Time To Go…April 20, 2011

Each day more of our winter folks were leaving Coastal Haven…

Jeannie and Vern…they are just going to the beach in Florida for a week with their family.  Later they will be heading for Vermont.

Joan, Ron and Kyra on their way to Wisconsin.

Kyra says “What’s the holdup…let’s go!”

Rosanne, Bill and Oliver are on their way to New Jersey and then Wisconsin.

This is our new space…we will be here next winter also.  We are now much closer to the clubhouse and we really like it.

We stayed in Fairhope long enough to see our friends Alex and Don who live in Brazil.  They are in the states for a few weeks…we were so glad to be able to spend a few hours with them.  We met them in 2005 when we were all working at Adventureland in Iowa.

We all had lunch  at Big Daddy’s along with Pat Gloyd who is their host while in the area.  Pat also worked at Aland with all of us.

Don, Pat, Alex, me and Bob.

The next morning we pulled out of our winter home in Fairhope, AL bright and early.  We made a 2 hour stop in Daphne because Bob wanted to have the motorhome tires inflated with nitrogen.  Then we were headed north to Red Bay, AL via Mississippi because we like Hwy. 45…up to Tupelo, MS and then a few miles east into Red Bay.  We have a couple of things that need attention on our Tiffin motorhome and Tiffin is located in Red Bay.

Hey Mark…my location on the map is now correct!

We had to go into a site with water and electric only as the campground was full when we arrived but this morning we were able to move into a full hookup site.  As we don’t have an appointment we have no idea how long it will take us to get into a service bay.  We only have a couple of items to be done so we are hoping to get into a 3 hour express bay real soon.

We had really heavy rain last night but we were so tired we slept through most of it.  More rain predicted for today.

Moving on.

Winding Down April 17, 2011

As the weather continues to warm up, more and more of our winter group are starting to pull up stakes and heading for their summer destinations.

Linda and John are heading back to Chester, Illinois.  They take wonderful care of all us in the park…they keep things running smoothly and Linda organizes so many social activities.  Thanks Linda and John for your great work!

Here Linda is saying goodbye to Oliver Curran.  He is going to miss his morning treats that he gets from Linda.

Jim and Phyllis Gudgalis…fulltime RVers.  On their way to Florida/Georgia and then Illinois.

Then it was Isobel and and Aaron Work heading out to Ohio.  What a charming couple…they celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary while here.  Our daily group at happy hour is very tiny now and getting smaller.  We have two more couples leaving tomorrow, one on Tuesday and then Bob and I will be leaving on Wednesday.  We will turn out the lights when we leave.

We had dinner a week or so ago with 2 couples we met while in Cody, Wyoming last summer.  Byron and Glynda live in the area and Dale and Sharon were going from Florida to Texas. 

Good times and good friends will be missed…moving on.

Elberta Sausage Festival March 2011

Saturday morning Bob and I left fairly early and drove to Elberta, AL…a small community about 20 miles from where we are in Fairhope.  It was the day of their semi-annual sausage festival that is put on the the Elberta volunteer fire department…at least I think it is volunteer.  Elberta is very, very small…but it is home to The Road Kill Café and a great cheese farm (can you call a place where they make cheese a farm?).

Okay so back to the festival.  We got there early so there were no lines to get our sausage that was served on a bun with sauerkraut.  It was pretty good but I was raised on some of the best sausage ever that is made about 15 miles from Caldwell in the little town of Snook, Texas.  Okay, okay…anyway we had our sausage.

They had lots and lots of vendors…many of them were selling commercially made items but there were quite a few that had items they had made…lots of jewelry…some of it was lovely.

This man was grinding corn.

Bob ran into a couple of old friends.

Of course they had an oompah band.

Some of the crowd.

There was another band performing called The Stumpfiddle Band.  They are members of the Moose Lodge in Pensacola, FL.  They were outstanding…would love to hear them again.  Their instruments were unusual.

Most people were having a great time…

But not everyone…he was so cute.

It was a fun morning but now we’re…moving on.

It’s Mardi Gras…February 27, 2011

The Mardi Gras season is in full swing with parades and activities happening everywhere.  I know a lot of folks believe that New Orleans is the home of Mardi Gras but it actually began in Mobile, Al which is just a few miles from our park in Fairhope.

We went to our first parade this afternoon in Fairhope…the Mystic Mutts of Revelry.  It is certainly my favorite parade.  Here are a few pictures.

Snooki and The Situation from The Jersey Shore…er, I mean the Eastern Shore.

We then hung around for the night parade put on by the Knights of the Ecor Rouge…this year’s theme was Toyland.  Unfortunately it is very hard to get pictures after dark.  We ran into friends from our park and had a great evening.

Chris, Larry and I are waiting patiently…

I wanted this gentleman’s big beads but he wasn’t giving them up.

Dottie, Barb, me and Chris.

And here came Ron, Vern, Jeannie and Joan.

These find folks are ready to attend one of the balls following the parade.

It’s been a long day…more to come.

Moving on.

Robertsdale Quilt Show February 3, 2011

This morning 13 ladies from our RV park, drove a few miles to Robertsdale, AL to a quilt show at one of the local churches.  This was not a juried show and evidently all quilters were encouraged to submit quilts for viewing.

The folks that were running the show could not tell us exactly how many quilts were on display but they knew they had at least 300 and probably closer to 400.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many quilts in one place before…I should say so many beautiful quilts.

This show is presented every other year.  I asked one of the ladies that was selling the tickets why they don’t do it every year and she say because it would kill them!

Here are a few of the quilts.

There were quilts everywhere…here are the ones displayed in the sanctuary.  Not a great shot…you can’t really tell just how many were in this room.  The quilt just to the left of the yo-yo quilt is circa pre-civil war.  There were several dating back to the 1800s.

They even had quilts in the area where they were serving lunch…along with live music.

I did not get a picture of it but there was a quilt made up of about 1” squares of fabric…it was very large and contained 20,000 squares!  I took their word…wasn’t going to count them.  Jeanie told me she would give me $500.00 to make her one like that so I agreed to do it if she would cut out the squares.

This lady, sorry, did not write her name down, was presented as a master quilter and had a room just for her quilts. And here she is.

 

This was my favorite from her room…a glorious peacock.

These were done by one gentleman including all the embroidery.

And then there were the quilts made from a man’s ties.

We left the quilt show to have lunch and most of the ladies returned to the RV park but Jeanie, me, Eleanor and Lois went back to see more of the quilts.

It was a great day to be inside as it is soooo cold in Fairhope, AL.

Moving on.