did an excellent job of sharing Montgomery's important history. (Sparky forgot to get his name!)

It was a really interesting tour for us today....Every American should be completely familiar with this dark, sorrowful, shameful part of our history. I felt quite a bit of ignorance at not knowing so many details of this historical event. I'm glad I went to see the museum today to learn a lot more. It was well worth 12.00 for each of us, with a 1.00 discount for AAA....We both were glad we came!

Downtown Montgomery, Alabama

We headed to downtown Montgomery, today, to try and find the visitor's center. We did, and it's beautiful! It's in an old railway station depot and train shed called Union Station. This is a BIG station, and it's gorgeous! Stained glass windows, Romanesque rounded windows, a copper marquee, terra cotta details, it's an architectural beauty. This station was a main railhead during the Civil War, transporting soldiers and supplies to the battlefields. At the rear of the train station, is the national historic landmark train shed, one of the very few left standing of its kind. It's constructed of iron and timbers, and it has trusses which are similar to the late 19th century architecture that produced the Brooklyn Bridge and Eiffel Tower. Standing under the beams of the shed, you could just feel the history behind it.

While at the Union Station, we saw a trolley sitting outside and found out that for 3.00 a person, we could tour downtown, hopping on and off at historical stops. The trolley was about to start off on a tour, hold the trolley! Sparky and Eldo boarded, along with two other passengers, and off we went! It was great! The trolley driver gives historical information, and it's supplemented with a TV video about Montgomery as you are riding along. The tour is about 45 minutes total, but we decided to hop off at the state capitol building. Absolutely gorgeous and interesting! Much southern history is here in this very building....

Jefferson Davis stood on the front porch steps of the capitol and gave his inaugural speech as president of the Confederacy....

In this room, Davis gave his secession from the Union speech.....

The rotunda has a series of vignettes of Alabama's history painted all around the domed ceiling....They were amazing! The architectural details of classic buildings like these are awe inspiring....

The door that marks the entrance to the capitol building....Enter into history, Eldo!

Here is the Baptist Church where Martin Luther King preached from 1954 to 1960.....The Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church...This is where the Montgomery Bus Boycott was organized.

The "White House" of the Confederacy.....

There is a Rosa Parks Museum and a Civil Rights Memorial, all within a few blocks of the capitol building....You are taken through a part of town called "Old Alabama"which are storefronts, homes, a school and other buildings that give you an idea of what life was like in 19th century Montgomery.....We didn't stop to tour these things, we wanted to get an overall idea of what the historical stops were along the way before hopping off to see each one. Sparky wants to see the Rosa Parks Museum, it's interactive! We'll probably do that tomorrow....

What was surprising to us was there was very little sign of any activity going on downtown around the capitol building area....probably because the legislative body wasn't in session. But we didn't see hardly anybody walking around, heading to or from their offices! It was a very quiet place for a Monday.....We thoroughly enjoyed our tour and plan to go back today to see a little more.....See you at the Rosa Parks Museum!

P.S. We're still waging war on the ants---the ants have called in reinforcements! Thanks to everybody for their great advice, what an interesting array of options to try! Sparky is all in favor of non-toxic remedies, but is NOT going to live in peaceful co-existence with the little buggers!  See you tomorrow......

What's Going On at Gunter Hill?

Not much. The weekenders have left and the campground is quiet and virtually empty except for the acorns raining down on our rig....But the campground is renovating another section to include full hookups and cement pads. So we're hearing some construction noise just about every day, but it's not too bad. Should be done by January, they said. This year, this campground is open all year, but next year they will close for the winter, and keep one of the other corps parks in Alabama open all winter.

We started to spend another relaxing day at home, maybe think about heading out in the afternoon for downtown Montgomery, when Sparky noticed some tiny little ants crawling around the countertop near the coffee pot...she started mopping them up, then went into the hall bathroom to get some more cleaning supplies, when she saw MORE tiny little brown ants, LOTS more ants....All hell broke loose!  Sparky shrieked, "ELDY! WE'VE GOT ANTS, LOTS OF THEM!!!!" She went out in the living room, and all of sudden, there were HUNDREDS, maybe THOUSANDS of tiny little brown ants crawling along the slide carpet edges. As fast as she could swipe them up, hundreds more came pouring out of the cracks! "OMG! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??? WE'RE BEING INVADED!!!!!" she shouted. They were EVERYWHERE!!!! Nothing like a few little bugs to get Sparky excited. (Is THAT what it takes???) Eldo, SHUSH! Sparky was busy waging war on the ants. As fast as she could wipe them up, hundreds more came pouring out of every orifice in the motor home--under the engine cowl up by the driver's seat, out from the slide carpet edges, up and down the hallway door frames. "The ants go marching two by two, hurrah! hurrah!" More like a hundred by a hundred!....Sparky was like a demented woman running around the motorhome, swiping surfaces, crushing ants!

Sparky sent Eldo out to get some bug spray just in case the vacuum and cloth war didn't cut it, so he went to the nearest gas station/little general store. He asked some advice of the two genteel southern ladies running the store...They said, "You got ants, honey? Them little brown ones? Them's sugah (sugar) ants. They won't baht (bite) yew!" "Are y'all staying at the campground?" Uh-hunh. Knowing glance exchanged between the two ladies. "Well, this sure is the tahm (time) of year for them!"  He came back with a can of spray and together we went to town on those pesky little ants. They didn't stand a chance between the vacuum and the spray! Who won? The team of Sparky and Eldo! (We think!) So far, so good!

On to Montgomery!  But we'll save that for tomorrow......Gotta have one photo for today, didn't think anybody wanted to see a picture of sugar ants...here's another beautiful part of this campground.....basketball court area.....

See you later!

Time to Relax and Do Nothing

That is really, really hard for Sparky to do, sit still and do very little...not so hard for Eldo. (Hey, now, watch it! I pull my weight around here! exclaims E.) You sure do, sweetie!

Sundays are great for football watching for him...Sparky likes to keep busy, so she spent some time today washing windows while Eldo crawled under the rig and lubricated the jacks. I should have gotten a photo of his legs sticking out from under the rig! Missed it! Apparently, the jacks are needing a lube job as when they came up, they made a horrible popping sound, like the springs all of sudden cut loose. The jacks are ok, but there must be some resistance going on for them to pop and crack like that. It sounds like a gunshot going off and causes us to practically have cardiac arrest! And it's worrisome! Guess we'll have to add that to our "to do" list in Red Bay whenever we finally get there!

After getting some minor jobs done today, we both settled in to just stay at the campground and visit with some Alabama folks for a bit at a nearby site. They gave us a BUNCH of nice firewood as they were leaving today, and they told us some things to go see later this week in Montgomery.....We never did find the chamber of commerce the other day, but went online and got some information instead, which corresponded with what they suggested we check out.

Then we moved our rig from site #23 over to site #26, and in the process, dumped our tanks and got ourselves situated in a roomier site with a more expansive view of the lake and river. There was just one slight problem--one of the rear slides did not go in all the way--uh-oh! Check it out...What was wrong? Uh, Sparky left a case of Coke under the bed and it wedged so tight between the slide and the dresser, the slide thought it was done coming in! Oops! Remove the case of Coke, problem solved, whew! and not one can lost--Yay!.....Sparky spent the rest of the day knitting and working on Christmas gifts, and Eldo spent the afternoon watching football. The only excitement the entire rest of the day was an air boat going by. Geez, those things are loud!

It was a great day to just sit and contemplate your navel, as they say....(Who in the heck says that?! E. wants to know.) I dunno, it's an old expression, lol!. At any rate, we love this campground!.....See you tomorrow.....P.S. One more drawback--AT & T service is terrible--in and out standing in one spot and not moving. However, Mi-fi works GREAT! Tomorrow, we go exploring downtown Montgomery, lots and lots of important history in just a couple of blocks!

Gunter Hill Campground

Eldy did his research thoroughly as he always does, and boy, did he come up with a wonderful campground on the Alabama River! It's a Corps of Engineer park, Gunter Hill campground, just outside Montgomery, AL. A Corps of Engineer park means GREAT rates! We are staying a week at Gunter Hill for 9.00 a night! That is with Eldy's senior pass rate, otherwise we'd be paying 18.00 a day, which is still a fantastic rate for many people.

We are on a roomy site, #23, right on the river, the banks are filled with moss decorated trees and the campground is heavily forested. We did not have any trouble coming into our site. Picnic table and fire pit is provided and we have 50 amp service. There is a nice boat ramp available and a couple of the sites have stairsteps leading down to the river.  Here is the view out our living room window looking at the river. It's actually a small tributary and not the main Alabama River, but it's just as pretty.

Nice! Here is another view of the campground and the site we are going to move over to tomorrow......

We'll be on our current site for three days, then we are going to move three slots over to the bigger site on the river, #26, shown above. This way we can dump our grey tanks after four days since we are going to be pulling in the slides and moving over. There is a very nice shower house here at the campground, so it's not necessary to dump at all should you want to stretch out your water usage by using their facilities. There's even a laundry here at the campground and a very nice playground for kids.

Are there any drawbacks to this place? A small one, they don't sell firewood here or anywhere in the area that we can find! People scrounge for firewood on the forest floor and hope they find pieces small enough to fit in the fire pits, or they have to chop up the big branches themselves with an ax or chainsaw. The area outside the campground is not very pretty, it's in a very poor area of the county, but Prattville, the nearest big city, is about 12 miles away. Prattville is like being in a major retail hub--everything you could possibly want is in this town! (For Sparky, that would be Michael's and Hobby Lobby... She's already been there twice!  Sigh!)

Montgomery has so much history, we need to explore it a bit while we are here....Martin Luther King's Dexter Parsonage and Memorial Baptist Church is here, the Rosa Parks Museum, the Hank Williams Museum, and much much more! Sounds like we'll be busy, but we'll see how hard it is to get around a big city like Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. See you later!